Seeing Red: Palm Oil Biodiesel

In the enthusiasm for renewable energy and taking care of our environment, it is easy to assume that making fuel from plants (biofuel) must be by definition "green" and renewable. However when it comes to energy issues, easy assumptions can be dangerous assumptions. In previous years some politicians and advocates in Europe have made these assumptions without sufficient thought and research and secured government subsidies for companies importing palm oil from South East Asia to make biodiesel for transport and for use in electricity generation.

The demand for palm oil in Europe has soared in the last two decades, first for use in food and cosmetics, and more recently for fuel. This cheap oil can be used for a variety of purposes, including as an ingredient about 10 percent of supermarket products, from chocolate to toothpaste.

Promoted by hundreds of millions of dollars in national subsidies, the Netherlands quickly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in 1.7 million tons in 2006, nearly double the previous year.



Now it is increasingly difficult to ignore the mounting body of scientific evidence that palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, rather than preserving the environment are in fact actively destroying it. By subsidising biofuels, European governments have artificially raised demand for palm oil in Europe, and accelerated the destruction of huge areas of rainforest in South East Asia. Palm oil plantations are often expanded by draining and burning peatland, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result Indonesia has become the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both based in the Netherlands.

The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which required all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation run on biofuel in 2010, is now under review. In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has prompted the government to suspend palm oil subsidies.

In Europe a small amount of rapeseed and sunflower oil is used to make diesel fuel, however increasingly plant oils are being imported from the tropics, since there is simply not enough plant matter or land for biofuel production at home. So while the billions of dollars in European subsidies appear to have reduced carbon emissions in European countries by importing biofuels, this has been achieved by exporting them and increasing their impact many times by the permanent destruction of rainforest and peatland in South East Asia.

For anyone familiar with how the ethanol industry works in the United States, they will be unsurprised to learn that the palm oil industry was promoted long before there was adequate research. Biofuel Watch, an environment group in Britain, now says that "biofuels should not automatically be classed as renewable energy." It supports a stop on subsidies until more research can determine if various biofuels in different regions are produced in a nonpolluting manner. The group also suggests that all emissions arising from the production of a biofuel be counted as emissions in the country where the fuel is actually used, providing a clearer accounting of environmental costs.


BEFORE: rainforest on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo

Friends of the Earth estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysia from 1985 to 2000 was caused by new palm oil plantations. In Indonesia, the amount of land devoted to palm oil has increased 118 percent in the last eight years.


AFTER: a palm oil plantation

Peat is an organic sponge composed of 90 percent water that stores huge amounts of carbon, which when it is drained emits huges amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Even worse peatland is often burned to clear ground for plantations. The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peatland in Indonesia releases 660 million tons of carbon a year into the atmosphere and that fires contributed 1.5 billion tons annually.


Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
the haze has covered much of SE Asia for extended periods of time since 1997

The total is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, the researchers said. "These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not counted before," according to a Wetlands spokesperson. "It was a totally ignored problem."

While for the moment the widescale destruction of rainforests in South East Asia continues, hopefully the palm oil story will serve as a cautionary tale which will lead to much better informed policymaking and behaviour. Politicians must resist the urge to rush to legislate and subsidise in order to bask in the glow of being seen to be "doing something" while a number of so-called green companies profit from taxpayer subsidised destruction. Energy policy must make sense from a scientific (i.e. it should be energy positive), economic and environmental viewpoint. However the continued promotion of ethanol and coal-to-liquids calls for continued skepticism.

Alternative Energy Hungary: River Energy

The Budapest Sun reports that Laszlo Oroszi, the inventor of an alternative energy system, believes rivers hold at least one of the keys to Hungary meeting European Union directives on alternative energy.

EU members must produce at least 6% of their energy via renewable energy sources by 2010, with the Union discussing the possibility of increasing this to 12% by 2020.

Currently only 3.6% of energy generated in Hungary comes via alternative energy sources (excluding nuclear), primarily from windfarms, bio-plants (wood chipping) and solar panels.

