1.2 Vegetable oils and animal fats
In this book you get to know different types of oils from plants and animal fats.
3. Feedstocks for biofuel production
Feedstocks for biofuel production
The most important crops for biofuel (i.e. biodiesel) production worldwide are palm oil, soy oil and rapeseed oil. The European Union (EU) is the world’s largest biodiesel producer (Flach et al. 2019), mostly based on rapeseed oil. According to UFOP 2020 the share of waste oils and fats is expected to increase in the EU. Biodiesel production from soy oil and palm oil is expected to increase in South America and Southeast Asia (UFOP 2020). The following diagram shows the share of different feedstocks for biodiesel production worldwide in 2018.
Related to the total world production, the share of oil crops used for biofuel production is low. According to OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook (OECD/FAO 2020), only 14% of globally produced vegetable oil were used for biofuel production in the years between 2017 and 2019. Looking at the most important oil crops, the biomass use for biofuel production ranges from 14 to 19% (UFOP 2020):
- Palm oil: 14%
- Soy oil: 15%
- Rape oil: 19%