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Drive for ‘green’ palm oil adds to CO2 fears
Thomas Bell, UK Telegraph
The destruction of peat bogs in Indonesia is releasing more carbon dioxide every year than all of India or Russia, and three times as much as Germany.
Peat is made up of ancient plant material that never fully decomposed in wet conditions, forming a global carbon bank equivalent to 70 years of emissions at today’s rates.
But vast tracts of tropical bog in Borneo and neighbouring Sumatra are being cleared, drained and burnt to grow palm oil, which can be turned into supposedly “green” bio-fuels.
According to research by the conservation group Wetlands International, Indonesian emissions in 1997 alone, which was a particularly bad year, “were estimated to have reached 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions”.
(3 December 2007)
Indonesia to wean off oil, but biofuel use limited
Ed Davies and Muklis Ali, Reuters
Indonesia aims to slash the use of oil in its energy mix to around a fifth from half now, but the main substitutes will be gas and coal despite efforts to promote renewable sources, the country’s energy minister said on Friday.
The resource-rich tropical nation has been pushing the use of biofuels made from sources such as palm oil, but Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the government expected only 5 percent of energy needs to come from biofuel by 2010.
“Of course we would like to develop the renewable energy, but you know renewable energy development cannot be just very quick,” Purnomo said in an interview.
Indonesia plans to cut the use of costly oil by 2025 to 20 percent. Under its energy blueprint, the share of coal and gas would rise to about 30 percent each and renewable sources such as biofuel and geothermal would make up the remaining 20 percent.
(30 Novermber 2007)
Sri Lankan ceramic firms mull firewood as alternative energy source
Lanka Business Online
Sri Lanka’s ceramics industry has been advised to consider cheaper and alternative forms of energy to trim power costs, which have increased with soaring oil prices.
Prema Cooray, secretary general of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, said studies show that firewood can be used as an economical fuel that can be a substitute for petroleum.
The chamber was working on alternative energy sources with Dutch funding, he told a business meeting organized by the Ceramics Council.
One option that was promising was production of biomass using the gliricidia plant.
“Now we have a mechanism to grow which can produce the energy needed for industry, not only ceramic but plantations and leisure to offset the increased cost of petroleum fuels,” Cooray said.
Fuel wood can be used as an alternative source of energy at least in the initial stages of firing ceramicware in the kilns when temperatures are not at their highest.
(3 December 2007)
