Plantations

Biofuels by Country

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:24:00 +0000

Biofuels by country

Recognizing the importance of implementing bioenergy, there are international organizations such as IEA Bioenergy, established in 1978 by the OECD International Energy Agency (IEA), with the aim of improving cooperation and information exchange between countries that have national programs in bioenergy research, development and deployment. The U.N. International Biofuels Forum is formed by Brazil, China, India, South Africa, the United States and the European Commission. The world leaders in biofuel development and use are Brazil, United States, France, Sweden and Germany.

Israel

IC Green Energy, a subsidiary of Israel Corp., aims by 2012 to process 4-5% of the global biofuel market (~4 million tons). It is focused solely on non-edible feedstock such as Jatropha, Castor, cellulosic biomass and algae.[27] In June 2008, Tel Aviv-based Seambiotic and Seattle-based Inventure Chemical announced a joint venture to use CO2 emissions-fed algae to make ethanol and biodiesel at a biofuel plant in Israel.

China

In China, the government is making E10 blends mandatory in five provinces that account for 16% of the nation's passenger cars. In Southeast Asia, Thailand has mandated an ambitious 10% ethanol mix in gasoline starting in 2007. For similar reasons, the palm oil industry plans to supply an increasing portion of national diesel fuel requirements in Malaysia and Indonesia. In Canada, the government aims for 45% of the country’s gasoline consumption to contain 10% ethanol by 2010.

India
Biofuels in India

In India, a bioethanol program calls for E5 blends throughout most of the country targeting to raise this requirement to E10 and then E20.

Europe

The European Union in its biofuels directive (updated 2006) has set the goal that for 2010 that each member state should achieve at least 5.75% biofuel usage of all used traffic fuel. By 2020 the figure should be 10%. As of January 2008 these aims are being reconsidered in light of certain environmental and social concerns associated with biofuels such as rising food prices and deforestation.

France

France is the second largest biofuel consumer among the EU States in 2006. According to the Ministry of Industry, France's consumption increased by 62.7% to reach 682,000 toe (i.e. 1.6% of French fuel consumption). Biodiesel represents the largest share of this (78%, far ahead of bioethanol with 22%). The unquestionable biodiesel leader in Europe is the French company Diester Industrie. In bioethanol, the French agro-industrial group Téréos is increasing its production capacities. Germany itself remained the largest European biofuel consumer, with a consumption estimate of 2.8 million tons of biodiesel (equivalent to 2,408,000 toe), 0.71 million ton of vegetable oil (628.492 toe) and 0.48 million ton of bioethanol (307,200 toe).

Germany

The biggest biodiesel German company is ADM Ölmühle Hamburg AG, which is a subsidiary of the American group Archer Daniels Midland Company. Among the other large German producers, MUW (Mitteldeutsche Umesterungswerke GmbH & Co KG) and EOP Biodiesel AG. A major contender in terms of bioethanol production is the German sugar corporation, Südzucker.

Spain

The Spanish group Abengoa, via its American subsidiary Abengoa Bioenergy, is the European leader in production of bioethanol.

Sweden
Biofuel in Sweden

The government in Sweden has together with BIL Sweden, the national association for the automobile industry, that are the automakers in Sweden started the work to end oil dependency. One-fifth of cars in Stockholm can run on alternative fuels, mostly ethanol fuel. Also Stockholm will introduce a fleet of Swedish-made hybrid ethanol-electric buses. In 2005, oil phase-out in Sweden by 2020 was announced.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) (announced 2005) is the requirement that by 2010 5% of all road vehicle fuel is renewable. In 2008 a critical report by the Royal Society stated that biofuels risk failing to deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transport and could even be environmentally damaging unless the Government puts the right policies in place.

Brazil
Biofuel in Brazil

In Brazil, the government hopes to build on the success of the Proálcool ethanol program by expanding the production of biodiesel which must contain 2% biodiesel by 2008, increasing to 5% by 2013.

Colombia

Colombia mandates the use of 10% ethanol in all gasoline sold in cities with populations exceeding 500,000. In Venezuela, the state oil company is supporting the construction of 15 sugar cane distilleries over the next five years, as the government introduces a E10 (10% ethanol) blending mandate.

USA
Biofuel in the United States

In 2006, the United States president George W. Bush said in a State of the Union speech that the US is "addicted to oil" and should replace 75% of imported oil by 2025 by alternative sources of energy including biofuels.

Bioalcohol

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Biologically produced alcohols, most commonly ethanol, and less commonly propanol and butanol, are produced by the action of microorganisms and enzymes through the fermentation of sugars or starches (easiest), or cellulose (which is more difficult). Biobutanol (also called biogasoline) is often claimed to provide a direct replacement for gasoline, because it can be used directly in a gasoline engine (in a similar way to biodiesel in diesel engines).

Butanol is formed by ABE fermentation (acetone, butanol, ethanol) and experimental modifications of the process show potentially high net energy gains with butanol as the only liquid product. Butanol will produce more energy and allegedly can be burned "straight" in existing gasoline engines (without modification to the engine or car), and is less corrosive and less water soluble than ethanol, and could be distributed via existing infrastructures. DuPont and BP are working together to help develop Butanol.

Ethanol fuel is the most common biofuel worldwide, particularly in Brazil. Alcohol fuels are produced by fermentation of sugars derived from wheat, corn, sugar beets, sugar cane, molasses and any sugar or starch that alcoholic beverages can be made from (like potato and fruit waste, etc.). The ethanol production methods used are enzyme digestion (to release sugars from stored starches, fermentation of the sugars, distillation and drying. The distillation process requires significant energy input for heat (often unsustainable natural gas fossil fuel, but cellulosic biomass such as bagasse, the waste left after sugar cane is pressed to extract its juice, can also be used more sustainably).

Ethanol can be used in petrol engines as a replacement for gasoline; it can be mixed with gasoline to any percentage. Most existing automobile petrol engines can run on blends of up to 15% bioethanol with petroleum/gasoline. Gasoline with ethanol added has higher octane, which means that your engine can typically burn hotter and more efficiently. In high altitude (thin air) locations, some states mandate a mix of gasoline and ethanol as a winter oxidizer to reduce atmospheric pollution emissions.

Ethanol fuel has less BTU energy content, which means it takes more fuel (volume and mass) to go the same distance. More-expensive premium fuels contain less, or no, ethanol. In high-compression engines, less ethanol, slower-burning premium fuel is required to avoid harmful pre-ignition (knocking). Very-expensive aviation gasoline (Avgas) is 100 octane made from 100% petroleum. The high price of zero-ethanol Avgas does not include federal-and-state road-use taxes.

Ethanol is very corrosive to fuel systems, rubber hoses-and-gaskets, aluminum, and combustion chambers. It is therefore illegal to use fuels containing alcohol in aircraft (although at least one model of ethanol-powered aircraft has been developed, the Embraer EMB 202 Ipanema). Ethanol is incompatible with marine fiberglass fuel tanks (it makes them leak). For higher ethanol percentage blends, and 100% ethanol vehicles, engine modifications are required.

Corrosive ethanol cannot be transported in petroleum pipelines, so more-expensive over-the-road stainless-steel tank trucks increase the cost and energy consumption required to deliver ethanol to the customer at the pump.

In the current alcohol-from-corn production model in the United States, considering the total energy consumed by farm equipment, cultivation, planting, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides made from petroleum, irrigation systems, harvesting, transport of feedstock to processing plants, fermentation, distillation, drying, transport to fuel terminals and retail pumps, and lower ethanol fuel energy content, the net energy content value added and delivered to consumers is very small. And, the net benefit (all things considered) does little to reduce un-sustainable imported oil and fossil fuels required to produce the ethanol.

