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 considered waste, so when they are used to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

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

According to the study, external, there's no method to prove these imports are sustainable.

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

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

They've motivated the use of biofuels as a crucial means of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and lorries.

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

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

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

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have become a crucial component of biodiesel with an efficient industry springing up across Europe to collect and process the item.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there merely isn't sufficient chip fat to go around.

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

Their research study suggests this is extremely troublesome when it comes to impacts on the environment.

While UCO is considered a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what individuals in these countries are changing the UCO with, when it is exported.

In 2019, 90 million litres of UCO to the UK and Ireland. Figures for their exports to other European nations aren't readily available however the circulation of UCO is most likely to be comparable.

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 individuals, managed to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're simply buying more virgin oil and that virgin oil is largely palm oil, since that's the most affordable oil offered.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

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

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no screening of the products is performed, some experts believe fraud is rife.

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 plans in place.

"It is commonly understood that the European Commission has taken relevant steps to totally 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 make sure that trading, accreditation and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.

"The combination of revised certification schemes 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 informed BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, might not be effective in stemming believed 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 years.

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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