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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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It’s like the EV scam. If all cars ran on bio-fuels, there wouldn’t be enough land left to grow food.
@offside again: Please explain what scam is involved in EVs?
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: same as vapes.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: He can’t he is just going to tell you a story he read online or the lads in the pub told him.
@offside again: what’s your reason for saying ev’s are a scam.
@Trump23: I heard about children mining for lithium in atrocious conditions. My phone and my power tools have lithium batteries. What is a man supposed to do ?
@jaune hendy: where will all the electricity come from ? I believe uranium is a fossil fuel. Correct me if I’m wrong.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: The word scam is probably not as accurate as mis-sold. They are marketed at people who believe they are the green alternative to ICE. They are not. All the different metals used in making EVs render them as bad if not worst than ICE vehicles. I can’t post links here but Google is your friend. Also they are being mis-sold by dealerships. If people knew the level of depreciation that EVs attract in the first 3-4 years I doubt they would be parting with there cash so readily. Again a quick search of the used car adds will show this aswell although add prices and sale prices are seldom the same.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill:
EV It’s big Scam
generate electricity from burning coal, oil and gas ,14% from coal, what % of EV ? Vs fuel vehicles?
@offside again: That’s an exaggeration, either by design or by lack of information or misinformation.
First-generation biofuels (like ethanol from corn) do use food crops and could compete for land, therare are more sustainable alternatives.
Second-generation biofuels (made from non-food sources) and third-generation biofuels (such as algae) have far less impact on arable land. Algae, in particular, can be grown in non-arable areas and offers much higher yields per acre.
Also, energy solutions in the future are likely to be a mix of electric vehicles, biofuels, and other technologies, reducing pressure on land use. When tech advances and diverse energy strategies emerge, the land-use problem is not severe.
@offside again: You’re wrong. Uranium isn’t a fossil fuel. You have been corrected!
@offside again: Uranium is an element not a fossil fuel and when used to generate electricity is 100% carbon free.
@Roddy Groomer: Child labour has been debunked long ago since the material provided for the EV come from Australia for most of it, South America as well, not Africa.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: try trading one in after a few years and check the price of a new battery
We really win very little with EVs (in Ireland), just a new-ish set of ingredients that we can’t dispose of, same tires (more even), shorter end of life for batteries that are highly toxic, its fine for now but what’s the next problem when we have half a planet stuffed full of processed lithium ‘juice’ its such a short term grasp at provision for a sustainable future that completely depends on capitalism to support it, which is sort of bonkers. We haven’t even started to consider the solutions we need, we’ve simple turned around into another industry waiting to reep billions.
@Trump23: He *is* right on Vapes though.
They *are* an absolute scam.
They *are* a Chinese-origin cultural appropriation of Arab Sheesha Pipes.
And are, without any shadow of a doubt, far more lethal than Tobacco ever was.
There only useful purpose would have been as part of a *Medically Controlled* Research Experiment for the most cripplingly chronic smokers who really can’t quit ciggs despite being on deaths door and literally suffocating and gasping for air on a daily basis.
That is the only point at which it would be barely ethical to allow anyone to inhale that fatally toxic shite – when they are destined to die by their own hand anyway, puffin’ a ciggy.
Vapes presented an opportunity of inserting a *behavioural* interruption in the biomechanics of holding the ciggy (or old man pipe!), while providing same level of nicotine.
…and an opportunity to wean ppl down to lower levels of nicotine, while simultaneously breaking the behavioural and biomechanical habit of holding cigarette between index&middle finger and bringing turned palm towards face etc.
@offside again:
God damn lads!
I’m sorry, but Offside is on a *factual* roll here!!
You are correct about unethical mining.
Also conflict mining.
America *and* Russia are as bad as each other. Stripping other Nation’s of their Resources, and inciting anti-UN rhetoric in order to insert their Wagners & Blackwaters & BlackCube Private Security/Military (i.e. Terrorist Paramilitaries) to threaten and to kill any locals that might rise up against them, or any Journalists (not Journo’ or RTE – no fear of that!) that might be inclined to report on their extensive misdeeds.
@jaune hendy: evs are charged using diesel generators
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Perhaps you might elaborate: biological vs metals Vs chemical etcetera.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Alex: **COBALT**
@jak: I still have no explanation from anyone, much less Car Manufacturers, Governments, or University Engineering/Mechanical/Electrics Programs, Lecturers, Undergraduates, or Graduates, or Leaving Cert Physics Nerdasses doing “Young Scientist” – no explanation as to WHY WHY WHY 99% Recycleable Lead Batteries cannot be used in Electric Vehicles!?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@William Slevin: Colonialism works for centuries. Different means today.
