Biofuel’s New Black Look

Alas, the ebb and flow of change towards renewable and so-called “green” biofuels has taken black marks. Globally, foodstuff prices increased 37% last year (over the 14% increase in 2006). Food tensions, shortages and riots have taken their toll in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Yemen and the list goes on… A stampede of cooking oil buyers, in China, left three people dead and thirty-one injured.

Enter palm oil… It takes 8 acres of soybeans to produce an equivalent amount of oil that palm oil trees can. It’s highly efficient – it’s only major competitor/rival for biofuel is sugar cane. The industry is exploding and supply can’t keep up. Add to that – it takes eight years for a palm oil tree to mature into an oil producing tree.

In recent years, the “zero trans fat” wave has hit America. And palm oil to the rescue. We, Earthacians, are straining the global food supply as we try to grow quickly. The United States has a long history of engineering itself out of disasters – but this time, it’s not just an engineering feet as there’s environmental consideration to consider.

It gets worse…

Last year, conversion of palm oil into fuel was a fast-growing source of demand, but in recent weeks, rising prices have thrown that business into turmoil.

Here on Malaysia’s eastern shore, a series of 45-foot-high green and gray storage tanks connect to a labyrinth of yellow and silver pipes. The gleaming new refinery has the capacity to turn 116,000 tons a year of palm oil into 110,000 tons of a fuel called biodiesel, as well as valuable byproducts like glycerin. Mission Biofuels, an Australian company, finished the refinery last month and is working on an even larger factory next door at the base of a jungle hillside.

But prices have spiked so much that the company cannot cover all its costs and has idled the finished refinery while looking for a new strategy, such as asking a biodiesel buyer to pay a price linked to palm oil costs, and someday switching from palm oil to jatropha, a roadside weed.

This, I fear, is the beginning of what’s to come. For me, it’s a personal choice to eat less meat, use less edible oil, drive economically, etc. But for some in other countries, it’s no longer a choice. Black markets for edible oil have already shown up and families are cutting back on weekly food consumption. Don’t get me wrong, change needs to happen. If we don’t regulate ourselves, mother nature is more than happy to do so for us (although, that is the more painful option).

This is not a case against alternative fuels – this is a clear example of the care and planning necessary for future fuels. A hint: ensure global infratructure can handle the demand of a hungry global economy.

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Tagged as: Alternative Fuel, Biofuel, Food Supply