Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel
21 April 2021
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New research study concerns the ecological impact of increasing imports of used 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 saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.
But such is the need across Europe that imports now represent over half of the UCO that's made into fuel.
According to the study, external, there's no chance to show these imports are sustainable.
Without any screening of what's can be found in, experts think it is also ripe for scams.
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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 have actually encouraged making use of biofuels as an important methods of curbing carbon from automobiles and trucks.
Biofuels are generally a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or vegetables.
The reality that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 suggests they cancel out the carbon given off when used in engines.
Soy and palm oil were once widely utilized as elements of biodiesel however this practice has actually been extensively challenged due to the fact that it motivates deforestation.
So for the last years approximately, making use of utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.
Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being a crucial element of biodiesel with a reliable market emerging across Europe to collect and process the item.
But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there simply isn't enough chip fat to go around.
According to a report from the project group Transport & Environment, external, more than half of the UCO used in Europe is imported.
Their research study suggests this is highly troublesome when it pertains to effect on the environment.
While UCO is thought about a waste material 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 nations aren't available however 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 contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, managed to collect around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.
"Because we are buying it, they have less utilized cooking oil to utilize 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 mainly palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil available.
"So indirectly, we're simply encouraging more logging in Southeast Asia."
Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of scams.
Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is typically higher than palm oil. The worry is that some deceitful traders are merely diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.
As oils of various types are mixed in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the materials is carried out, some specialists think fraud 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 accreditation schemes in place.
"It is widely understood that the European Commission has actually taken appropriate actions to entirely market practices in biofuel markets," stated Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.
He says a new database being established by the EU will ensure that trading, accreditation and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.
"The combination of revised accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will make sure that no sustainability problems emerge in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.
Others in the field are concerned that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, may not be reliable in stemming presumed fraud.
The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and air travel wanting to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, demand for UCO could double over the next decade.
"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and threats of utilizing 'phony' UCO, possibly resulting in indirect impacts such as logging."
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.
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Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel
Windy Lafountain edited this page 2025-01-11 12:42:35 -05:00