Oroszi told The Budapest Sun, "Electricity cannot be stored in bulk form and must constantly be generated."

Wind and sunshine have sporadic cycles in Hungary, and costly to run bio-plants need huge storage facilities for fuel.

"So far very few experts have even considered using Hungary's rivers to harvest much needed energy," said Oroszi, explaining that this is currently the sole source that can offer alternative energy producers "clean or green energy non-stop".

"Every second, billions of cubic meters of river water is flowing through Hungarian territory," he enthused.



Oroszi says that, based on scientific research, the Danube river (which flows a total 417km in Hungary) has a yield of 2,270 cubic meters per second, and flows at 1.18 meters per second (measured at Nagymaros), while the Tisza river (which flows 596 km in Hungary) yields about 740 cubic meters per second at a speed of 0.61 meters per second (measured at Szeged).



With the EU subsidizing green projects, Oroszi has received many inquiries concerning his patented idea for a relocatable cluster of generators producing power from flowing water, for which feasibility studies are also underway. "It would be an offense not to harvest the colossal amount of money-saving energy available in Hungarian rivers when the world is yearning for renewable energy sources.

"Even the slowest flowing, so-called 'passive rivers' can be utilized to harvest electricity, even to supply whole villages nearby," he said. Oroszi added that the system is "guaranteed to not only be profitable, but also environmental-friendly."

Spanish Electric Utility Company Invests over U.S. $2 billion in Renewable Energy

Spanish electricity company Endesa SA has said that it will invest EUR1.9 billion (US $2.46 billion) in the next five years to increase its renewable energy capacity in Europe.

In a presentation to analysts filed to the market regulator, the company said it will spend EUR1.4 billion in domestic renewable energy to get some 2,100 megawatts in wind power capacity in Spain and Portugal. It will also spend EUR500 million to buy some 350 MW of renewable capacity in Italy and another 55 MW in France.

The renewable investment figure represents 32% of the company's EUR6 billion planned investment in new capacity throughout Europe through 2009.

The company expects to have a total renewable capacity of 4,100 MW a the end of 2009, compared with 1,858 MW in 2003, and with more than 2,000 MW estimated for 2004, said a company official.

Hopefully this a sign of things to come, with other utility companies throughout the world spending a major portion of their investments in new generating capacity on clean renewable energy.

Endesa Official Website

Alternative Energy Estonia: Eight Windmills to Provide 1% of National Electricity

In Paldiski, Estonia on the site where border guards used to keep watch on the western outpost of the Soviet Union, Baltic European Union newcomer Estonia is erecting a wind farm to generate clean electricity.

The wind-swept Pakri peninsula, which juts into the Baltic Sea 60km west of the capital Tallinn, once hosted a training centre for Soviet border guards. The nearby town of Paldiski was a key Soviet nuclear submarine training ground.

The first three windmills of the Pakri Wind Farm have just been put into operation, with five others to follow before the end of the month.

When the farm is fully up and running, it is expected to supply one percent of Estonia's energy needs, and about 10,000 Estonian households are expected to get electricity from the farm.

The Parki Wind Farm is setting a precedent in the region in the carbon pollution quota market. Under the Kyoto Protocol's implementation project, 0.5 million tons of reduced greenhouse gas emissions will be sold to Finland.

It's among the very first wind power projects anywhere where the economic feasibility is achieved through the sale of CO2 reductions under the joint implementation scheme of the Kyoto Protocol.

On January 1, the EU opened a market for trading in carbon dioxide and other gases.

The total investment cost of the Pakri project is 24 million euros. Most of Estonia's energy is generated using oil-shale fueled power plants, which are big pollutants.

With an expected annual production of 56 GWh (GigaWatt hours), the Pakri wind farm will meet about one per cent of Estonia's net electricity consumption, and thus contribute to achieving Estonia's target of providing 5.1 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2010.

Developers have already made plans for building more wind farms on other former Soviet military installations in Estonia.