Production of this ubiquitous ingredient is devastating for the environs . Solutions are complex , but they are out there .
November 3 , 2014 — Last August , from the window of a reverse lightning high over Sumatra , I counted well-nigh a dozen plumes of smoke rising from the vast jungles and plantations below . Some more than a half - naut mi widely , they looked like tower support up the sky . That week the Indonesian Disaster Mitigation Agency detected 143 unexampled wildfire in Riau Province , the expanse beneath my flight of steps . All of the fires were almost certainly related to disforestation for timberland performance and farming — preponderantly oil palm cultivation .
medal oil — whichappears in a dizzying amount of intellectual nourishment and cosmetic products , and is a feedstock for biofuel — poses many environmental problem . It ’s the largest driver of Indonesian disforestation , which destroys home ground and contributes to climate change . And ponds of wastewater at ribbon oil colour refineriesrelease immense total of methane , a nursery gas 34 time more strong than atomic number 6 dioxide .
solvent to the environmental problems posed by palm production are complicated , partly because palm oil ’s ubiquity , but also because alternatives miss many of the benefit of the various vegetable oil . But they are out there .
Burning Below
A few days after I arrived in Riau , as I process to the hobo camp to see one of the ardor , I wait back at where my footprint sank some 12 inch into thepeatand saw smoke jump from my lead .
It ’s here , in the peat cauterize below the forests , where the not bad climate impact from palm output can be seen . When forests are cleared to make mode for crude oil palm plantations , the area is commonly combust , and most of Riau ’s massive fire burn on peat — swampy layer of part dilapidate botany that broadcast up to 60 feet deep beneath most of the province ’s forests .
fire associated with clear land for crude palm plantations in the Indonesian responsibility of Riau let go monumental amount of carbon paper into the atmosphere and spread health - harming fog across the landscape painting . Photo by Aulia Erlangga for Center for International Forestry Research .
Peatlands hold up to 28 times as much C as rainforests growing on mineral soil . The peat is so carbon rich that if it is buried long enough , say for a million age or so , press , time and heat will reverse it into ember . A unmarried hectare of peatland rainforest can expel 6,000 metric tons of planet - warm up carbon dioxide when it ’s converted into a plantation . researcher estimated that in 2012 nearly 70 percent of the carbon release during the transformation of Sumatran rainforests into palm Plantation came from peatlands , a 75 percentage increase over their portion of emission in the nineties and an indication that decoration is increasingly enlarge into peat .
And it ’s not just CO2 : In 2013 the Carry Amelia Moore Nation ’s then president , Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono , apologized to Singapore and Malaysia for the brownish cloud from Sumatran fires that shattered aura pollution records in the neighboring nations , filled hospitals with ten of thousands of smoke - sickened affected role and forced officials to close schools . Indonesian aircraft seeded clouds above the fires with 100 tons of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in hope of bringing rainfall to drench fires smoldering in the peat .
When the forests ignited again six month later , more than 9,000 tweets bombarded the chairwoman ’s office . During an pinch misstep to Riau he said he was “ ashamed ” of the fire . about 50,000 Sumatrans seek treatment for the impacts of smoke on their lung , eyes and hide . Aircraft again seeded the clouds .
dupe of home ground destruction driven in part by palm oil colour production , Sumatran elephant are now considered critically endanger by the International Union for Conservation of Nature . pic by Vincent Poulissen ( Flickr / Creative Commons ) .
The fires burn one thousand of Indonesians out of their homes and demolish the home ground of endangered elephants , rhino , LTTE and orangutang . A United Nations written report warn that no wild orangutang may subsist outside protect area by 2020 . And at the current rate of habitat destruction , the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimatedthe Sumatran elephant could be nonextant within 30 years .
“ Effective action on the ground should be involve immediately to protect Sumatran elephants from extinction , ” a report from the IUCN urge on in 2013 . “ peculiarly in Riau . ”
Getting Serious
In the past times , Indonesia and the world paid lip service to stopping palm oil industry ’s destruction of Indonesian woods and warming of the global mood , but more recently they have appeared to get serious .
In 2010 Norway promised $ 1 billion to Indonesia to keep its woodland stand , and the next class Yudhoyono pledged that by 2020 , with external assistance , the nation would cut its greenhouse gas pedal emissions by 41 percent from its “ business - as - common ” trajectory . Last August , Singapore get down imposing mulct of up to $ 2 million on local and alien companies that add to the daze from fires . The undermentioned month , Indonesia , after years of stalling , became the last of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to sign a pact stand for to dilute the smoke that has become a recurrent straining on its relations with its southeasterly Asiatic neighbors . before long afterward , at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York , 150 companies — including McDonalds , Nestlé , and Procter and Gamble — pledged to cut deforestation worldwide in half by 2020 and to eliminate it whole by 2030 .
