Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study questions the environmental effect of rising imports of used cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

Chip fat and other oils are thought about waste, so when they are utilized to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the need throughout Europe that imports now account for majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

According to the research study, external, there's no other way to prove these imports are sustainable.

With no screening of what's being available in, specialists think it is also ripe for scams.

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Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be among the hardest difficulties for governments all over the world.

They have actually encouraged using biofuels as an important means of suppressing carbon from vehicles and trucks.

Biofuels are usually a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or veggies.

The truth that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 indicates they cancel out the carbon emitted when used in engines.

Soy and palm oil were when widely used as parts of biodiesel but this practice has actually been extensively rejected since it encourages logging.

So for the last years or so, the use of utilized cooking oil has expanded enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become a crucial element of biodiesel with an effective market springing up throughout Europe to collect and process the product.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year given that 2014, there simply isn't adequate chip fat to walk around.

According to a report from the project group Transport & Environment, external, majority of the UCO used in Europe is imported.

Their research study recommends this is extremely problematic when it concerns effect on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been utilized to feed animals. The report raises the question of what people in these countries are the UCO with, when it is exported.

In 2019, Malaysia exported 90 million litres of UCO to the UK and Ireland. Figures for their exports to other European nations aren't readily available however the flow of UCO is likely to be comparable.

With a population of around 33 million, that's close to three litres per head of utilized oil that's gathered and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, handled to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are purchasing it, they have actually less used cooking oil to use on the important things that they were previously utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mainly palm oil, because that's the most affordable oil available.

"So indirectly, we're simply encouraging more logging in Southeast Asia."

Another significant issue with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of need from Europe, the cost of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The concern is that some unscrupulous traders are merely diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the materials is performed, some specialists think fraud is rife.

The tip of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is turned down by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who state there are robust certification schemes in location.

"It is commonly known that the European Commission has actually taken relevant actions to entirely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He says a brand-new database being established by the EU will make sure that trading, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will have to be registered.

"The mix of revised certification schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability issues emerge in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database idea, which was very first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming suspected fraud.

The report from Transport & Environment explains that with shipping and air travel wanting to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO might double over the next years.

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of using 'phony' UCO, potentially causing indirect impacts such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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