Many car manufacturers are now producing flexible-fuel vehicles (FFV's), which can safely run on any combination of bioethanol and petrol, up to 100% bioethanol. They dynamically sense exhaust oxygen content, and adjust the engine's computer systems, spark, and fuel injection accordingly. This adds initial cost and ongoing increased vehicle maintenance. Efficiency falls and pollution emissions increase when FFV system maintenance is needed (regardless of the 0%-to-100% ethanol mix being used), but not performed (as with all vehicles). FFV internal combustion engines are becoming increasingly complex, as are multiple-propulsion-system FFV hybrid vehicles, which impacts cost, maintenance, reliability, and useful lifetime longevity.

Alcohol mixes with both petroleum and with water, so ethanol fuels are often diluted after the drying process by absorbing environmental moisture from the atmosphere. Water in alcohol-mix fuels reduces efficiency, makes engines harder to start, causes intermittent operation (sputtering), and oxidizes aluminum (carburetors) and steel components (rust).

Even dry ethanol has roughly one-third lower energy content per unit of volume compared to gasoline, so larger / heavier fuel tanks are required to travel the same distance, or more fuel stops are required. With large current un-sustainable, non-scalable subsidies, ethanol fuel still costs much more per unit of distance traveled than current high gasoline prices in the United States.

Methanol is currently produced from natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel. It can also be produced from biomass as biomethanol. The methanol economy is an interesting alternative to the hydrogen economy, compared to today's hydrogen produced from natural gas, but not hydrogen production directly from water and state-of-the-art clean solar thermal energy processes.

Biodiesel (3)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:46:00 +0000

PROCESS TECHNOLOGY

Designed for Versatility

Put our versatile, robust biodiesel technology at the heart of your enterprise to produce consistently high quality fuel at a competitive price. Since 1996 we have provided our customers with efficient and appropriately scaled technology to convert a multitude of fats, oils and greases, virgin and waste, into 100% high quality ASTM specification biodiesel. Our combination of real world production experience and robust process technology have made us a premier provider of biodiesel process systems and equipment to companies seeking to weather the ups and downs of volatile feedstock and fuel markets, while delivering the quality and consistency their customers demand. Get acquainted with the complete set of technology features and benefits only Pacific Bidodiesel offers to ensure success for your biodiesel enterprise.

Proven Experience for a Competitive Edge

The greening of America and rising petroleum costs are spurring rapid growth for the biodiesel industry. As your proven partner, Pacific Biodiesel not only assures successful establishment of your operation, but gives you a competitive edge. Our decade of experience building and operating biodiesel plants insures that we will design and build for you the right size plant, with the right equipment, installed and brought on line on time and within budget. Since 1996, Pacific Biodiesel has owned and operated biodiesel plants utilizing multiple feedstocks including used cooking oil, yellow grease, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil, and tallow. From the beginning, we have shared our technology and experience with customers in the United States and abroad. Our participation ranges from providing basic process systems to delivering turn-key biodiesel production facilities complete with management oversight and ongoing operational support. No other technology provider in the industry delivers this range of services, equipment, or support. The competence behind our commitment to plant owners and operators is firmly rooted in our own operational experience.

Water-free Processing for State-of-the-Art Technology

Through extensive research, Pacific Biodiesel Technologies has developed a unique biodiesel refining technology that uses no water and provides consistently high fuel quality. Our dry refining process is superior to water wash and ion exchange resin processes in both cost and efficiency at removing a multitude of trace contaminants which can negatively affect oxidative stability and cold weather performance. This process is standard in our biodiesel systems, and can be retrofit to any existing biodiesel plant.

Multi-Feedstock Flexibility for Changing Markets

To maximize profitability, biodiesel plants must be able to respond to market fluctuations in the price and availability of various feedstocks, with the flexibility to quickly transition from one feedstock to another. We provide a robust and adaptable process technology to meet these goals. Other plant manufacturers claim “multi-feedstock capability,” but glaze over the critical details such as specifying which feedstocks are supported, in what proportions, and what are the resulting yields. Some companies will claim that used oils and greases can be used in their process, but they employ inappropriate process chemistry that can result in losses in efficiency that can exceed 30%. Pacific Biodiesel’s unique reaction technologies allow the use of up to 15% FFA feedstock without loss of yield. Our process is also designed to handle contaminants commonly found in used and unrefined oils and fats, but which competitors fail to mention as diminishing production factors.These include moisture, insoluble and inorganic impurities, excess unsaponifiable matter, and phospholipids. We have been processing used and unrefined oils and fats for more than a decade. No one provides more robust solutions for using multiple feedstocks to adapt to challenging market changes.

Superior Fuel Quality for End-user Satisfaction

We guarantee that our process plants will meet ASTM standards using a multitude of feedstocks. Pacific Biodiesel’s robust process chemistry and three-stage product refining produce a fuel with quality that is second to none. Our multi-stage reaction efficiently converts fatty acids and glycerides to methyl esters, while our vacuum distillation and dry refining steps remove trace amounts of water, methanol and minor impurities to yield a fuel with exceptional quality and a long shelf life.

Quality Equipment for the Long Haul

As producers, we understand the importance of avoiding downtime to make repairs. In biodiesel production, Inferior equipment is the primary cause. Our process equipment is constructed of stainless steel and with specially design elastomers for superior longevity and lower maintenance costs. The quality of our equipment in materials and manufacturing is backed by a blanket one-year warranty, with a five-year warranty on all process vessels. Extended warrantees are also available. One of the biggest mistakes a producer can make is choosing equipment that was not designed or built for a long service life under rigorous conditions. The use of low grade materials, including plastic vessel and pipe, not only falls short of profitable performance, but is unsafe. The use of lower quality components and wear parts in competitors’ systems ignore the long-term maintenance and replacement costs.

Designed for Safety

Careful attention to safe operating practices is pervasive in the design of Pacific Biodiesel Technologies equipment. We apply the principles of intrinsically safe design whenever possible, and closely follow NFPA, ASME, and UL codes for all vessels, piping systems and electrical equipment. Pacific Biodiesel Technologies is committed to designing, engineering, and fabricating systems that enhance the safety and ergonomics of its biodiesel plants.

High Yield Efficiency for the Bottom Line

By employing precise reaction chemistry and proprietary ester and byproduct refining technologies, our process delivers the highest possible yield from any feedstock used. Many technology providers skirt the issue of yield losses inherent to traditional process chemistry, particularly the lack of proper equipment to treat and recover crude ester and byproduct streams. Our process is designed to recycle every drop of feedstock diverted in the production process and sized to ensure consistent output even through feedstock transitions.

Complete Methanol Recovery for Reduced Costs

A comprehensive approach to methanol recovery is essential to ensuring a competitive edge. Some technology providers claim to offer methanol recovery technology, but limit the process to recycling methanol from the biodiesel refining step, while the crude byproducts (glycerin) remain untreated. Their process actually results in a loss of methanol and produces a hazardous waste stream. Other biodiesel producers have turned to “off the shelf” distillation units, or to suppliers of methanol recovery equipment to other industries, often with poor results. Pacific Biodiesel Technologies’ process equipment recovers all excess methanol, and is specifically designed for the biodiesel production process. Careful attention is paid to specifying equipment and creating conditions that maintain high product quality during evaporation and distillation. The use of our three-step recovery system keeps methanol consumption to the theoretical minimum while producing high quality co-products.

85% Glycerin Purity for Increased Revenue

Pacific Biodiesel Technologies’ proprietary byproduct refining technology allows the recovery of 85%+ pure glycerin from the crude byproduct stream. The resulting glycerin is suitable for use as animal feed, is upgradeable to USP quality, or can be used in a multitude of other areas. Also, recycling excess methanol and feedstock residues into the process improves yield and lowers operating costs.

