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Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study concerns the environmental effect of rising imports of utilized cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

Chip fat and other oils are considered waste, so when they are utilized to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand throughout Europe that imports now represent over half 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 coming in, professionals think it is also ripe for fraud.

Used cooking oil imports may improve logging

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Reducing emissions from transportation is proving to be among the hardest obstacles for federal governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated making use of biofuels as a crucial ways of curbing carbon from automobiles and .

Biofuels are usually a mix of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or veggies.

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as extensively used as elements of biodiesel however this practice has actually been extensively discredited since it motivates logging.

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being an essential part of biodiesel with a reliable 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 because 2014, there merely isn't enough chip fat to walk around.

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

Their study recommends this is extremely troublesome when it pertains to effect 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 question of what individuals 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 nations aren't available but 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 used oil that's collected and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, managed to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're just buying more virgin oil which virgin oil is mainly palm oil, since that's the most affordable oil available.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the cost of UCO is frequently greater than palm oil. The worry is that some unscrupulous traders are simply watering down shipments of UCO with palm.

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

The idea of fraud 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 location.

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

He states a brand-new database being established by the EU will make sure that trading, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will need to be registered.

"The mix of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability issues emerge in the whole biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database concept, which was very first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming presumed fraud.

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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