Bio fuel are a con. With bio alcohol, normally brewed and distilled from maize it takes as much energy to produce as one gains, in other words a litre of fuel to make a litre of fuel. Bio diesel is marginally better at a 10% net gain. As a result of using food and land to produce we increased the cost of staple foods to the poorer communities around the world.
@gregory pym: It is true that first-generation biofuels, like ethanol from maize, can be inefficient with low energy returns and have contributed to rising food prices, labeling biofuels a “con” overlooks advancements in biofuel technology.
Second- and third-generation biofuels, which use non-food sources like waste or algae, offer significantly higher energy returns and don’t compete with food crops or prime agricultural land.
These innovations reduce the negative impacts on food prices and energy efficiency.
@Rafa C: 2nd and 3rd are also useless because non efficient.
@Alex: That’s a very broad statement
Firstly, you’re correct in a sense – it’s true that 2nd/3rd gen biofuels do face challenges in efficiency compared to typical fossil fuels, however, they’re not “useless”.
They have made great advances in technology and improved the production processes. Some have demonstrated promising energy returns and environmental benefits.
For example, algae-based biofuels can achieve higher yields and use non-arable land, reducing competition with food crops.
Additionally, innovations in cellulosic biofuels are making it possible to convert agricultural waste into fuel, promoting a circular economy.
Although these technologies are still being optimised, you can’t simply dismiss them entirely as useless.
another way to scare people of their diesel and force the way to make them buy electric or hybrid cars which is non sense for rural.
@Dominic Leleu: Why is it nonsense? Charge overnight on ‘night rate’ electricity. That gives you a daily rangebof 400km or more. Perfect!
@Dominic Leleu: keep talking like an expert. I live in a remote part of Donegal, happy out paying 20% of the cost of petrol with my car. Ignore the fact that diesel causes respiratory illnesses like asthma. I’m truly glad your expert knowledge having owned an electric car and studied the effects of diesel are shining the truth out there
@Dominic Leleu: Road tax still cheaper on diesel
@Thesaltyurchin: THERE IS NO ROAD TAX.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: Correct, if your on a bike.
@Dominic Leleu: With more infrastructure there is no reason for it to be “nonsene for rural”.
In the meantime, however, I cannot understand why rural homes with no Historic or Heritage Planning Restrictions, wouldn’t be entirely or almost completely *off the grid* as far as Powering Lights and Heating Water!?
…and charging cars!!
Can’t understand why ye wouldn’t have Rooftop *Photovoltaics* (for low winter light, not just epic sunshine), AND Rooftop Wind Turbines (verticle & horizontal), and possibly also “Wind Walls” out on yeer “frontage” or near Sheds & Byres (but not in the path of livestock or machinery).
And then, incase ye get shtuck in the Town on a low battery – simply keep a Solar Panel for **camping** in the Boot of the Car. Hang it up or prop it up on the roof, plug in the car, and bobsyeruncle!
That said, I would prefer to see Hybrids that are 95% Electric. That they run on Electric *until* the battery reaches critically low power and then, **ONLY THEN**, switch to Petrol/Diesel consumption and *only* provide enough distance to reach the next charging station/home charging point (like 20km maximum)
Less mpg
From what I understand, HVO can directly replace Diesel. It’s better for the environment in many ways, from google ‘eliminates CO2 emissions by up to 90 per cent, reduces the emission of other harmful substances like nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide.’
Why aren’t they investing in making HVO cheaper?
@Rafa C: what we need is organic computers.
@Rafa not sure about HVO but in general biofuels produce more methane than normal petrol so I struggle to get on board with it. Methane is about 30 times more harmful than carbon dioxide for the environment but I think we’re too fixated on carbon monoxide alone
@JC O’Connachain: typo, I meant dioxide!
@Rafa C: None of the biofuels are efficient enough, even the one based on algae.
@JC O’Connachain:
I’m not so sure.
Indeed methane is a potent greenhouse gas.
A full lifecycle analysis shows that HVO contributes to lower greenhouse gas emissions, including both CO₂ and methane, compared to conventional diesel.
From what I’ve read and understand about it – I’m not sure why it’s not a readily available option over diesel.
@jak: Didn’t see this til this morning – hope you weren’t waiting —- I already know how much tax is on petrol and diesel, thanks.
@offside again: We also need people with a brain.
If biofuel fuel is cleaner what’s the need for ad blue also ,so maby drop the ad blue and safe the extra you pay fir biofuel.ita all a con if u ask me
@Philip Finnegan: jeesus christ, waddafoq?
Since this Biofuel came in, I’m sick and tired of looking a full Diesel gauge swing from fully full to fully empty and that’s only driving 48km and return from work twice daily.
The only reason this brought in is to rise the Government Coppers and that’s all it’s doing.
‘palm oil mill effluent’. Explains the smell of the chipper when some cars drive past.
