Thinking about Producing
Palm Oil Biodiesel?

Decide for yourself! Do the pros outweigh the cons to warrant use palm oil biodiesel? Here is a short list of benefits and disadvantages.


Here are some of the Benefits of Palm Oil Biodiesel:

• It has high oil content - the mesocarp of the seed contains 49% oil, and the kernel contains 50%.

• It yields an average of 635 gallons of oil per acre! This is the highest oil-producing crop!

• Palm oil has a high ignition quality (a measure of how easily it will ignite in the engine).

• Malaysia had one of its palm plantations certified by Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

• Malaysia has started re-planting on existing palm plantations, and is recycling its old palm trunks to be used for mulch.

Photograph by Whitebox (License: GNU Free Documentation License)


Now for Some of the Downsides…

• Palm oil has a high pour point of 59 degrees F (15 C)… Although, it was announced that the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has produced a palm oil with a pour point between -21 (-6F) and 0 C (32F).

• Destruction of peat bogs for palm plantations releases great amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

• Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth estimate that the destruction of peat-land and rainforests for the development of palm plantations releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than burning biofuels can save.

• It is feared that certain species will become extinct due to habitat destruction.

• To improve the energy balance, one idea is to use the biomass from palm plantations for other forms of renewable energy.


Updates:

Here is a link that provides updates on palm oil news hourly, and also has graphs of the history of oil prices, useful for analyzing palm oil biodiesel. (Opens in a new window).

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