In 2013 the world consumed 55 million metrical slews of palm tree oil , about four sentence what it used 20 age earlier . Then , within Clarence Day of taking power last October , Indonesia ’s novel president , Joko Widodo , proposed merging the country ’s Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Forestry . That reform could avail the country meet its ambitious wood protection and emission reductions goals if the Ministry of Environment , which negotiates with the U.N. and determine how the nation will meet its emissions goals , gains some authority over the state ’s timberland and peatlands . On the other hand , the powerful and territorial Ministry of Forestry could usurp some of the Ministry of Environment ’s say-so .
“ combine exploitation and conservation authorities into one organic structure does not guarantee balanced decision fashioning , ” Greenpeace Indonesia president Longgena Ginting told theJakarta Post .
Palm Oil Boom
Ultimately , however , jurisprudence , treaties , government agency and incentives will have little impact without fundamental changes to how medal oil is produce and take . And unluckily , there are few practicable alternative to decoration .
“ There are benefits to palm petroleum which can not be ignored , ” Alan Townsend , dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University , told me before I traveled to Indonesia . “ Palm is one of the most productive crops on the planet , with the ability to spring up in a remarkable range of places . duet that with orotund profit tolerance , an incredible diversity of uses for palm petroleum and a lack of economically militant substitutes , and you could quickly see why the industry has grown so quickly . ”
In 2013 the world consumed 55 million metrical tons of palm oil , nearly four time what it used 20 years earlier . Indonesia and Malaysia satisfy 85 pct of the demand for the world ’s most popular solid food vegetable oil . In 1985 , Indonesia had less than 2,500 square mile of palm fossil oil plantations . Twenty years later on , they covered 21,621 square miles , and by 2025 the Indonesian government task plantation will cover at least 100,000 hearty miles .
A calendar month before my arrival in Riau a paper in the journalNature Climate Changereported that in 2012 Indonesia deforested virtually twice as much land as Brazil , which until lately was destroying its forests quicker than any other state .
The exponential growth of palm oil plantations is to a large degree an unintended import of economics , and food and energy policies elsewhere in the world .
“ There presently are n’t great choice to ribbon oil color . ” — Rhett ButlerIn 2006 U.S. food label , under mandate from the Food and Drug Administration , began listing “ trans fats ” because they increase risk of spunk disease . That led to a rapid increase in the utilization of tropical oils that are n’t trans fats , particularly decoration . The television Dr. Dr. Oz promoted palm crude oil ’s benefits to the pump and wit , helping drive a sixfold increment in uptake in the United States since 2000 .
In Europe , exertion to avoid genetically modified foods push palm tree , which is so plentiful it has n’t yet drawn much interest from genetic tinkerers . In China and India , the growing halfway classes ’ hunger for high - grade food crude oil can currently be satisfied only by palm .
The microphone boom is fueled by what we drive , too . The increasing pursuit in biofuels is supersede the environmental damage link up with crude oil with the destruction laurel wreath product impose on tropic forests and the climate .
Some of the consequences of palm crude oil production , including disforestation and habitat destruction , have led to consumer boycotts . But such actions increase the demand for oil colour crop that are even more destructive to forests and the climate .
“ There currently are n’t large choice to palm oil colour , ” Rhett Butler , the father of the rainforest reportage and research situation Mongabay , write in an email . “ If the end is to meet growing global demand for edible oils , palm oil color provides the most fossil oil volume for a give patch of earth . If one were to or else grow coconut or rapeseed , more estate would be postulate to produce the same amount of oil . ”
Promising Alternative
As demand for alternatives grows , however , that could change . In fact , one promise alternative oil colour to palm requires no land at all . The microalgae ’s versatility makes them a good competition with palm as a source of oil .
Solazyme , a California company , practice microalgae to produce oils for biodiesel that have already power United Airlines jets and U.S. Navy ship . It ’s expanded into oils for soaps , cosmetics and foods , which have higher profit margins than fuels . Last year consumer mathematical product powerhouse Unilever announced plan to use 3 million gallons of Solazyme ’s algal oil colour instead of laurel wreath in an exertion to lower its environmental impact .
“ Think beer , ” Jill Kauffman Johnson , the company ’s director of sustainability , enounce , discover the ad valorem tax in which Solazyme produce its algae . “ A plant in Illinois is actually in a former Pabst Blue Ribbon plant life . ”
Microalgae cultivated by California - based Solazyme show promise as a source of palm fossil oil backup man . Photo good manners of Solazyme .
“ We can make a center - healthy mellow oleic rock oil . The next day you put in a unlike strain and you may produce a sustainable choice to medallion or palm kernel oil color , ” she says . “ It ’s engender the small level of polyunsaturated fats of any oil on the market , no trans fats and ( grows ) in a thing of day , not month in the athletic field . ”
The microalgae ’s versatility makes them a good competition with palm as a beginning of rock oil .
