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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the ecological impact of increasing imports of used 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 majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

Without any testing of what's coming in, professionals believe it is likewise ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports may improve logging

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

They've encouraged using biofuels as a crucial ways of suppressing carbon from automobiles and lorries.

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

The truth that these crops can be re-grown and take in more CO2 indicates they counteract the carbon produced when used in engines.

Soy and palm oil were as soon as commonly utilized as parts of biodiesel but this practice has actually been extensively rejected since it encourages logging.

So for the last years approximately, using utilized cooking oil has actually expanded massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually become a crucial component of biodiesel with an effective market emerging throughout Europe to gather and process the item.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there just isn't enough chip fat to go around.

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

Their research study recommends this is extremely troublesome when it pertains to influence on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has actually 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 nations aren't offered however the circulation 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 collected and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By comparison, 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 used cooking oil to use on the important things that they were formerly using it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're simply purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mostly palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil available.

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

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is typically greater than palm oil. The concern is that some unscrupulous traders are merely watering down shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is performed, some professionals think scams is rife.

The tip of fraud 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 location.

"It is extensively known that the European Commission has actually taken pertinent steps to entirely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said 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 have to be signed up.

"The mix of revised accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems develop 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 very first mooted in 2018, might not work in stemming suspected fraud.

The report from Transport & Environment points out that with shipping and aviation aiming to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, demand for UCO might double over the next decade.

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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