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52 comments on Palm Oil -- The Southeast Asia Report

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oldhippie on January 30, 2007 - 1:26pm

Palm plantations have been a disaster since the days Joseph Conrad wrote of them.
The already huge environmental damage comes from quantities of palm oil that barely effect European energy balances. Scaling this up is madness. The figures in your story are tons per year. Conversion to barrels per day should be enough to make anyone want to forget this foolish experiment.

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72myz on January 31, 2007 - 4:47am

"He predicted Indonesia would produce 16.4 million tons of CPO in 2007 and the demand for the commodity may be greater than the production."

1 ton expressed palm oil = 7.3 barrels of same (from Dave), so 16.4 million tons x 7.3 = barrels oil equivalent per year = 119,720,000, barrels less 10% for less energy content of biofuels = 107,748,000 barrels pa = 2,952,000 barrels 'bio-crude' a day.

*If* this rough calculation is about correct, Indonesian biofuel production is the equivalent of Canterells production in year 2005.

Canterell has peaked, and is in decline. One assumes, absent some virulent infestation of a viroid such as Kadang Kandang (affects some, but not all, palm species), there will be no 'peak palm oil', Hubbert curve.

Can't say that about the megafields.

Lorenzo

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