Palm or not palm?

Went to a seminar in UM yesterday. The two speakers are from Sime Darby talking about the prospect of biodiesel as an alternative for petrol.


I know this is a very hot topic in Malaysia now. But, I seriously doubt the viability of this so-called potential future fuel.


1. First of all, with such a space-occupying tree, imagine how the people are going to plant them in the future? With increasing demand of oil palm in the future it will not be sufficient land for cultivation. Unless scientists find a way to grow them in the sky or under the sea..lol.. Or maybe genetically modify the oil palm tree to as small as a banana plant with small fruits (so that the plant can carry the fruits) but with high oil percentage in the fruit carp?


2. How many years does an oil palm need to be fully matured and be able to fruit? 3 freaking years! How long does a fruit need to take to mature from pollination from maturity? 6 months. If bio-diesel from oil palm is going to be the sole fuel in the future, it's really gonna be a slow moving industry I would say. Have to wait for the trees to mature and to fruit. Unless, again, there's more land to plant them. But to support the whole world with oil palm? Even if we plant them everywhere we still can't supply enough for the whole world, right?


3. Currently the percentage of palm oil extracted from the fruit bunch is only around 20% of the bunch. It is impossible to depend on this small fraction of oil to supply the industry in the whole country. According to consultants acting for the UK government in relation to the introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), there's an average reduction in emissions of 11% from bioethanol (compared to petrol) and 35% from biodiesel (compared to diesel). (Cited from http://www.ngvglobal.com/editorial-comment/weighing-up-the-options.html. lazy to write proper citation =P). This means out of 20% of the oil in one bunch, the combustion efficiency is only 65% of the diesel we have now. That means we need a lot more palm oil to generate energy. Not practical.


5. With higher demand of palm oil in the future (if palm oil is the sole fuel in the future) the price will sky rocket again. And we, the consumer, will be the victim of the fuel crisis all over again. “The question is not whether biofuels will play a major part in the global transportation fuel market, but when and at what price,” says Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute. “The first priority should be to ensure that the industry develops sustainably — so that the problems of an oil-based economy are not replaced by another socially and ecologically bankrupt industry.” According to The Star, palm oil prices skyrocketed by around RM1,000 per tonne over the in 2006 and it is already RM3,000 per tonne now. Soon it will be having the same fate with the petrol we are having now. See my point? (It’s a good way to gain profit indeed. No wonder the Malaysia government and Sime Darby are really looking into this)



I would say oil palm biodiesel does not have the potential to supply the future human population unless people start converting the cellulose and hemicellulose in the agricultural waste materials (which is the remaining of the palm pulp) into ethanol. If the palm oil biodiesel can be coupled with ethanol, the possible problem of running out of palm oil biodiesel might be overcome (you think palm oil never deplete one ah? We have land issues here).


Instead of focusing only on palm oil and oil palm residue, why not conducting research on converting household, forestry, agricultural, and industrial wastes into ethanol in big scale? Isn’t it more economically viable and environmental friendly? And I think burning ethanol in our engine will produce less pollutants compared to burning palm oil biodiesel.


Think about it. And if I have any mistakes in my theory above please correct me. Thanks. =)



p/s: But I'm glad that Sime Darby sense the problem of land issue and is going into researching the conversion of oil palm residue into biofuel. But I really do hope that someone come out with the big scale application of converting cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin from wastes into ethanol.



p/p/s: I know this is very long-winded and might bring you to sleep. Haha. Thanks for reading my long-winded thoughts. =P