Reduced Environmental Footprint for Sustainability

A small environmental footprint is an essential aspect of a sustainable biodiesel facility. Our processes come standard with vapor recovery to eliminate fugitive emissions. The use of our proprietary dry refining process eliminates the use of water and creates a non-hazardous solid from product impurities. Methanol recovery from all process streams keeps methanol consumption to a minimum. Our facilities may be equipped with state-of-the-art cooling tower and boiler water treatment options to eliminate chemical use in these areas, also.

referense biodiesel.com

Biodiesel (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:35:00 +0000

WHAT IS BIODIESEL

Biodiesel is a clean burning renewable fuel made using natural vegetable oils and fats.
Biodiesel is made through a chemical process which converts oils and fats of natural origin into fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). Biodiesel IS NOT vegetable oil.
Biodiesel is intended to be used as a replacement for petroleum diesel fuel, or can be blended with petroleum diesel fuel in any proportion.
Biodiesel does not require modifications to a diesel engine to be used.
Biodiesel has reduced exhaust emissions compared to petroleum diesel fuel.
Biodiesel has lower toxicity compared to petroleum diesel fuel.
Biodiesel is safer to handle compared to petroleum diesel fuel.
Biodiesel quality is governed by ASTM D 6751 quality parameters.
Biodiesel is biodegradable.

What is NOT Biodiesel

Look Carefully! Many companies and groups improperly use the word biodiesel to describe diesel fuel replacement products they have developed. This creates significant confusion for consumers looking to purchase and use biodiesel. Some of these alternatives have not been properly tested and could lead to damage to vehicles. Below is some information to help distinguish real biodiesel from imposters.
What biodiesel IS NOT:

Biodiesel is not vegetable oil.
Biodiesel is not vegetable oil diluted with solvents, i.e. diesel fuel or alcohols.
Biodiesel is not vegetable oil with “special additives” to make it run better.
Biodiesel is not vegetable oil refined through a conventional oil refinery process.
Biodiesel is not vegetable oil refined through thermal depolymerization (renewable diesel).
Biodiesel is not a fuel that requires costly modifications to your diesel engine (straight vegetable oil).
Biodiesel is not crude methyl esters which have not been refined or minimally refined.

Unlike biodiesel, none of the fluids listed above have undergone renewable fuel certification, emissions or toxicity testing, or long-term reliability testing in engines and vehicles.

How to Make Sure You are Getting Biodiesel

In order to be called biodiesel and receive certain tax credits specifically intended for biodiesel:

Biodiesel must be produced from naturally occurring fats and oils using transesterification.
Biodiesel must be composed of fatty acid methyl esters.
Biodiesel must be refined to remove all trace impurities.
Biodiesel must meet the ASTM standard D6751-07b “Specification for Biodiesel (B100)”.

If a fuel product does not meet these requirements it IS NOT biodiesel, and does not quality for tax credits relating to biodiesel. The most important thing to ask your fuel provider is if the biodiesel is ASTM certified.

Biodiesel (1)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:16:00 +0000

HISTORY OF BIODIESEL FUEL

Developed in the 1890s by inventor Rudolph Diesel, the diesel engine has become the engine of choice for power, reliability, and high fuel economy, worldwide. Early experimenters on vegetable oil fuels included the French government and Dr. Diesel himself, who envisioned that pure vegetable oils could power early diesel engines for agriculture in remote areas of the world, where petroleum was not available at the time. Modern biodiesel fuel, which is made by converting vegetable oils into compounds called fatty acid methyl esters, has its roots in research conducted in the 1930s in Belgium, but today’s biodiesel industry was not established in Europe until the late 1980s.

The diesel engine was developed out of a desire to improve upon inefficient, cumbersome and sometimes dangerous steam engines of the late 1800s. The diesel engine works on the principal of compression ignition, in which fuel is injected into the engine’s cylinder after air has been compressed to a high pressure and temperature. As the fuel enters the cylinder it self-ignites and burns rapidly, forcing the piston back down and converting the chemical energy in the fuel into mechanical energy. Dr. Rudolph Diesel, for which the engine is named, holds the first patent for the compression ignition engine, issued in 1893. Diesel became known worldwide for his innovative engine which could use a variety of fuels.

Early Work

The early diesel engines had complex injection systems and were designed to run on many different fuels, from kerosene to coal dust. It was only a matter of time before someone recognized that, because of their high energy content, vegetable oils would make excellent fuel. The first public demonstration of vegetable oil based diesel fuel was at the 1900 World’s Fair, when the French government commissioned the Otto company to build a diesel engine to run on peanut oil. The French government was interested in vegetable oils as a domestic fuel for their African colonies. Rudolph Diesel later did extensive work on vegetable oil fuels and became a leading proponent of such a concept, believing that farmers could benefit from providing their own fuel. However, it would take almost a century before such an idea became a widespread reality. Shortly after Dr. Diesel’s death in 1913 petroleum became widely available in a variety of forms, including the class of fuel we know today as “diesel fuel”. With petroleum being available and cheap, the diesel engine design was changed to match the properties of petroleum diesel fuel. The result was an engine which was fuel efficient and very powerful. For the next 80 years diesel engines would become the industry standard where power, economy and reliability are required.

Modern Engine, Modern Fuel

Due to the widespread availability and low cost of petroleum diesel fuel, vegetable oil-based fuels gained little attention, except in times of high oil prices and shortages. World War II and the oil crises of the 1970’s saw brief interest in using vegetable oils to fuel diesel engines. Unfortunately, the newer diesel engine designs could not run on traditional vegetable oils, due to the much higher viscosity of vegetable oil compared to petroleum diesel fuel. A way was needed to lower the viscosity of vegetable oils to a point where they could be burned properly in the diesel engine. Many methods have been proposed to perform this task, including pyrolysis, blending with solvents, and even emulsifying the fuel with water or alcohols, none of which have provided a suitable solution. It was a Belgian inventor in 1937 who first proposed using transesterification to convert vegetable oils into fatty acid alkyl esters and use them as a diesel fuel replacement. The process of transesterification converts vegetable oil into three smaller molecules which are much less viscous and easy to burn in a diesel engine. The transesterification reaction is the basis for the production of modern biodiesel, which is the trade name for fatty acid methyl esters. In the early 1980s concerns over the environment, energy security, and agricultural overproduction once again brought the use of vegetable oils to the forefront, this time with transesterification as the preferred method of producing such fuel replacements.

Biodiesel Goes Worldwide

Pioneering work in Europe and South Africa by researchers such as Martin Mittelbach furthered development of the biodiesel fuel industry in the early 1990s, with the U.S. industry coming on more slowly, due to lower prices for petroleum diesel. Pacific Biodiesel became one of the first biodiesel plants in the United States in 1996, establishing a biodiesel production operation to recycle used cooking oil into biodiesel on the island Maui in Hawaii. The biodiesel industry became a household name in the U.S. after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 resulted in historically high oil prices and an increased awareness of energy security. As of 2005, worldwide biodiesel production had reached 1.1 billion gallons, with most fuel being produced in the European Union, although biodiesel projects worldwide have been on the rise due to rising crude oil prices and concerns over global warming.

The Future of Biodiesel Fuel

Due to its clean emissions profile, ease of use, and many other benefits, biodiesel is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing alternative fuels in the world. With minimal subsidy biodiesel is cost competitive with petroleum diesel, and millions of users have found and enjoyed the benefits of the fuel. The future of biodiesel lies in the world’s ability to produce renewable feedstocks such as vegetable oils and fats to keep the cost of biodiesel competitive with petroleum, without supplanting land necessary for food production, or destroying natural ecosystems in the process. Creating biodiesel in a sustainable manner, will allow this clean, renewable, and cost effective fuel to help ease the world through increasing shortages of petroleum, while providing economic and environmental benefits well into the 21st century.

Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (PKO) (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:08:00 +0000

Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (PKO). The Company’s own plantations provide approximately 20% of the fruit processed by three Univanich factories, with the balance provided by more than 1,000 small and medium sized out-grower farmers.

The Univanich production process starts with our oil palm breeding programme and seed production unit. High quality hybrid oil palm seedlings are produced for our own plantings or for sale to our farmer suppliers. After careful selection in the Company’s nurseries, seedlings are ready for planting at around the age of 10 to 12 months.

Univanich hybrid oil palm seed is produced by cross pollinating pedigree Dura and Pisifera parent palms which have been collected over 30 years from leading breeding programmes around the world. To ensure high yields in Thailand’s growing conditions the progeny of these parent palms have been extensively tested in field trials to select the best hybrid crosses.

