This article comes from WeChat WeChat official account:New silicon NewGeek (ID：XinguiNewgeek), Author: Dong Daoli, editor: Zhang Zeyi, title map from: vision china.

Two days ago, Reuters sent a piece of news, saying that in the first half of this year, the United States imported about 1 million tons of waste cooking oil, which is commonly known as gutter oil, of which imports from China accounted for 58%, and this figure was in 2022-0.1%。

Waste cooking oil, which is notorious on the Chinese Internet, is now snapped up by Americans, and the European Union and Japan are also importing a lot from China …

More than that, the point is that we don’t want to give it yet.

According to the analysis of a Singaporean oil trader, due to the sharp increase in the demand for food waste oil in China,In about five years, China will run out of food waste oil.

In fact, countries are scrambling for waste oil for the same reason.Is to make "sustainable aviation fuel"（SAF）.

The current global background is "low-carbon economy", and various countries are carrying out energy reforms, such as electrification of automobiles and laying new photovoltaic energy sources, which are all products under this background.

Among them, how to reduce carbon emissions in the aviation industry, which is a big carbon emitter, is a big problem in front of all countries. It is not feasible to fly less economically and electricize technology, but in 2021, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will（IATA）Just let the word out,Speaking of achieving zero net carbon emissions by 2050.

At this time, scientists have developed a sustainable aviation fuel to solve the problem of carbon emissions from the source.

From the current technology, the raw materials of sustainable aviation fuel mainly include coconut oil, palm oil, linseed oil and other vegetable oils, as well as microalgae oil and catering waste oil.(gutter oil)Animal fat, etc.

It seems that there are many choices of raw materials, but in fact there are not many. Coconut oil, olive oil and linseed oil are too late for people to use, and it always seems that they don’t eat minced meat when they are burned for airplanes. Among them, waste cooking oil, the so-called waste cooking oil, has become the most suitable raw material.

Conversion of waste oil into bio-aviation combustion(a kind of SAF),Carbon emissions can be reduced by more than half compared with traditional fuels.

Take China’s aviation industry as an example. At present, China consumes more than 30 million tons of aviation fuel every year. If these are replaced by bio-aviation coal, it can reduce about 55 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, which is equivalent to-Plant 500 million trees.

Waste cooking oil originally needed to be treated with money. Now turning waste into treasure can not only reduce environmental pollution, but also reduce dependence on traditional energy. Countries have invested a lot of money and technology research and development to develop waste cooking oil resources.

The department in charge of carbon emissions is really fragrant.

Then the question is, where is the most gutter oil in the world? Nature is China with a large population and a long history of food culture.

According to Transport&Environment.（T&E）, a non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting clean transportation, China has collected 3.38 million tons of waste oil in 2023, more than the United States and the European Union.(including Britain)It adds up to more. Besides,The collection potential of surplus waste oil in China is also very considerable.

The sudden surge in the amount of China waste oil imported by the United States has something to do with the European Union.

Originally, the EU was the largest buyer of waste oil in China.However, this year, the EU announced that it would start to impose a temporary anti-dumping duty of 12.8% to 36.4% on China biodiesel.More than 40 companies, including major producers Zhejiang Jiaao, Lijing Environment Group and Longyan Zhuo Yue, were hit.

The effect is immediate. According to China Customs data, in the first half of this year, the export of waste oil to the EU decreased by 51% year-on-year.

Whether the United States began to import a large number of China waste oil, or the European Union repeatedly jumped to suppress China waste oil, there is an unchangeable fact:The demand for waste oil in various countries far exceeds the supply.

As can be seen from the data compiled by T&E, the United States and the European Union(including Britain)The gap in waste oil is very large.

The distribution of resources in different places is unbalanced, and it is very common to exchange with each other. If China can exchange waste oil for some high-tech in Europe and America, Si Zijun will also consider eating more butter hotpot.

howeverThe real importance of gutter oil lies in the "carbon emission right" it represents later.

Carbon emission right refers to the right to be allowed to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere within a specific range. At present, human economic activities are inseparable from carbon emissions. Simply put, the more carbon emission quotas, the greater the possibility of national development.

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, put forward the market mechanism as a new way to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emission reduction represented by carbon dioxide for the first time, that is, carbon emission rights were regarded as a commodity, thus forming the trading of carbon emission rights.

The carbon emissions reduced by cooking oil here can be used in other places for development and even sold to other countries.

Since gutter oil is so precious, the voice of restricting the export of gutter oil has gradually appeared. On June 14th this year, Yu Feng, president of Honeywell China, said: China should restrict the export of "gutter oil".

Then in June this year, China Commercial Aircraft Corporation’s ARJ21 regional jet and C919 large passenger plane successfully completed the first test flight of domestic commercial aircraft with self-developed bio-jet fuel.It means that China also needs waste oil to make aviation fuel.

Therefore, don’t worry too much about roadside stalls eating gutter oil, and countries are not enough to grab imports.

This article comes from WeChat WeChat official account:New silicon NewGeek (ID：XinguiNewgeek), Author: Dong Daoli, Editor: Zhang Zeyi