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Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the ecological 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 saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand throughout Europe that imports now account for more than half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

Without any testing of what's coming in, professionals believe it is also ripe for fraud.

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Reducing emissions from transportation is proving to be one of the hardest difficulties for federal governments all over the world.

They've motivated using biofuels as an important means of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as extensively used as elements of biodiesel but this practice has actually been commonly rejected due to the fact that it encourages logging.

So for the last years approximately, using utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being a crucial component of biodiesel with a reliable industry emerging throughout Europe to collect and process the item.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there just isn't adequate chip fat to go around.

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

Their study recommends this is highly troublesome when it concerns effects on the environment.

While UCO is considered a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been utilized to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what individuals in these countries are replacing 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 countries aren't offered however the flow of UCO is most likely to be comparable.

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

By comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are buying it, they have less used cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were formerly using it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

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

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

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The worry is that some unethical traders are just watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is performed, some specialists believe scams is rife.

The idea of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust certification schemes in place.

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

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

"The combination of revised accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems develop in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, may not be effective in stemming believed fraud.

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

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and dangers of utilizing 'fake' UCO, potentially leading to indirect impacts such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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