Germinated Univanich oil palm seeds for overseas customers are carefully packaged in cartons of 4,000 seeds each and are dispatched by airfreight from Phuket international airport.

Since 1992 Univanich has been progressively replanting with a new generation of high yielding palms. Pictured here are typical 18 month old Univanich oil palms. Harvesting will commence 28 months from planting.

By age 7 years the young palms have reached full maturity. Fruit bunches like these ripen and are harvested throughout the year, to provide a continuous supply of fruit.

Mechanisation features throughout the Univanich plantation operations, from collection of the fruit bunches in the field, to their transport to the factories by crane lorries or portable transport bins.

The Company’s newest factory, with initial capacity of 45 tonnes fruit per hour, was completed in the 4th Quarter of 2004. This factory is designed for expansion to 90 tonnes of fruit per hour as more young palms come into production in the Krabi area.
In 2005, the Company also increased its Palm Kernel crushing capacity to produce approximately 1,500 tonnes of palm kernel oil each month.

Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (PKO) is despatched from Univanich factories by road tankers. These tankers deliver our products to customers in Bangkok or for export from our deep-water wharf at the nearby port of Krabi on the Andaman Sea.

Univanich is proud to be a supplier of raw materials to leading international manufacturers of a wide range of palm based products, including cooking oils, margarines, snack foods, dairy substitutes, soaps and cosmetics.

Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and Palm Kernel Oil (PKO) (1)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:54:00 +0000

"We turned our kitchen into a sort of illicit still and made a hell of a mess in there brewing biodiesel fuel out of about 60 litres of yukky waste cooking oil we got from behind McDonald's one night (they were happy to give it to us once we told them we didn't want to eat it). We were sure it would work, but we had to make it ourselves first -- we're not chemists, and if we can make it anyone can.

"And it works! Amazing! Last night we put the stuff in Midori's old diesel Land Rover and it ran like a dream and smelt like a bunch of roses! Well, French fried roses anyway. Now it runs clean, on waste Big Mac residues we brewed up in a bucket in the kitchen, and we're very tickled!"

Biodiesel facts
Biodiesel is much cleaner than fossil-fuel diesel ("dinodiesel"). It can be used in any diesel engine with no need for modifications -- in fact diesel engines run better and last longer with biodiesel. And it can easily be made from a common waste product -- used cooking oil.

Biodiesel burns up to 75% cleaner than conventional petroleum diesel fuel.
Biodiesel reduces unburned hydrocarbons (-93%), carbon monoxide (-50%) and particulate matter (-30%) in exhaust fumes, as well as cancer-causing PAH (-80%) and nitrited PAH compounds (-90%). (US Environmental Protection Agency)
Sulphur dioxide emissions are eliminated (biodiesel contains no sulphur).
Biodiesel is plant-based and using it adds no extra CO2 to the atmosphere.
The ozone-forming (smog) potential of biodiesel emissions is nearly 50% less than petro-diesel emissions.
Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions may increase or decrease but can be reduced to well below petro-diesel fuel levels.
Biodiesel exhaust is not offensive and doesn't cause eye irritation (it smells like French fries!).
Biodiesel is environmentally friendly: it is renewable, "more biodegradable than sugar and less toxic than table salt" (US National Biodiesel Board, based on US Environmental Protection Agency studies).
Biodiesel is a much better lubricant than petro-diesel and extends engine life -- even a small amount of biodiesel means cleaner emissions and better engine lubrication: 1% biodiesel added to petro-diesel will increase lubricity by 65%.
Biodiesel can be mixed with petro-diesel in any proportion, with no need for a mixing additive.
Biodiesel has a higher cetane number than petroleum diesel because of its oxygen content. The higher the cetane number, the more efficient the fuel -- the engine starts more easily, runs better and burns cleaner.
With slight variations depending on the vehicle, performance and fuel economy with biodiesel is the same as with petro-diesel.

Palm Oil (4)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:34:00 +0000

The palm oil industry is not only popular in the discourse of biofuels, but it is also economically lucrative.

In Indonesia alone the industry covers 17 provinces, employing about 2 million workers. The industry has generated an income amounting to Rp 7.779 million.

However, while examining the situation at the grassroots level, the effect is to the contrary, rather than improving it is victimizing.

Millions of hectares of tropical forests have been burned to make way for oil palm plantations; an annual haze is being experienced by people living in the vicinity. According to Sawit Watch, Indonesia has increased its palm estates to 7.3 million hectares and is planning to expand the area by a further 20 million hectares -- an area the size of England, the Netherlands and Switzerland combined.

Moreover, the industry is also notoriously known as the cause of local conflicts. In January 2008, Sawit Watch monitored 513 conflicts between communities and companies. Some of these conflicts can be traced back to earlier land disputes. Mostly, they are over land rights, but other disputes arise over compensation, unmet promises and smallholding arrangements.

The industry has also caused displacement, homelessness and morbidity. In Aceh, 360,000 people were displaced from their homes and 70 died as a result of floods in 2006, which have been a common problem in the region since oil palm plantations arrived.

At the grassroots level, regardless of how important the palm oil is for biodiesel production, the rising price does not affect peasants' income. Their salaries remain determined by the regional minimum wage scheme. In the case of North Barito, Central Kalimantan, one of the prominent palm oil plantations, it is only Rp. 876,536, an unreasonable amount compared to the selling price of crude palm oil, which was US$1135 per metric ton on Jan. 15, 2008.

Ideally, development should imply a structural improvement to people's ability to sustain their daily livelihoods. Indeed, not only are economies to be uplifted, but the people themselves. Thus, both living standards and capabilities of those living at the grassroots should increase.

When designing a policy, a primary concern should be how to protect those affected by the consequences and, in particular, how to secure their entitlements within the execution of development policies. It is here we touch upon internationally accepted human rights standards and procedures. Human rights pertaining to each and every human being constitutes a necessity for protecting people against hazards.

When combating hazards caused by the palm oil industry, one can refer to the United Nations' Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by the General Assembly in 1986. The declaration defines the right to development as an inalienable human right by virtue. Accordingly, every human and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development so that all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.

Obviously, development is seen here as a process that encompasses economic, social, cultural and political aspects. This implies a structural uplifting of welfare and well-being, affecting not just infrastructure, but also human beings.

The declaration regards those affected by development policies as right-holders who have to be protected against losing their entitlements, a common situation in development hazards. Accordingly, the right to development requires adopting favorable measures for development beneficiaries in the development process and for development victims to seek claims for compensation from development hazards.

The Indonesian government is responsible for implementing the right to development. However, rather than eradicating the hazard, they continues to comply with other interests rather than people. There are no appropriate measures allocated to deal with homelessness, degradation of health, morbidity or social conflict.

Instead the government recently adopted a forestry law, which provides a broad license for companies to exploit protected forests as long as they are willing to pay annual rental fees ranging between Rp 1.2 million (US$125) and Rp 3 million per hectare. Notably, the law prioritizes companies over people, who are now more vulnerable to development hazards.

In the case of the palm oil industry, the Indonesian government not only denies access to compensation, but also fails to protect and respect peoples' entitlements by not taking actions to eradicate the hazards and adopting disincentive regulations.

Using human rights to combat hazards caused by the palm oil industry entails protecting people during the process and ensuring fairness in development distribution. From the peoples' perspective, this grants opportunities for legitimate claims addressing correlated obligations or duties. Thus, it stresses the opportunity to seek remedies and compensation in the case of development hazards.

Palm Oil (3)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:31:00 +0000

Millions of hectares of forest on Borneo are at risk if the government proceeds with a plan to open the world's largest palm oil plantation on the island, environmental activists said.

""This plan endangers many crucial areas: the forests, the rivers and especially, the rich biodiversity in Kalimantan's forest,"" said Purwo Susanto, World Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) official for conservation initiatives in Kalimantan during a recent media trip to West Kalimantan.

Purwo said that as oil palm plantation companies used a clear-cut system to clear land, all trees in the designated areas would have to be cut down to allow the firms to carry out the plantation process. Such methods are accelerating the deforestation problem in this country.

