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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study questions the ecological 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 used to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand 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.

Without any testing of what's being available in, professionals think it is also ripe for fraud.

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

They have actually encouraged using biofuels as an essential methods of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and trucks.

Biofuels are typically a blend of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or veggies.

The fact that these crops can be re-grown and take in more CO2 means they counteract the carbon released when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely used as parts of biodiesel but this practice has been commonly challenged due to the fact that it encourages deforestation.

So for the last years or two, using used cooking oil has broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being a crucial component of biodiesel with an efficient industry emerging 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 enough chip fat to walk around.

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

Their study suggests this is extremely troublesome when it comes to 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 question of what people 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 countries aren't readily available however the flow of UCO is most likely to be similar.

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 collect around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

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

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

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

As oils of various types are mixed in bulk for transportation, and no screening of the materials is carried out, some professionals think fraud is swarming.

The idea 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 schemes in place.

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

He says a new database being established 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 guarantee that no sustainability problems occur in the whole biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database idea, which was first mooted in 2018, might not be efficient in stemming suspected fraud.

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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