Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel
21 April 2021
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New research questions the ecological effect of rising 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 conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.
But such is the demand across Europe that imports now account for more than 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 can be found in, experts think it is likewise ripe for scams.
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Reducing emissions from transportation is showing to be one of the most difficult difficulties for governments all over the world.
They have actually encouraged making use of biofuels as an essential means of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks.
Biofuels are generally a mix of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or vegetables.
The reality that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 indicates they counteract the carbon emitted when utilized in engines.
Soy and palm oil were once widely used as components of biodiesel but this practice has actually been widely discredited due to the fact that it motivates logging.
So for the last years approximately, making use of used cooking oil has expanded enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.
Chip fat and other waste oils have actually become a key component of biodiesel with a reliable industry emerging throughout 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 just isn't adequate chip fat to go around.
According to a report from the campaign group Transport & Environment, external, over half of the UCO used in Europe is imported.
Their study recommends this is highly problematic 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 used to feed animals. The report raises the concern 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 countries but the flow of UCO is likely to be comparable.
With a population of around 33 million, that's close to 3 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 individuals, handled to collect around five million litres of UCO in 2019.
"Because we are buying it, they have actually less used cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were formerly utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.
"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is mainly palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil readily available.
"So indirectly, we're just motivating more deforestation in Southeast Asia."
Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.
Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is typically greater than palm oil. The worry is that some unethical traders are just diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.
As oils of various types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is brought out, some experts believe fraud is swarming.
The tip of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust accreditation plans in location.
"It is commonly understood that the European Commission has taken relevant actions to entirely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.
He says a 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 combination of revised accreditation schemes 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, may not be reliable in stemming thought scams.
The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and air travel aiming to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO could double over the next decade.
"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and threats of using 'fake' UCO, possibly leading to indirect impacts such as deforestation."
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.
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Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel
Tonya Louden edited this page 2025-01-12 09:16:54 +08:00