Eamon Ryan once advocated everybody to buy Diesel cars, then changed his mind & penalized Motorists for buying Diesel cars. He once advocated Bio Fuels/ HVO as an alternative & again changed his mind, saying that some Bio fuel sources couldn’t be trusted, the guy is a Hypocrite like all in his Green Party, they don’t know what they want.
@SV3tN8M4: At least he learns from mistakes. Not many people do.
@SV3tN8M4: It was the science that evolved, so don’t blame politicians of any stripe. Be thankful that all states are committed to switch to better power and fuels.
@William Kelly: What “States” are these “all States” to which you refer?
Trying to “clean up” the combustion industry is like trying to snuff out an inferno by pouring petrol on it.
#stopburningstuff
@Ciaran Sherry: And yet the first Electric Car was invented in 1900!!
The combustion industry have had over 100 years.
It’s long past time they got their comuppence.
Especially since it is they, by their own admission, who seeded and fueled the Climate Change Denial fiasco over several decades now.
@Pink Freud: Oil producers and refiners have actively suppressed innovations that threatened the industry monopoly of transport fuel. The present progression towards alternatives is from international state policies based on sound climate change science. No doubt the oil interests will refocus their investment policies toward newer technologies, so wait for it, oil will not go away.
While we pontificate to the moral appropriateness of burning chip fat, the nations selling these byproducts have politicians and governments that are 100% behind there own people making a better life for themselves. While we make it more difficult.
@Thesaltyurchin: the orangutan’a won’t vote for this
Biofuel (esp’) Palm Oil, like Nuclear, is an untenable and unsustainable non-solution; a ‘Hegelian dialectic’, a solution that begets another problem requiring a solution, and on andon and on and on.
Nuclear demands a supply of Energy in order to *produce* Energy.
Which is stupidity.
Solar&Wind do not make demands on the Grid.
Time to throw out that which is proven to cause extensive genetic harm [Nuclear] when it gets loose; and is also proven to be viably weaponised, proven to be a potential *target* for aerial bombardment by any Nation’s enemies (Russia-Ukraine).
Equally…
IF the use of Arable Land is required for growing raw materials for Biofuel – then it cannot be sustainable. Obviously the populations of Planet Earth, and the Ecosystems that sustain edible produce, require sustenance. And that sustenance *must* be prioritised over mere car fuel.
Of all Nations, this should be implicitly understood throughout the population on the tiny landmass Ireland.
We cannot waste land on that which does not produce food, or provide shelter
(so yeh, we need to buck up on burial practices in the 21st Century and stop giving everyone a 6ft plot!! Ashes + a smaller burial hole [2ftx2ft?] + a horizontal plaque or verticle headstone).
If the Biofuel is biowaste – meaning it is inedible and cast off from it’s edible component, then it might almost be tenable and sustainable, except that it might better serve biodegradable food grade takeout food boxes (sugar cane husks for “card” board/disposable bowl/plate; mushroom/avocado stones for moisture repellent bioplastic).
So, even crop cast-off would require no other food-grade or human purpose, before feckless disposal of it into fuel tanks.
Also, the Biofuel from Palm Oil – this is a major major anti-Green problem.
Not only are Palm Oil Plantations seeded where precious Tropical and Rainforests have been cleared, devastating Ecosystems. But they also thus create Human-Wildlife Conflicts which range from both large animal attacks due to ever decreasing space&prey stocks, but also threaten the entire Planet with recurring Zoonotic Pandemics.
So no.
Biofuel is *not* a tenable or truly Green solution.
Infact, it not a “solution” at all!!
Equally, Lithium-Ion are also not a solution.
Was it really that impossible to run an Electric Vehicle off of a Lead Battery???
I don’t understand.
They are both energy storage tools.
Both batteries.
Why cant lead batteries run & maintain their charge without Petrol/Diesel?
And if they cant, then how do you explain having a full tank of Petrol/Diesel, yet still needing a pair of Jump Leads and a spare car!? O.o
Lead was already 99% Recyclable.
Lithium-ion presents untold and unknown toxins and lethal poisons when on fire, fires cannot be suppressed as easily, and Lithium-ion is definitely NOT 99% Recyclable. It isn’t even re-usable by extracting smaller chunks from larger worn-out batteries, for smaller devices, FGS!
@Pink Freud: Just the same, based on where we actually are, we should take every phase of progression through fuel and power alternatives as they become options, making the best decisions affordable. For example, keep your old car running on HVO, as the environmental cost of its production has already been incurred, and replacing it with EV, Hybrid, or standard combustion cars incurs a greater enviro cost, and your old wagon has to be recycled as well! And use it less where possible, by either reduced travel or by public transport options. It is a progression.
have your say