The European Commission recently published data from International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) on the origins of used cooking oil (UCO) feedstocks being used to produce Europe’s biodiesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuels in 2022.
ISCC is a global certification system that sets standards for sustainable production, sourcing and trade of all kinds of bio-based feedstocks and biofuels.
A study conducted by T&E, Europe’s umbrella organisation for sustainable transport non-governmental organisations, found that around 80% of UCO feedstock that EU imported in 2022 is suspected to be “mislabelled” virgin palm oil.
“High demand for UCO has raised the risk of fraud, where virgin oils like palm are suspected of being mislabelled as ‘used’ to take advantage of the inflated value of supposedly green fuels,” T&E writes.
China is the EU’s largest UCO supplier, the T&E report states. Approximately 40% of Europe’s total UCO supply is sourced from China. “Spain and Italy are particularly reliant on Chinese UCO, while 96% of Bulgaria’s UCO imports come from China.”
In addition, the ISCC data also shows that EU countries imported large quantities of UCO originating from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries.
The European Commission is already investigating alleged fraud related to UCO-based biofuel imports. T&E adds that the Commission intends to investigate whether “fraudulent” Indonesian biodiesel is being channeled through China and the UK to avoid taxes.
Several other countries, including Germany and Ireland, are also officially probing biofuel fraud risks.
According to the T&E report, the EU’s palm oil consumption decreased by 30% in 2022. During this period, palm oil derivatives such as palm oil mill effluents (POME) and palm fatty acid distillates (PFAD) respectively made up 13% and 29% of total palm oil-based biofuel consumption.
PFADs are low-quality palm oil by-products that can be processed to produce biofuels, T&E explains. POME is wastewater obtained from palm oil milling that can be used to produce biodiesel.
PFAD-based biofuel can emit up to 221 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ), according to a Cerulogy estimate cited by T&E. It is only marginally lower than the carbon intensity of palm oil-based biofuel at 285 gCO2e/MJ.
gCO2e/MJ is a measure of CO2 intensity, which is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere per megajoule of energy generated from burning it.
“Incorrectly labelled as ‘waste’ or ‘residues’ in some countries, PFADs are by-products of the palm oil refining process. They are linked to significant environmental impacts and indirect land use change as is the case for conventional palm oil,” T&E says.
An upsurge in POME and PFAD consumption has offset nearly half of the decline in palm oil between 2020 and 2022, according to T&E.
“Europe is being flooded with dodgy used cooking oil. European governments say it’s almost impossible to stop virgin oils like palm being labelled as waste,” Barbara Smailagic, biofuels expert at T&E points out. “We need greater transparency and a limit on imports to avoid UCO simply becoming a backdoor for deforestation-driving palm oil.”
Interestingly, POME and PFAD are both eligible raw materials for ISCC EU, a certification that can enable certified biofuel producers, traders and suppliers to issue a Proof of Sustainability. The ISCC EU certification guarantees that the certified biofuel blends are sustainably produced from biomass and meet the legal requirements of the EU’s second Renewable Energy Directive (RED II).
In addition to palm oil derivatives, the EU is importing increasing amounts of soy-based biofuel from Argentina, Brazil and the US. T&E argues that this growing demand for soy is contributing to large-scale deforestation, especially in South America.
Europe never tires of finding new things to burn. Before it was palm oil, now it’s so-called palm residues. Sustainable biofuel feedstocks are extremely limited. We need to stop seeing biofuels as a panacea for our climate problem. We need to move beyond burning,” Smailagic concludes.
Source: ENGINE