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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the environmental impact of increasing imports of utilized cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

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

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

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

With no screening of what's coming in, professionals think it is also ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports might improve deforestation

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Reducing emissions from transport is showing to be one of the most difficult obstacles for federal governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated using biofuels as a crucial means of curbing carbon from cars and lorries.

Biofuels are usually a mix of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or vegetables.

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely utilized as parts of biodiesel but this practice has been widely discredited since it encourages logging.

So for the last decade or two, using utilized cooking oil has actually broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

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

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year because 2014, there merely isn't adequate chip fat to go around.

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

Their study recommends this is extremely troublesome when it pertains to effect on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what individuals in these nations are changing 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 available however the flow of UCO is likely to be similar.

With a population of around 33 million, that's close to 3 litres per head of used oil that's collected and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

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

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

"And they're simply buying more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mostly palm oil, since that's the most inexpensive oil offered.

"So indirectly, we're just motivating more deforestation in Southeast Asia."

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the rate of UCO is often greater than palm oil. The worry is that some unethical traders are merely watering down shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is carried out, some specialists think scams is swarming.

The suggestion of scams anywhere along the chain of supply is turned down by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust certification plans in place.

"It is widely understood that the European Commission has taken appropriate steps to totally suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," stated Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

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

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

Others in the field are concerned that the database idea, which was first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming presumed scams.

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

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and risks of using 'fake' UCO, potentially resulting in indirect impacts such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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