While ocean carriers view biofuel as a temporary solution rather than a means to meet short-term emissions reduction targets, a new study has highlighted the unsustainability of biofuel production for the thirsty multimodal transport industry.
China, the world’s primary producer of biofuel from used cooking oil, exports more than half of its stocks, mainly to power trucks in the US and Europe. However, as airlines increase their use of “sustainable aviation fuel (SAF),” demand is exceeding what can be sustainably collected, according to European climate activist group Transport & Environment (T&E).
“Europe simply cannot collect enough used cooking oil to fly its planes,” stated Cian Delaney, biofuels campaigner at T&E, on Tuesday. “Ryanair’s 2030 targets alone would require all of Europe’s used cooking oil, and even all the used cooking oil in China won’t be enough to decarbonize the continent’s airlines, cars, and trucks.”
“Used cooking oil is not a silver bullet and can only play a limited role in decarbonizing the transport sector,” Delaney added.
The T&E study found that Europe burns through 130,000 barrels of used cooking oil daily—eight times more than it collects—while the US consumes 40,000 barrels daily. Global airlines are set to triple their demand for used cooking oil by 2030, but T&E warned that meeting aviation’s emissions reduction targets would require at least twice the used cooking oil that can be collected in the US, Europe, and China combined.
The scale of aviation’s demand was underscored at the annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Dubai earlier this month. While IATA announced that its projections for tripling SAF production in 2024 to 1.5 million metric tons were on track, this would only account for 0.53% of aviation’s fuel needs this year.
“SAF will provide about 65% of the mitigation needed for airlines to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, so the expected tripling of SAF production in 2024 from 2023 is encouraging,” said IATA Director-General Willie Walsh at the AGM. “We still have a long way to go, but the direction of exponential increases is starting to come into focus.”
Despite Walsh’s optimistic outlook on biofuel production, airlines are encountering the same issue as ocean carriers—the need for regulation and investment across the green fuel value chain to ensure alternative fuels are available at an affordable price and sufficient scale.
“Governments have set clear expectations for aviation to achieve a 5% CO2 emissions reduction through SAF by 2030 and to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. They now need to implement policies to ensure airlines can actually purchase SAF in the required quantities,” Walsh noted.
For container shipping executives, biofuel is considered a temporary measure rather than a means to achieve the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) 2030 targets of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% to 30%.
Emma Mazhari, CEO of Maersk Oil Trading and vice president of energy markets at Maersk, described biofuel at a recent event as “a gap closer,” but not a long-term solution. “There’s limited global availability for biomass and bio feedstock, and there’s also very high competition from other sectors,” she said. “For the moment, there is biofuel available, but when shipping scales up, it is going to be very difficult.”
Nevertheless, several carriers are rolling out green services and signing up global shippers, led by IKEA, which has deals with Hapag-Lloyd and HMM to ship its products via their biofuel-blended services.
A significant challenge for transport providers in procuring biofuel is validating its sustainable production. The study by T&E, based on research by Stratas Advisors, found evidence of widespread fraud in this area, particularly from China and Malaysia.
Stratas cited a combination of self-declarations and a lack of effective testing of raw materials arriving at biofuel production sites as reasons why adulterated used cooking oil and the biodiesel it produces could be entering Europe.
China has a vast illegal gutter oil market, and virgin vegetable oil is likely being mislabeled as used cooking oil, as is palm oil from leading producer Malaysia, according to the study.
“The fact Malaysia exports three times more used cooking oil than it collects shows that fraud is almost certainly happening at a mass scale,” Delaney said. “With Malaysia being one of the world’s largest palm oil producers, it would heavily indicate that used cooking oil is simply a backdoor for palm.”
Palm oil is a major driver of deforestation in some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, with large areas of Malaysia cleared to produce palm oil.
