MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Palm Oil Industry Cleans up Its Reputation
Palm Oil Industry Cleans up Its Reputation
08/10/2014 (Channel News Asia) - The palm oil industry has long had a poor reputation - one fraught with deforestation, pollution and destroying the habitats of endangered species. Faced with widespread criticism, the industry has started to clean up their operations and the sector could be at a turning point.
Malaysia and Indonesia are the world's top palm oil producers. Collectively they account for 85 per cent of global production. While palm oil plays an integral role in both countries' economies, it also means they are more susceptible to the harmful side effects. Besides emitting greenhouse gases, the burning of trees for palm oil plantations has led to wide-spread deforestation, air pollution and has pushed some species to the brink of extinction.
Rikke Netterstrom, managing director of Helikonia, said: “At the moment, approximately 50-75 per cent of all palm oil carbon emissions will come from having cleared land in the past. The last 25-50 per cent comes from what we call palm oil mill effluent, so this is where the waste water from the mills is put into ponds that release a lot of methane. And methane is a powerful greenhouse gas."
Methane is also the main ingredient in natural gas, which can be turned into electricity. This project is still new. But at full tilt, it could produce 2,000 kilowatts of electricity a day.
“At this mill we use 150,000 litres of diesel a year. So by doing this biogas project we expect it to reduce by 60 per cent the diesel usage,” said Wan Adlin, senior manager at Sedenak Palm Oil Mill. “But that's in the infancy part of it. We plan to dispose all the diesel later on. And if the technology is there, we're going to power up our tractors, everything by biogas.”
For now, the electricity is for the workers' housing estates.
Ms Rikke said: “In that way, it also has some social benefit because a lot of palm oil plantations are actually located in areas where people don't have access to electricity. Of course there're still sinners in the industry. Of course not everyone is doing all this great stuff, but the leading palm oil companies in Asia are really in a completely different place then they were a decade ago.”
Malaysia and Indonesia are the world's top palm oil producers. Collectively they account for 85 per cent of global production. While palm oil plays an integral role in both countries' economies, it also means they are more susceptible to the harmful side effects. Besides emitting greenhouse gases, the burning of trees for palm oil plantations has led to wide-spread deforestation, air pollution and has pushed some species to the brink of extinction.
Rikke Netterstrom, managing director of Helikonia, said: “At the moment, approximately 50-75 per cent of all palm oil carbon emissions will come from having cleared land in the past. The last 25-50 per cent comes from what we call palm oil mill effluent, so this is where the waste water from the mills is put into ponds that release a lot of methane. And methane is a powerful greenhouse gas."
Methane is also the main ingredient in natural gas, which can be turned into electricity. This project is still new. But at full tilt, it could produce 2,000 kilowatts of electricity a day.
“At this mill we use 150,000 litres of diesel a year. So by doing this biogas project we expect it to reduce by 60 per cent the diesel usage,” said Wan Adlin, senior manager at Sedenak Palm Oil Mill. “But that's in the infancy part of it. We plan to dispose all the diesel later on. And if the technology is there, we're going to power up our tractors, everything by biogas.”
For now, the electricity is for the workers' housing estates.
Ms Rikke said: “In that way, it also has some social benefit because a lot of palm oil plantations are actually located in areas where people don't have access to electricity. Of course there're still sinners in the industry. Of course not everyone is doing all this great stuff, but the leading palm oil companies in Asia are really in a completely different place then they were a decade ago.”