Melbourne Biodiesel Club

2 major hurdles to overcome regarding emissions and public acceptance if producers wish to use Palm Oil to make biodiesel.

1) Emissions. http://www.ellipse.ch/Produit.aspx?Produit=1515226 A link to Heat, it is imperative for all people in the biodiesel industry to read this book even if you just read the 2 pages on biodiesel. He presents a very damming and articulate argument as to how biodiesel is actually emitting more carbon than it displaces.

Which brings us to the point of how would we ever certify palm oil as sustainable? To cut to the chase, round tables on sustainability are round for a reason, they keep going round and ending up at the same point. Meanwhile the forest is logged and burned which generates more talk that goes round and round…..

To demonstrate how useless the round table on palm oil is web sites like http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/ are developing a bigger following of people who are waking up to the destruction biodiesel is driving. Reports blaming biodiesel for tropical rainforest destruction are making news in Europe, I have herd but have not confirmed that the Netherlands are going to remove subsidies for biodiesel made from palm oil. Big step, the first in the EU now watch the rest follow. Maybe that is why a palm oil ME producer is buying into service stations in Australia? Will not be able to flog subsidized biodiesel tainted with orangutan blood in Europe soon? Just watch Big Oil and NGOs assassinate Palm biodiesels credibility in time.

We can put energy into talk and green washing all day long. The only way to find a balance is to draw a line in the forests of Borneo and Sumatra (not to mention Brazil), this side for logging and palm and the other side for habitat, research, preservation etc. Work out how to do that and bring on palm oil biodiesel!! I will personally support it then.

2) Food. This is more an ethanol issue but biofuels including biodiesel cop the criticism. A recent rally in Mexico over the price of corn from the US blamed ethanol for the price rise, a 30% rise in the cost of a basic food for people who have very little money means people do not eat. Just watch as this becomes a very big issue, starving people on world vision adds verses the SUV.

More and more reports are coming out about displacing food for fuel. Personally I see that mass producing then shipping food around the world is a practice based on cheap oil so has numbered days regardless of ethanol. Cuba for instance has shown us how local food production can be achieved when oil is too expensive or not available http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba.html With knowledge and the example of Cuba we can overcome the food verses fuel debate and society will be better off – just watch the DVD on the link.

Anyone involved in biodiesel would be very wise to totally disassociate there business from Palm based biodiesel.