10/12/2006 ( biopact.com) - The world's two leading palm oil producing countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, have expressed their hopes of exporting more of their products as energy feedstocks for power and fuel to Europe. But resistance to this destructive energy crop is growing. Earlier, Euro-MPs expressed their doubts on whether palm oil production is sustainable. And in the Netherlands, the world's third largest and Europe's leading palm products importer, NGOs and the media are successfully campaigning against a power company that uses the energy source and markets its electricity as 'green'.

Palm oil is a raw material for biodiesel production, whereas solid biomass from the palm (kernels, shells, fibres) can be co-fired with coal to produce electricity. Leading Dutch power company Essent has been doing this for several years, receiving millions in subsidies from the government.

But Milieudefensie, an environmental NGO, filed a complaint against the company, saying Essent is misleading its customers with its adverts on 'green', 'clean' and 'sustainable' energy. The NGO argued that palm oil is a destructive crop, resulting in deforestation and that, contrary to what Essent had maintained, there were no clear sustainability criteria on the matter yet. The Dutch institution which judges over these matters (the 'Reclame Code Commissie', the 'commission for advertising') ruled in favor of the NGO.

Dutch State Secretary for the Environment, Piet Van Geel, now regrets having subsidised the company in question. He has pledged to review both the sustainability criteria for biomass, which are in the making, and the subsidy schemes which made it possible for Dutch power plants to co-fire palm biomass [entry ends here].

Source: http://biopact.com/