March 18, 2026
As a follow-up to his article entitled “Will 2026 Finally Be the Year of Biochar?“, Kamyar Razavi, a writer for The New Climate publication, published “From the Deep Fryer to Your Gas Tank“.
A summary of the article is as follows: the author explores the potential of used cooking oil and other organic waste as viable biofuels to decarbonize transportation. Companies, like West Coast Reduction, are repurposing used restaurant oil and animal fats—materials that often clog city sewers as “fatbergs”—into low-carbon feedstocks for oil refineries. While technologically feasible, the transition faces significant hurdles. To make biofuels from used vegetable oil or animal fat, the feedstock requires intensive chemical processing, such as hydrogenation to remove oxygen and filtration to impurities like leftover food particles. Another source of biofuels, “pyrolysis oil” (derived from wood chips or plastic in a pyrolyzer reactor) show promise. Researchers lead by Professor Tony Bi in UBC Biorefining Research and Innovation host a novel microwave pyrolysis pilot reactor to produce a high bio-oil from sawdust. However, the current commercial pyrolysis oil producers currently lack the scale required by major refineries, which demand millions of tonnes to remain viable. Ultimately, the article suggests that while used cooking oil is a valuable piece of the puzzle, achieving a meaningful impact will require a diverse “all-of-the-above” approach supported by government incentives and robust supply chains.
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