Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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

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

But such is the need throughout Europe that imports now more than half 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.

Without any screening of what's can be found in, professionals think it is also ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports may increase logging

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Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be one of the toughest challenges for governments all over the world.

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

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 means they cancel out the carbon produced when used in engines.

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

So for the last years approximately, the use of used cooking oil has actually broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become a key part of biodiesel with an effective industry emerging across Europe to collect and process the product.

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

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

Their research study recommends this is highly bothersome when it comes to effect 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 question of what individuals in these countries 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 countries aren't available but the circulation of UCO is most likely to be comparable.

With a population of around 33 million, that's close to 3 litres per head of used 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 collect around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are purchasing it, they have less utilized cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were formerly 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 motivating more logging in Southeast Asia."

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is frequently higher than palm oil. The concern is that some dishonest traders are simply diluting shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the materials is performed, some professionals think scams is swarming.

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

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

He states a new database being developed by the EU will ensure that trading, accreditation and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will have to be registered.

"The mix of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability concerns occur 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 first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming thought fraud.

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

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of using 'phony' UCO, possibly resulting in indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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