Kalimantan, also known as Borneo, is the third largest island on the planet after Greenland and New Guinea, and it has a vast area of tropical rainforest, which is home to several near-extinct species, such as orangutans.

According to WWF data, Kalimantan, which has 27 million hectares of forests, has suffered from serious deforestation; at a rate of 1.2 million hectares annually, while the World Bank predicts that by 2010, all of Kalimantan's lowland forests will disappear if nothing is done to curb deforestation, which is mostly caused by illegal logging and shifting cultivation.

The government has announced a plan to set up one of the largest oil palm plantations in the world, as a follow-up to an agreement signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and China's Prime Minister Hu Jintao in an effort to boost trade and investment activities between the two countries.

The proposed scheme, to be funded by China, is expected to cover an area of 1.8 million hectares along the 850-kilometer Indonesia-Malaysia border in the northern areas of West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan provinces.

A document made available to The Jakarta Post showed that a consortium of state-owned plantation firms, PTPN I to PTPN XIV, proposes a 1-million hectare area in West Kalimantan and another 800,000 in East Kalimantan for the planned plantations.

It also says that the scheme is estimated to attract Rp 85.14 trillion (US$8.50 billion) worth of foreign investments and would provide jobs for 182,700 people.

However, the proposed plantation areas runs through two protected areas -- Betung Kerihun National Park in West Kalimantan and Kayan Mentarang National Park in East Kalimantan, which are home to some of Kalimantan's 44 endemic mammals and over 300 new-found species, as well as home for thousands of other rare species of plants.

According to the proposal, the area in West Kalimantan covers six regencies -- Sambas, Bengkayang, Sanggau, Landak, Sintang and Kapuas Hulu -- and three regencies in East Kalimantan -- Kutai Barat, Malinau and Nunukan.

""Most of the proposed area is mountainous region that holds huge tracts of forests where 14 of the 20 major rivers in Kalimantan originate from. If the trees there are gone, it would surely threaten the lives of animals in the lower area,"" Purwo said.

When asked about the plan, deputy regent of Kapuas Hulu regency, Yoseph Alexander, said his administration was still studying whether the proposed project would benefit his people and the local environment.

""Up to now, there hasn't been any formal discussion with the government, but we are analyzing whether the scheme is suitable as seven districts in our area are located 500 meters above sea level,"" he said, adding that oil palm trees might not produce well in such highland regions.

A study carried out last year by the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research, concluded that the 200 sites in Kalimantan were not suitable for the cultivation of palm oil or other major cash crops, such as pepper and coffee.

""As much as we want the government to develop the border area, we care more about conserving it. Moreover, we have declared our region a conservation regency since 2003, so we have to defend that status,"" Yoseph said.

Farmers and fishermen in the border area said they opposed the plans because it would threaten the local rivers, sources of their livelihood.

""Establishing these plantations will endanger our rivers. Fertilizer used to grow the palm trees will contaminate the rivers and the lakes.""

""Moreover, the border area is a water buffer zone, which is vital for the whole of Kalimantan,"" said Hermanus Riyanto, head of Labian Village, Kapuas Hulu regency, who catches fish for daily consumption.

Secretary-General of the Indigenous People's Alliance of West Kalimantan Mina Susana Setra said that local people and NGOs opposed the idea because the government did not involve the locals in the decision-making process.

""Oil palm plantations have also changed the life of the local people, the Dayaks. Learning from experience, after the plantations were set up, the Dayaks were inundated with consumerism, alcohol, gambling and prostitution. The government never calculated these affects in their economic calculation,"" she said at a discussion with the media in Pontianak, West Kalimantan.

A spokesperson for the West Kalimantan branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Yohannes R. Jemeli said that Walhi would launch a campaign to push the government to drop the planned project through national and international lobbying.

""Among other things, we will inform people of the danger of these plantations on the border area as well as lobbying European countries to refuse any kind of loans that will be used to invest in the planned plantation project,""

Palm Oil (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:27:00 +0000

Environmental group Greenpeace has echoed calls by consumer goods giant Unilever to impose a moratorium on deforestation in Indonesia in support for the company's pledge to purchase only certified sustainable palm oil.

Greenpeace also urged the country's palm oil plantations to use sustainable forest management methods and stop expanding into peatland forests.

"Unilever's calls for a moratorium on forest destruction in Indonesia should become an entry point for the government to stop the deforestation process," Greenpeace Southeast Asia political advisor Arif Wicaksono told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"The government has to take action to reverse deforestation by initiating a moratorium on logging and forest conversion."

Unilever has committed to using only palm oil from certified sustainable sources from the second half of this year.

The company said it would ensure the palm oil it used in Europe was also certified as sustainable by 2012.

"Now we need to take the next step," Unilever chief executive Patrick Cescau said in a statement in London on Thursday.

"Suppliers need to move to meet the criteria, by getting certified both the palm oil from their own plantations and the palm oil they buy from elsewhere."

Unilever is the world's biggest consumer of palm oil, which it uses in leading brands such as Dove, Persil and Flora.

The company's decision came after a Greenpeace campaign revealed Unilever's suppliers are actively destroying orangutan habitat and clearing Indonesia's peatlands and rain forests.

According to Greenpeace, destruction of peatland rain forests contributes 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions are considered the main contributor to climate change.

The environmental group also said about 1,600 orangutans were killed on palm oil plantations during 2006.

Arif said companies using palm oil and members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) should join forces with Unilever to stop ongoing forest destruction in Indonesia.

The RSPO is an initiative of an association of palm oil producers to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil.

"Even though the RSPO has existed since 2002, there is still no certified palm oil on the market," Greenpeace said.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono ordered governors to stop awarding new permits for the palm oil industry in peatlands last year. The order was issued as Indonesia hosted the climate change conference in Bali, which directed all countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

A 2006 report from Wetlands International found damage to Indonesia's peatlands resulted in 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, making the country the world's third largest emitter after the United States and China.

"But we have seen no changes since the minister's order. Many regents still grant permits to dig in peatland forests," Arif said.

"Greenpeace is not calling for an end to the palm oil industry but it is calling for an end to forest destruction."

Palm Oil (1)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Publicly listed PT Bakrie Sumatera Plantations plans to add 50,000 hectares to its oil palm plantation by 2010 with an investment of US$260 million.

"Thirty-million dollars will be financed by equity from Bakrie Sumatera's new subsidiary PT Bakrie Sentosa Persada (BSP), $80 million from an international consortium equities and the remainder with bank loans," president director Ambono Janurianto said Wednesday.

Bakrie Sumatera established the palm oil producer BSP in June 2007.

Ambono said the expansion area, located in Central Kalimantan and Riau, Sumatra, was expected to contribute a profit of $100 per hectare, totaling $5 million per annum.

Bakrie Sumatera now operates 87,415 hectares of plantation, with 67,745 hectares for oil palm and the rest for rubber.

Ambono said the holding company aimed to expand its plantation area to 200,000 hectares by 2011.

Bakrie Sumatera, the country's fifth-largest plantation owner by value, booked a 794 percent increase in its first quarter net profit to Rp 18.5 billion (US$1.99 million) over the same period last year.

"The year 2007 was really a great year for palm oil and natural rubber as prices surged to levels never reached before," said president commissioner Soedjai Kartasasmita.

In 2007, the world crude palm oil price reached $600 to $800 per ton up by 100 percent from 2006

Biofuels and bioproducts (2)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:38:00 +0000

History of Margarine

Although it has been around for over a century, margarine was not always the preferred tablespread in the U.S. In 1930, per capita consumption of margarine was only 2.6 pounds (vs. 17.6 pounds of butter). Times have changed for the better, though. Today, per capita consumption of margarine in the U.S. is 8.3 pounds (including vegetable oil spreads) whereas butter consumption is down to about 4.2 pounds. Research studies have shown that the shift within populations around the world - from the highly saturated fat content of butter to vegetable oil-based margarines - have contributed significantly to the reduced risk of heart disease. Check out the timeline below to learn more about the history or margarine.

