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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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

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

But such is the demand across Europe that imports now represent over 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.

With no testing of what's being available in, professionals think it is also ripe for fraud.

Used cooking oil imports may increase deforestation

Consumers position 'growing threat' to tropical forests

Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be among the most difficult obstacles for governments all over the world.

They've encouraged making use of biofuels as a crucial means of suppressing carbon from and lorries.

Biofuels are normally a blend of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or vegetables.

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 components of biodiesel but this practice has actually been extensively rejected because it motivates deforestation.

So for the last decade approximately, the usage of utilized cooking oil has broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being an essential component of biodiesel with a reliable industry emerging across 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 just isn't enough chip fat to go around.

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

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

While UCO is considered a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has actually long been used to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what people in these nations 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 nations aren't available however the circulation 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, managed to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're just buying more virgin oil which virgin oil is mostly palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil available.

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

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is typically higher than palm oil. The worry is that some deceitful traders are merely watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transportation, and no screening of the products is performed, some specialists think scams is swarming.

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 plans in place.

"It is widely known that the European Commission has taken pertinent steps to completely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

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

"The combination of revised accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability issues emerge in the whole biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

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

The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and aviation aiming to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO might double over the next decade.

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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