By A Texas refinery that produces “green” jet fuel for airlines has been buying beef fat from cattle raised on illegally cleared land in the Amazon rainforest, according to a Reuters investigation.
Diamond Green Diesel out of Port Arthur, Texas converts beef fat into “sustainable” biofuel. The company is one of the biggest players in America’s sustainable fuel industry and has supplied “sustainability-certified” fuel to major airlines, including JetBlue and Southwest.
Although biofuels make up only a small share of the fuel market, their importance is growing as the transportation sector looks for ways to cut emissions. Policies such as California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard have accelerated this trend, giving fossil fuel producers generous subsidies to produce biofuel.
The industry claims that biofuels burn cleaner than fossil fuels, but there is some evidence that they can produce more nitrogen oxides, chemicals that cause ozone, smog, and acid rain.
And as the Diamond Green Diesel case demonstrates, they hide other complicated realities. The oils used in biofuels often come from unsustainable sources tied to deforestation and other forms of harm.
Biofuels made from crops like palm oil, corn, and sugarcane offer little to no net carbon benefit when factoring in land use change. Palm oil alone has been responsible for the loss of roughly 30% of Indonesia’s forestland in the past three decades.
Additionally, palm oil production in Southeast Asian peat swamps has caused nearly .8% of total global greenhouse gas emissions—nearly half of the entire airline industry’s contribution to global CO2 emissions.
Biofuels made from animal tallow, especially beef fat, have the same fundamental problem. Cattle ranching is the single biggest driver of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, accounting for 80% of forest loss and contributing to the Amazon’s recent conversion to a net CO2 source.
And depending on one’s values, animal tallow is an incredibly cruel source of alternative energy production. The global meat industry slaughters 80 billion animals each year for meat consumption, numbers which could increase to satisfy growing demand for tallow-based biofuels.
Beyond these glaring ecological and ethical problems, biofuels also come into direct competition with human and animal food supplies, inflating the price of food and potentially driving food insecurity.
And then there’s the issue of fraud: Biofuels made from “used cooking oil” can earn producers up to $2.50 per gallon in credits from California’s LCFS and the EPA. Because it’s very difficult to trace cooking oil, it’s very hard for regulators to verify that it’s in fact “used,” meaning there are profound financial incentives to lie. This type of falsification is known to happen in the palm oil sector.
The Diamond Green Diesel case highlights a central contradiction within the so-called clean energy transition: not all “green” energy is actually what it purports to be. Biofuels, in particular, have a litany of problems that could outweigh their supposed benefits.
As demand for biofuels grows, it’ll be critical—and difficult—to ensure that regulators and the transportation industry don’t trade genuine sustainability for the illusion of progress.