“ Our goal is to try and help oneself alleviate the pressure on the equatorial tropics , ” Kauffman Johnson say . Since Solazyme ’s algae grow wherever the company places its army tank , Solazyme can site its plants where they are most convenient to client , spouse and feedstocks , thus bowdlerise supplying chemical chain . Cellulosic feed in such as switchgrass also minimize environmental impingement . The company just opened a 100,000 - metric - ton plant in Brazil that apply sugarcane .
“ Our engineering is capable of ramping up very quickly , ” Kauffman Johnson suppose .
Nonetheless , consumer tastes and farming economics are slow to embrace alga - based oils , so it will in all probability take twelvemonth for these oils to replace more than a few drops in the alluvion of palm oil .
Doing Palm Better
A more immediate solvent , Butler say , is clean up the palm manufacture .
“ Establishing policies and best practice that forfend changeover of timberland is something that companies can get behind , ” he says . “ There has been a groundswell of zero - deforestation commitments from buyers and manufacturer in recent month . ”
Philip Taylor , a postdoctoral bookman at the University of Colorado ’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research who work with Townsend and has done blanket enquiry in the tropical zone , suppose most laurel wreath plantations do n’t create the take they are up to of .
Incentivizing the transfer of productivity - boosting knowledge among palm tree producers could make each hectare of plantation as fat as potential . “There are crowing crack between what ’s being achieve and what ’s possible , ” he say . “ aright now the average fruit in Malaysia and Indonesia is 18 ½ tons of overbold fruit bunches per hectare . In places with the respectable management practice , they ’re already engender 30 tons per hectare . ”
production of laurel wreath yield , Taylor note , have been moribund since 1975 , while in that same time , soy productivity has improved almost 100 percent .
“ Some of it is knowledge base , ” he says . “ The right seeds in the right places , the right plant food at the right metre . ”
Incentivizing the transfer of productivity - boosting cognition among palm producers could make each hectare of plantation as productive as potential . But the Union of Concerned Scientists , in its reportRecipes for Success , notice that the increase profit that accompany improved fruit can spur further expansion of plantations . to boot , researchers from the UK and Singapore notice ina late essay in the journalSciencethat increased yields and palm tree crop more suitable for growing in unmanageable condition could lead to more land in Africa and Latin America being devote to palm — both of which have yet to see the volatile planting of palm that has happen in Southeast Asia . Therefore , improved fruit must be accompanied by hard-and-fast shelter of timberland . Indonesia has had a ban on disforestation since 2011 , but it ’s riddled with loopholes . TheRoundtable on Sustainable Palm Oilstarted certifying palm oil color that met environmental measure 10 years ago , but many of its members go on to cut down forests . Last summer ’s promises to intercept the destruction of forest from government , palm manufacturer and company that practice the oil show those efforts are strengthening .
“ You have to have a moratorium on deforestation , ” Taylor says , noting that the late commitments by companies like Wilmar and Golden Agri to terminate deforestation is a significant footstep in the proper counsel . “ These guy are a immense share of the palm industry , ” he says .
If all of the more than 1,000 decoration oil refineries worldwide turned their methane into electrical energy , it would reduce the climate impact of the operations 34 - fold . At the other ending of the yield chain , Taylor pointed to more low - hanging yield for reducing palm oil ’s environmental bell . Taylor ’s and Townsend ’s researchshows that the methane released from palm vegetable oil refineries account for more than one - third of the palm industry ’s encroachment on the climate , and a single pond of thenar refinery wastewater each year lay out clime - warming petrol tantamount to 22,000 car . That methane could be used to make electricity by simply covering the pool and placing a biogas generator beside it . If all of the more than 1,000 medal oil refineries worldwide turn their methane into electricity , it would slim down the climate impacts of the operations 34 - fold . Yet only 5 percent of the facilities do so .
In Indonesia , thenar manufactory and refineries already beget their own electricity by burning the fruit ’s solid wastefulness . They ’re commonly far from the power grid , and lack insurance and infrastructures to feed the electrical energy into it . But they could ship power to nearby villages .
“ That ’s being done by New Britain Palm and Musim Mas , ” Taylor says .
Indonesia ’s Sustainable Palm Oil initiative requires decoration military operation to begin developing biogas capture , which should speed more fellowship ’ adoption of the technology .
And the one C of vehicles involved in the nation ’s palm provision range of mountains could burn liquefied raw gas — a transportation fuel that ’s seeing rapid development elsewhere in Asia . In Riau Province , I passed neither a road nor an time of day that was n’t filled with bright yellow trucks load with crimson bunches of palm tree fruit . All of those vehicle could run on a garish and readily available fuel that would provide extra income to palm processors and palliate their clime impact .
“ It ’s go to happen in the next couple of years , ” Taylor tell .
But the coming years will also bring an increasingly edacious hungriness for ribbon oil . One manufacturer , Asian Plantations , estimates that global requirement for comestible crude will more than quadruplet by 2050 . Palm will cater nearly 60 percent of that demand .
So perhaps the most important growth in the hunting for palm tree oil alternatives is the sense of urgency .
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