27/09/2007 (SR INternational) - Biodiesel is the new petroleum free fuel that will be sold in Sweden at the end of October. It produces around 12 percent less carbon dioxide emissions than normal petroleum-based diesel.

But environmental groups like the Worldwide Fund for Nature and Greenpeace are critical of this alternative fuel, called Diesel Eco 20, because it contains palm oil from Malaysia.

Speaking to the newspaper ”Svenska Dagbladet”, environmental activists say the palm tree plantations have replaced rainforest. They say large areas of rainforest have been burned down and destroyed to make space for the plantations, and the disappearance of the rainforests themselves is one souce of higher carbon dioxide emissions.