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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns 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 utilized to make biodiesel it saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the need across Europe that imports now account for over 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.

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

Used cooking oil imports might boost logging

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

They've motivated the usage of biofuels as an essential methods of suppressing carbon from vehicles and lorries.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as extensively utilized as components of biodiesel however this practice has actually been commonly rejected due to the fact that it motivates logging.

So for the last years or two, making use of utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being a crucial component of biodiesel with an effective market springing up across Europe to gather and process the product.

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

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

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

While UCO is considered a waste product 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 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 readily available but the flow of UCO is likely to be comparable.

With a of around 33 million, that's close to 3 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, handled to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are buying it, they have actually less utilized cooking oil to use on the important things that they were formerly utilizing it for," stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

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

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

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is often greater than palm oil. The concern is that some unscrupulous traders are just watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transport, and no screening of the materials is brought out, some experts believe scams is swarming.

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

"It is commonly understood that the European Commission has taken appropriate actions to entirely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He states a new database being developed by the EU will make sure that trading, certification and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.

"The mix of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability issues develop 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 very first mooted in 2018, might not work in stemming thought scams.

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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