Planes could soon run on pig fat – but it won’t reduce emissions

Airlines may soon start using fuel made from animal fats to help meet climate change goals. But this could increase carbon emissions instead of reducing them, warns a report by the campaign group Transport and the Environment.

European Union regulations encourage the use of animal fats as fuel and require airlines to increase the proportion of “sustainable aviation fuel” they use by 2030. Several oil companies have announced plans to start producing aviation fuel from animal fats. It will become the second major source of so-called sustainable fuel after used cooking oil.

There are two big problems with turning animal fats into jet fuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first is that animal fat is a waste product of the meat industry, yet it is already used. “In the case of used cooking oil, the biodiesel industry has taken significant advantage of what was underutilized, but not with animal fats,” said analysts and authors of the report. says Chris Mullins of

In 2006, the UK and European Union meat industries produced approximately 2.4 million tonnes of rendered or refined fats. This fat was used in roughly equal proportions to make pet food, soap and other products, generate heat and electricity, and was often used by the rendering factories themselves. Only a small portion was converted to biodiesel.

of In 2021, the UK and EU will produce around 2.8 million tonnes of rendered fat, of which nearly half will be converted to biodiesel, primarily for use in cars and trucks, with the rest used in pet food and cosmetics. . Very little is used directly for heat or power anymore.

This means that if the aviation industry starts using large amounts of animal fat to make so-called sustainable aviation fuel, there will be less animal fat available for these existing purposes. The cosmetics and pet food industries are likely to replace it with palm oil, the cheapest product with similar properties, Mullins said.

This means more forests are cleared to produce more palm oil, potentially increasing emissions by up to 70 percent compared to continuing to use fossil fuels to power aircraft. The report says there is.

The second big issue is that using animal fat-based fuels is relatively cheap and easy to help the aviation industry achieve its very modest goal of increasing the use of ‘sustainable aviation fuel’. Mullins says it’s about being able to provide a better way. This is an alternative to investing in more expensive but better approaches like cellulosic biofuels made from the fiber parts of plants, he said.

This is not a long term solution as it contains very little animal fat. Demand for jet fuel in the EU is projected to reach approximately 46 million tonnes of crude oil equivalent per year by 2030. Even if all animal fat produced in the EU were turned into jet fuel, we would still be able to supply at most 3% of that. Mullins does the math. This is not surprising considering that 8,800 pig fats are needed to fuel a flight from Paris to New York.

There is a broader issue here. Unlike growing biomass for energy, utilizing waste biomass is truly environmentally friendly. However, most of the available waste biomass is utilized, so regulatory incentives aimed at promoting waste utilization can have unintended and undesirable consequences.

For example, EU incentives to turn used cooking oil into biofuels have led Asian countries, in particular, to export used cooking oil, which was previously used as animal feed, to the EU. These countries will have to replace their petroleum with other products, increasing their emissions. In some cases, unused oil is sold as used, environmentalists say. Similarly, much of the “waste wood” burned in power plants may not be waste at all.

As for aviation, the fact is that there are currently no truly sustainable zero-emission fuels available in the required quantities. The only way to reduce aviation emissions in the short term, other than improving energy efficiency, is for people to fly less.