1870

Margarine was created by a Frenchman from Provence, France -- Hippolyte Mège-Mouriez -- in response to an offer by the Emperor Louis Napoleon III for the production of a satisfactory substitute for butter. To formulate his entry, Mège-Mouriez used margaric acid, a fatty acid component isolated in 1813 by Michael Chevreul and named because of the lustrous pearly drops that reminded him of the Greek word for pearl -- margarites. From this word, Mège-Mouriez coined the name margarine for his invention that claimed the Emperor’s prize.

1873

An American patent was granted to Mège-Mouriez who intended to expand his French margarine factory and production to the United States. While demand for margarine was strong in northern Europe and the potential equally as promising in the U.S., Mège-Mouriez’s operations nevertheless failed and he died obscurely.

1878

Unilever began manufacturing margarine in Europe.

1871-73

The U. S. Dairy Company in New York City began production of “artificial butter.”

1877

State laws requiring identification of margarine were passed in New York and Maryland as the dairy industry began to feel the impact of this rapidly growing product

1881

Improvements to Mège-Mouriez’s formulation were made; U.S. Dairy created a subsidiary, the Commercial Manufacturing Company, to produce several million pounds annually of this new product.

1885

When a court voided a ban on margarine in New York, dairy militants turned their attention to Washington, resulting in Congressional passage of the Margarine Act of 1886. The Act imposed a tax of two cents per pound on margarine and required expensive licenses for manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of margarine. President Grover Cleveland, from the dairy state of New York, signed the law, describing it as a revenue measure. However, the 1886 law failed to slow the sale of margarine principally because it did not require identification of margarine at the point of sale and margarine adversaries turned their attention back to the states.

1886

More than 30 manufacturing facilities were reported to be engaged in the production of margarine. Among them were Armour and Company of Chicago and Lever Brothers of New York. Seventeen states required the product to be specifically identified as margarine. Various state laws to control margarine were passed in a number of states, but were not enforced. Later that year, New York and New Jersey prohibited the manufacture and sale of yellow-colored margarine.

1902

32 states and 80% of the U.S. population lived under margarine color bans. While the Supreme Court upheld such bans, it did strike down forced coloration (pink) which had begun in an effort to get around the ban on yellow coloring. During this period coloring in the home began, with purveyors providing capsules of food coloring to be kneaded into the margarine. This practice continued through World War II.

1902

Amendments to the Federal Margarine Act raised the tax on colored margarine five-fold, but decreased licensing fees for white margarine. But demand for colored margarine remained so strong, that bootleg colored margarine flourished.

1904

Margarine production suffered and consumption dropped from 120 million pounds in 1902 to 48 million.

1910

Intense pressure by competitors to keep prices low and new product innovations, as well as dairy price increases, returned production levels of margarine back to 130 million pounds. The Federal tax remained despite many efforts to repeal it, but consumption grew gradually in spite of it.

1920

With America’s entry into World War I, the country began to experience a fat shortage and a sharp increase in the cost of living, both factors in driving margarine consumption to an annual per capita level of 3.5 pounds.

1930

The Margarine Act was again amended to place the Federal tax on naturally-colored (darkened with the use of palm oil) as well as artificially-colored margarine. During the Depression dairy interests again prevailed upon the states to enact legislation equalizing butter and margarine prices. Consumers reacted and consumption of margarine dropped to an annual per capita level of 1.6 pounds.

1932

Besides Federal taxes and licenses, 27 states prohibited the manufacture or sale of colored margarine, 24 imposed some kind of consumer tax and 26 required licenses or otherwise restricted margarine sales. The Army, Navy and other Federal agencies were barred from using margarine for other than cooking purposes.

1941

Through production innovations, advertising and improved packaging, margarine consumption regained lost ground. A Federal standard was established recognizing margarine as a spread of its own kind. With raised awareness of margarine’s health benefits from a 1941 National Nutrition Conference, consumers began to take notice of restrictions on margarine that were keeping the product from them and artificially inflating the price.

1943

State taxes on margarine were repealed in Oklahoma. The courts removed color barriers in other states shortly after World War II.

1947

Residual war shortages of butter sent it to a dollar a pound and Margarine Act repeal legislation was offered from many politicians.

1950

Some of the more popular brands prior up until now were Cloverbloom, Mayflower, Mazola, Nucoa, Blue Plate, Mrs. Filbert’s, Parkay, Imperial, Good Luck, Nu-Maid, Farmbelle, Shedd’s Safflower, Churngold, Blue Bonnet, Fleischmann’s, Sunnyland and Table Maid.

1950

Margarine taxes and restrictions became the talk of the country. Finally, following a significant effort by the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers, President Truman signed the Margarine Act of 1950 on March 23 of that year.

1951

The Federal margarine tax system came to an end. Pre-colored margarine was enjoyed by a consumer also pleased with lower prices. Consumption almost doubled in the next twenty years. State color bans, taxes, licenses and other restrictions began to fall.

1960s

The first tub margarine and vegetable oil spreads were introduced to the American public

1967

Wisconsin became the last state to repeal restrictions on margarine.

1996

A bill introduced by Rep. Ed Whitfield would signal an end to the last piece of legislation that adversely affects the sale of margarine. Currently, federal law prohibits the retail sale of margarine in packages larger than one pound, as well as detailed requirements regarding the size and types of labeling of margarine and a color requirement. This new legislation would remove these restrictions from the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA). Rep. Whitfield’s bill, the Margarine Equity Act, is part of HR 3200, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reform package and addresses dated requirements that are not applicable to the marketplace.

1998

125th anniversary of the U.S. patent for margarine

Biofuels and bioproducts

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:30:00 +0000

Biofuels and bioproducts
Palm oil, like other vegetable oils, can be used to create biodiesel for internal combustion engines. Biodiesel has been promoted as a form of biomass that can be used as a renewable energy source to reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, biodiesel is seen as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect and as a way of diversifying energy supplies to assist national energy security plans. Scientists have found that biodiesel made from palm oil grown on sustainable non-forest land and from established plantations can effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, NGOs such as Greenpeace have concluded that the current "first generation" biodiesel extracted from new palm oil plantations may not be a genuine counter to global warming. If forests are cleared for palm plantations, and the wood is not used for bioenergy but burned, it may take decades before biodiesel from palm oil reduces as much carbon dioxide as the pristine forests originally sequestered in the form of carbon. However, if the wood is used for the production of bioenergy, the palm plantations as well as the biodiesel from palm oil starts to sequester and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the first year onwards.

Although palm oil has a comparatively high yield, the problems that organisations such as Greenpeace have linked to palm cultivation on newly-cleared plantations have encouraged research into alternative vegetable fuel oil sources with less potential for environmental damage, such as jatropha. Although palm requires less manual labor to harvest a given amount of oil than jatropha, the latter grows well in more marginal areas and requires less water.

Other scientists and companies are going beyond merely using the oil from oil palm trees, and are proposing to convert the entire biomass harvested from a palm plantation into renewable electricity, cellulosic ethanol, biogas, biohydrogen and bioplastic. Thus, by using both the biomass from the plantation as well as the processing residues from palm oil production (fibers, kernel shells, palm oil mill effluent), bioenergy from palm plantations can have an effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Examples of these production techniques have been registered as projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.

By using all the biomass residues from palm oil processing for renewable energy, fuels and biodegradable products, both the energy balance and the greenhouse gas emissions balance for biodiesel from palm oil is improved. For each tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) produced from fresh fruit bunches, the following residues, which can all be used for the manufacture of biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts, become available: around 6 tonnes of waste palm fronds, 1 ton of palm trunks, 5 tons of empty fruit bunches (EFB), 1 ton of press fiber (from the mesocarp of the fruit), half a ton of palm kernel endocarp, 250kg of palm kernel press cake, and 100 tonnes of palm oil mill effluent (POME). In short, a palm plantation has the potential to yield a very large amount of biomass that can be used for the production of renewable products.

