Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel
21 April 2021
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New research study concerns the environmental effect 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 utilized to make biodiesel it saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.
But such is the demand across Europe that imports now account for over half of the UCO that's made into fuel.
According to the research 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.
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Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be one of the most difficult challenges for federal governments all over the world.
They've motivated making use of biofuels as an important methods of curbing carbon from cars and trucks and lorries.
Biofuels are typically a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or vegetables.
The fact that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 indicates they counteract the carbon given off when utilized in engines.
Soy and palm oil were when widely used as elements of biodiesel however this practice has actually been commonly challenged because it encourages logging.
So for the last decade or two, making use of used cooking oil has broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.
Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being a crucial part of biodiesel with a reliable 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 considering that 2014, there merely isn't adequate chip fat to walk around.
According to a report from the project group Transport & Environment, external, majority of the UCO used in Europe is imported.
Their study suggests this is highly troublesome when it pertains to effect 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 concern 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 offered however the flow of UCO is most likely to be comparable.
With a population 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 comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, managed to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.
"Because we are purchasing it, they have less utilized cooking oil to utilize on the things that they were formerly using it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.
"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mostly palm oil, since 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 demand from Europe, the price of UCO is frequently greater than palm oil. The concern is that some unscrupulous traders are just watering down shipments of UCO with palm.
As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no screening of the materials is brought out, some experts think fraud is swarming.
The tip of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is turned down by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who state there are robust accreditation plans in place.
"It is extensively known that the European Commission has actually taken relevant actions to totally curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.
He states a brand-new database being developed by the EU will ensure that trading, certification and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.
"The mix of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability problems emerge in the whole biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.
Others in the field are worried that the database idea, which was first mooted in 2018, might not work in stemming suspected scams.
The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and air travel seeking to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO could double over the next decade.
"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of utilizing 'phony' UCO, possibly leading to indirect impacts such as logging."
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.
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Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel
Woodrow Welsby edited this page 2025-01-11 10:02:41 +00:00