Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel

Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study concerns the ecological effect of increasing 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 demand across Europe that imports now represent more than half of the UCO that’s made into fuel.

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

With no testing of what’s coming in, specialists believe it is also ripe for fraud.

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

They have actually encouraged the use of biofuels as a crucial ways of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks.

Biofuels are typically a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or vegetables.

The reality that these crops can be re-grown and absorb more CO2 implies they cancel out the carbon emitted when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were when commonly utilized as components of biodiesel however this practice has been widely discredited due to the fact that it motivates logging.

So for the last decade or so, the use of utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively 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 across Europe to gather and process the item.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there just isn’t sufficient 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 suggests this is highly troublesome when it concerns impacts on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the question 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 countries aren’t available however the circulation of UCO is likely to be comparable.

With a population of around 33 million, that’s close to three 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 individuals, handled to collect around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

“Because we are buying it, they have less utilized cooking oil to utilize on the things that they were previously 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, since that’s the least expensive oil offered.

“So indirectly, we’re simply encouraging more deforestation in Southeast Asia.”

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is typically greater than palm oil. The concern is that some unethical traders are just diluting shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no screening of the products is brought out, some experts believe scams is rife.

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

“It is commonly understood that the European Commission has actually taken pertinent steps to completely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets,” stated Angel Alberdi, EWABA’s secretary general.

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

“The mix of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems arise 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 work in stemming suspected scams.

The report from Transport & Environment points out that with shipping and air travel wanting to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO might double over the next years.

“Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of utilizing ‘phony’ UCO, potentially leading to indirect impacts such as deforestation.”

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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