However, regardless of these new innovations, first generation biodiesel production from palm oil is still in demand globally and will continue to increase. Palm oil is also a primary substitute for rapeseed oil in Europe, which too is experiencing high levels of demand for biodiesel purposes. Palm oil producers are investing heavily in the refineries needed for biodiesel. In Malaysia companies have been merging, buying others out and forming alliances in order to obtain the economies of scale needed to handle the high costs caused by increased feedstock prices. New refineries are being built across Asia and Europe

Health
Palm oil is a very common cooking ingredient in the regions where it is produced. Its heavy use in the commercial food industry elsewhere can be explained by its comparatively low price, being one of the cheaper vegetable or cooking oils on the market, and by new markets in the USA, stimulated by a search for alternatives to trans fats after the Food and Drug Administration required food labels to list the amount of trans fat per serving. Identifying the exact source of an oil can be complicated by labelling, as palm oil is often described on food labels simply as "vegetable oil".

Red palm oil is known to be healthier than refined (discolored) palm oil. This is a result of several mitigating substances found in the red palm oil. These compounds are:

betacarotenes (present in higher amounts than in regular palm oil)
co-enzyme Q10 (ubiquinone)
squalene
Vitamin A
Vitamin E

Palm oil is applied to wounds, just like iodine tincture, to aid the healing process. This is not just done for its oily qualities; like coconut oil, unrefined palm oil is supposed to have additional antimicrobial effects, but research does not clearly confirm this

Blood cholesterol controversy
The palm oil industry emphasizes that palm oil contains large quantities of oleic acid, the healthful fatty acid also found in olive and canola oil, and claims that palmitic acid also affects cholesterol levels much like oleic acid. Many health authorities counter that palm oil promotes heart disease, citing research and metastudies that go back to 1970.

For many years now, it has been established that the primary cholesterol-elevating fatty acids are the saturated fatty acids with 12 (lauric acid), 14 (myristic acid) and 16 (palmitic acid) carbon atoms with a concomitant increase in the risk of coronary heart disease. Monounsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid is as effective in reducing serum total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels as polyunsaturated fatty acids such as alpha-linoleic acid. The World Health Organization in its report states there is convincing evidence that palmitic oil consumption contributes to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. Research in the US and Europe support the WHO report.

In a response to the WHO report, the Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council has argued that there is insufficient scientific evidence to produce general guidelines for worldwide consumption of palm oil and cited research a study in China comparing palm, soybean, peanut oils and lard (all of which contain saturated fat) showing that palm oil increased the levels of good cholesterol and reduced the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood, and that palm is a better solid fat to use in products where trans fats would otherwise be chosen.

An older study by Hornstra in 1990 also supported the claims of the Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council. A study by the Departments of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science and Medicine, University of Alberta showed palmitic acid to have no hypercholesterolaemic effect if intake of linoleic acid was greater than 4.5% of energy, but that if the diet contained trans fatty acids, LDL cholesterol increases and HDL cholesterol decreases.

The studies supporting the Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council only addressed the issue of the effect of palm oil on blood cholesterol levels and not its total effect regarding cardiovascular diseases

Palm Oil

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 01:18:00 +0000

Palm oil
Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million metric tons were produced worldwide in 2004. It may have now surpassed soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. It is also an important component of many soaps, washing powders and personal care products, is used to treat wounds, and has controversially found a new use as a feedstock for biofuel.

The palm fruit is the source of both palm oil (extracted from palm fruit) and palm kernel oil (extracted from the fruit seeds). Palm oil itself is reddish because it contains a high amount of beta-carotene. It is used as cooking oil, to make margarine and is a component of many processed foods. Boiling it for a few minutes destroys the carotenoids and the oil becomes colourless. Palm oil is one of the few vegetable oils relatively high in saturated fats (like coconut oil) and thus semi-solid at room temperature.

History
Palm oil (from the African Oil Palm, Elaeis guineensis) was long recognized in West African countries, and among West African peoples it has long been in widespread use as a cooking oil. European merchants trading with West Africa occasionally purchased palm oil for use in Europe, but as the oil was bulky and cheap, palm oil remained rare outside West Africa. In the Asante Confederacy, state-owned slaves built large plantations of oil palm trees, while in the neighbouring Kingdom of Dahomey, King Ghezo passed a law in 1856 forbidding his subjects from cutting down oil palms.

Palm oil became a highly sought-after commodity by British traders, for use as an industrial lubricant for the machines of Britain's Industrial Revolution, as well as forming the basis of soap products, such as Lever Brothers' "Sunlight Soap", and the American Palmolive brand.[citation needed] By c.1870, palm oil constituted the primary export of some West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria, although this was overtaken by cocoa in the 1880s.

Palm was introduced to Java by the Dutch in 1848 and Malaysia (then the British colony of Malaya) in 1910 by Scotsman William Sime and English banker Henry Darby. The first plantations were mostly established and operated by British plantation owners, such as Sime Darby. From the 1960s a major oil palm plantation scheme was introduced by the government with the main aim of eradicating poverty. Settlers were each allocated 10 acres of land (about 4 hectares) planted either with oil palm or rubber, and given 20 years to pay off the debt for the land.[citation needed] The large plantation companies remained listed in London until the Malaysian government engineered their "Malaysianisation" throughout the 1960s and 1970s

Chemistry and processing
Palm oil and palm kernel oil are composed of fatty acids, esterified with glycerol just like any ordinary fat. Both are high in saturated fatty acids, about 50% and 80%, respectively. The oil palm gives its name to the 16 carbon saturated fatty acid palmitic acid found in palm oil; monounsaturated oleic acid is also a constituent of palm oil while palm kernel oil contains mainly lauric acid. Palm oil is the largest natural source of tocotrienol, part of the vitamin E family. Palm oil is also high in vitamin K and dietary magnesium.

Napalm derives its name from naphthenic acid, palmitic acid and pyrotechnics or simply from a recipe using naphtha and palm oil. The approximate concentration of fatty acids (FAs) in palm oil is as follows: Fatty acids are saturated and unsaturated aliphatic carboxylic acids with carbon chain length in the range of C6 up to C24. An example of a fatty acid is palmitic acid

CH3 – (CH2)14 – COOH

Splitting of oils and fats by hydrolysis, or under basic conditions saponification, yields fatty acids; with glycerin(glycerol) as a by-product. The split-off fatty acids are a mixture of fatty acids ranging from C6 to C18 depending on the type of Oil / Fat.

Palm oil products are made using milling and refining processes; first using fractionation, with crystallization and separation processes to obtain a solid stearin, and liquid olein. By melting and degumming, impurities can be removed and then the oil filtered and bleached. Next, physical refining removes odours and colouration, to produce refined bleached deodorized palm oil, or RBDPO, and free pure fatty acids, used as an important raw material in the manufacture of soaps, washing powder and other hygiene and personal care products. RBDPO is the basic oil product which can be sold on the world's commodity markets, although many companies fractionate it out further into palm olein, for cooking oil, or other products.

Palm is also used in biodiesel production, as either a simply-processed palm oil mixed with petrodiesel, or processed through transesterification to create a palm oil methyl ester blend which meets the international EN 14214 specification, with glycerin as a by-product. The actual process used varies between countries and the requirements of any export markets. Second-generation biofuel production processes are also being trialled in relatively small quantities.

Environmental, social and cultural impact
Palm oil production is a basic source of income for many of the world's rural poor in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, whereas about 0.5 million people are directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with spin offs. Not only does the palm represent a pillar of these nation's economies but it is a catalyst for rural development and political stability. Many social initiatives use profits from palm oil to finance poverty alleviation strategies. Examples include the direct financing of Magbenteh hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone, through profits made from palm oil grown by small local farmers, the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance's Food Security Program, which draws on a women-run cooperative to grow palm oil, the profits of which are reinvested in food security, or the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's hybrid oil palm project in Western Kenya, which improves incomes and diets of local populations, to name just a few.

In the two countries responsible for over 80% of world oil palm production, Indonesia and Malaysia, smallholders account for 35-40% of the total area of planted oil palm and as much as 33% of the output. Elsewhere, as in West African countries that produce mainly for domestic and regional markets, smallholders produce up to 90% of the annual harvest.

