Irish cars are running on more biofuel than ever - but is it what we think it is?

THE AMOUNT OF biofuel blended into petrol and diesel sold at Irish garages surged last year by 26% – driven by government policies aimed at cutting Ireland’s intractably high greenhouse gas emissions from transport.

The increased demand was largely fed with fuels made from “palm oil mill effluent” (POME), a waste product of palm oil production in Malaysia and Indonesia that hasn’t previously been used here in large quantitites.

It’s being blended into diesel for sale at the pumps or sold as “renewable diesel”, also known as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) – an increasingly popular product for commercial fleets, as companies attempt to reduce their carbon footprint. 

Risk of fraud

Concerns have been raised by European governments and within the biofuel industry at home and abroad that cheaper and less environmentally friendly virgin oils (such as virgin palm oil) could be passed off as “advanced” biofuels made from waste oils (in particular POME and as used cooking oil) and sold into the European market as biodiesel.

(The biofuel blended into petrol – ethanol – is mostly made from crops such as wheat, corn, sugar and some waste products; it makes up a much smaller proportion of biofuel used in Ireland than biodiesel).

Earlier this year, France, Germany and the Netherlands intervened at a meeting of European energy ministers to call on the European Commission to strengthen inspection of biofuel production in Asia for the European market due to fraud concerns, and to refuse access to the European market to companies that refuse inspectors access.

At the same time that palm oil mill effluent (POME) imports to Ireland were surging last year – from just 2 million litres in 2022 to over 50 million litres in 2023 – one biofuel certification scheme was forced to expand its auditing in Asia and investigate firms suspected of fraud, including in the POME market.

International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISSC) said in April 2023 that a recent “surge” in waste-based biodiesel sales from China, claiming to be produced from POME and used cooking oil originating in Indonesia and Malaysia, had “indications pointing to a potentially dubious or fraudulent origin”.

Argus Media, a specialised energy news outlet, reported at the time that the amount of POME being exported in early 2023 by Indonesia and Malaysia seemed “more than what can reasonably be available”.

Similar concerns have dogged the used cooking oil (UCO) sector for several years. Almost half of biofuels sold in Ireland last year were made from UCO, most of it imported, particularly from China – 67 million litres in total, similar year on year.

In 2022, data was published suggesting the amount of UCO exported to the UK and Ireland from Malaysia in 2020 exceeded the maximum the country could have collected. Over 10 million litres of UCO from Malaysia were imported to Ireland last year.

There are other concerns about the sustainability of POME. Transport & Environment, an environmental NGO, told The Journal that POME supports the environmentally destructive palm industry.

It added that POME can be used to produce biogas and fertiliser in the countries where it is produced, and as such should not be used in European biofuels.

Irish industry

Tony Hennebry, chief operations officer at Green Biofuels Ireland, which produces biodiesel from used cooking oil and tallow (animal fat) collected here, said POME does not provide the same greenhouse gas savings as the biodiesel manufactured in Ireland.

Ireland has a small indigenous biofuel industry producing fuel from tallow from meat processing plants and from used cooking oil collected here. 

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The amount of Irish biofuels sold here increased last year to 59 million litres, 15% of the total used.

Sean Finan of the Irish Bioenergy Association said more policy support to incentivise use of Irish biofuels is needed.

“Our members would advocate that there should be a mechanism to ensure minimum blending of Irish biofuels to protect the sector from being displaced by imported biofuels – that’s an important measure to protect the Irish production system and encourage further indigenous production,” Finan said.

Government defends biofuels

The Department of Transport said POME meets European sustainability criteria and can be considered a “sustainable feedstock” for biofuels. It added that all biofuel used in Ireland must be certified by an approved sustainability verification scheme (such as ISSC).

It said that the risk of fraud is “being addressed at a European level through the introduction of more rigorous verification requirements”.

It said it has received assurances from the National Oil Reserves Agency regarding the sustainability of the current supply of biofuel to Ireland.

A Department working group is “considering at a high level the potential vulnerability to fraud risk” in the context of a planned increase in biofuel in Ireleand over the rest of the decade, as the country attempts to meet its climate goals.

However, it added that this group was “not an investigative body” and would not be able to investigate any allegations of fraud.

‘Cleaning up’ the industry

Kevin McPartlan of Fuels for Ireland, which represents fuel importers and retailers, said his members “comply and go beyond” and are “pushing government for more enforcement” against potential fraud in the sector.

“It’s imposible to imagine a situation where there has been no fraud on a global basis where there have been such incentives to do it – but that’s a long way from saying there is widespread fraud and fuel is prone to it in Ireland,” McPartlan said.

He said the implementation of a new EU biofuel database later this year should help to “clean up” the global industry.

He said that POME should not be “lumped together” with virgin palm oil (which has been used to make biofuels for the Irish market in the poast) as the two were completely different. He said it wasn’t only the fuel industry claiming POME was an “advanced” – i.e. more sustainable – biofuel but in fact that was the European Commission’s view.

McPartlan added that he himself drives an electric vehicle, but he believes biofuels have to be part of Ireland’s transport decarbonsiation.

“We are absolutely failing to hit emission targets. We can’t just keep saying we’re going to do more of the same,” he said.

There is frustration in the Irish fuel and biofuel industry at a perceived emphasis up until now on electric vehicles and home heat pumps to cut emissions, rather than biofuels for both transport and home heating (HVO can be used in place of heating oil).

However, government backing for biofuels is clear, with mandatory targets for the amount of biofuel that has to be used here becoming more ambitious every year – hence the expansion in their use in 2023.

Some companies are switching their entire fleets to HVO to cut their reported emissions and burnish their green credentials.

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