As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11 million hectares.[14] In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.

This rising demand is resulting in tropical forest being cleared to establish new palm plantations. According to UNEP, at the current rate of intrusion into Indonesian national parks, it is likely that many protected rain forests will be severely degraded by 2012 through illegal hunting and trade, logging, and forest fires, including those associated with the rapid spread of palm oil plantations. There is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:

Significant greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, account for up to one-third of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Habitat destruction of certain endangered species (e.g. the orangutans in Borneo, the Sumatran tiger, and Asian rhinoceros.)
Potential extinction of some such species
Many places that are of interest for growing palm are biodiversity hotspots, increasing the impact of this development on the environment. In addition to environmental impact, the logging, land-clearing and planting of oil palm continues to occur on native (Dayak) land, despite their frequent objections. This has caused the degradation of their food, water, forest product sources as well as destroying their cash crop farms such as fruit and rubber trees in Sarawak, Sabah and Kalimantan, Borneo.

Damage to peatland, partly due to palm oil production, is claimed to contribute to environmental degradation, including four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, due to the large areas of rainforest that are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. The pollution is exacerbated because many rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon that are released when the forests are cut down and the bogs drained to make way for the palm oil plantations.

NGOs have accused the growth of new palm oil plantations as also being responsible for peat forest destruction in Indonesia and for accelerating global warming. Greenpeace concluded[28] that many food and cosmetics companies, including ADM, Unilever, Cargill, Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, Kraft and Burger King, are driving the demand for new palm oil supplies, partly for products that contain non-hydrogenated solid vegetable fats, as consumers now demand fewer hydrogenated oils in food products that were previously high in trans fat content. Friends of the Earth have concluded that the increase in demand comes from biofuel, with producers now looking to use palm as a source.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that the deforestation caused by making way for oil palm plantations is far more damaging for the climate than the benefits gained by switching to biofuel. The world's centres for oil palm production are Indonesia and Malaysia where rapid deforestation and the drying out of associated peatlands are, Greenpeace claim, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and thereby speeding climate change. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands, unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions, that are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They represent massive carbon sinks, and they claim their destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global emissions. Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in the Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra, home to 25 percent of Indonesia's palm oil plantations. There are plans to expand the area under concession by more than 11,000 square miles, which would deforest half of the province. They claim this would have devastating consequences for Riau's peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tons of carbon, roughly one year's greenhouse gas emissions.

Research conducted by Greenpeace through its Forest Defenders Camp in Riau documents how a major Indonesian palm oil producer is engaging in the large-scale, illegal destruction of peatland in flagrant violation of an Indonesian presidential order, as well as national forestry regulations. Palm oil from peatland is fed into the supply chain for global brands. They accuse major multinational companies of turning a blind eye to peatland destruction to supply cheap vegetable oil. FoE and Greenpeace both calculate that forests and peatlands that are replaced as palm oil plantations release more carbon dioxide than is saved by burning biofuels in place of diesel.

In Africa, the situation is very different compared to Indonesia or Malaysia. In its Human Development Report 2007-2008, the United Nations Development Program says production of palm oil in West-Africa is largely sustainable, mainly because it is undertaken on a smallholder level. The United Nations Food and Agriculture program is encouraging small farmers across Africa to grow palm oil, because the crop offers opportunities to improve livelihoods and incomes for the poor.

Environmentalists and conservationists have been called upon to become palm oil farmers themselves, so they can use the profits to invest in their cause. It has been suggested that this a more productive strategy than the current confrontational approach that threatens the livelihoods of millions of smallholders.

Many of the major companies in the vegetable oil economy participate in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which is trying to address this problem. In 2008 Unilever, a member of the group, committed to use only palm oil which is certified as sustainable, by ensuring that the large companies and smallholders that supply it convert to sustainable production by 2015.

Meanwhile, much of the recent investment in new palm plantations for biofuel has been part-funded through carbon credit projects through the Clean Development Mechanism; however the reputational risk associated with unsustainable palm plantations in Indonesia has now made many funds wary of investing there.

Palm Oil Food Product

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:19:00 +0000

About 90% of the palm oil produced finds its way into food products, with industrial uses accounting for the remaining 10%. Palm oils are used in a wide variety of foods, primarily margarine, shortening, and vegetable cooking oil. Palm oil is used as a replacement for cocoa butter and butter fat, and in ice cream and mayonnaise. It is stable at the temperatures used in deep frying, and is used quite often for fried foods. Per capita consumption of palm oil specifically is unknown, but Americans consumed 84.7 lbs of fats and oils in 2004. About 45% of this is margarine and shortening, two major products containing palm oil.

Dietary value, per 100 gram edible portion

* Percent of recommended daily allowance set by FDA, assuming a 154 lb male adult, 2700 calories per day.

Oil Palm - Elaeis guineensis (4)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:02:00 +0000

HARVEST, POSTHARVEST HANDLING

Maturity
As fruit ripen, they change from black (or green in virescens types) to orange, but have varying degrees of black cheek color depending on light exposure and cultivar. However, fruit abscission is the best index of bunch ripeness.

Harvest Method
Fruit bunches are harvested using chisels or hooked knives attached to long poles. Each tree must be visited every 10-15 days as bunches ripen throughout the year.

Postharvest Handling
Oil extraction is a complex process, carried out by large mills that may process up to 60 tons of fruit per hour, or by small scale mills in rural villages that produce only about 1 ton of oil in an 8 hour shift. Oil extraction from fruit follows the same basic steps in either case:

Steam sterilization of bunches (inactivates lipase enzymes and kills microorganisms that produce free fatty acids, reducing oil quality)
Stripping fruit from bunches
Crushing, digestion, and heating of the fruit
Oil extraction from macerated fruit (hydraulic pressing)
Palm oil clarification
Separating fiber from the endocarp
Drying, grading, and cracking of the endocarp
Separating the endocarp from the kernel
Kernel drying and packing

The product of step 5 is termed crude palm oil, which must be refined to remove pigments, free fatty acids, and phospholipids, and to deodorize it. The final product, termed "refined, bleached, deodorized" palm oil is produced.

Bunches are first steam sterilized in large tanks to inactivate enzymes

Palm oil processing. Bunches are transported to the mill and weighed

Storage

Palm oil is stored in large steel tanks at 88-105°F to keep it in liquid form during bulk transport. The tank headspace is often flushed with CO2 to prevent oxidation. Higher temperatures are used during filling and draining tanks. Maximum storage time is about 6 months at 88°F.

Oil Palm - Elaeis guineensis (3)

noreply@blogger.com (Plantations) — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:45:00 +0000

GENERAL CULTURE

Soils and Climate
Soil - wide range of soil types, provided good drainage and pH between 4 and 7; tolerates periodic flooding or a high water table; many soils are alluvial in nature. Irrigation is generally not practiced.

Climate - hot, wet tropical lowlands, major production regions receive at least 6 ft of rain per year, evenly distributed, with at least 4" per month if a short dry season exists; optimal temperatures are in the 80s-90s °F, with temperatures below 75°F slowing growth; 5-7 hr of direct sunlight per day is beneficial.

Propagation
Oil palm is propagated by seed, using F1 hybrid seed from controlled crosses that produce tenera types (dura x pisifera). Seed is produced by companies specializing in oil palm breeding.

An oil palm planting where older trees have been killed to make way for younger, smaller trees

Pregerminated oil palm seeds are sold by companies that specialize in hybrid seed production

Planting Design, Training, Pruning

Optimal plant density is 58 trees/acre with triangular patterns about 30 ft apart. During the first 3 years, little or no fruit is obtained and plantations are often intercropped with staple crops.

Pruning and Training - none, old leaves are pruned off to facilitate access to the bunch at harvest. When palms reach heights of 20-30 ft, they become difficult to harvest, and are often injected with an herbicide to kill them or bulldozed down. New trees are planted among the dead and rotting trunks.