Alternative Energy

The easiest way to assume that a product is green is when it comes from the plants themselves, but such assumptions can lead to a dangerous ground being followed when it comes to the environment and its preservation. Making fuel by a layman’s language, if is from the plants themselves then it has to be green and renewable, but this is the paradox and a serious misconception. Such misconceptions and lack of knowledge has today led to a dangerous situation relating to the Palm oil Biodiesel. In the race for conservation and the new fad for biodegradable fuel resources, the politicians in Europe made the mistake of depending on minimal research and thus started importing large quantities of palm oil from South East Asia, to make the “green” fuel for transport and for using in generation of electricity.
The last two decades have seen an immense rise in the demand for Palm oil in Europe. Recently for fuel, and among the other uses being in cosmetics and food. It is cheap and can be used for a large number of purposes and as an approximate is used for about 10% of the stuff in kept in the supermarkets.
With hundreds and millions of dollars promoting the product by giving it subsidies, the leading importer of Palm oil quickly emerged as Netherlands. Netherlands imported approximately double i.e. 1.7 million tons of oil in 2006, of their import the previous year.
The alarming thing is that now the ecological disturbances due to the use of palm oil are coming to fore. These plantations, more so in the countries of Singapore and Malaysia are the factors in desecrating the environment rather than preserving it. The demand for palm oil has been raised in Europe, which has led to the destroying of hundreds of acres of rainforest area to make space for the plantations of this supposedly healthy and green fuel alternative. These spaces are often cleared by cutting down of rainforests and burning a large amount of peatland. Peat is a moss which stores a large amount of co2 in it, burning of peatland has made Indonesia the third largest emitter of co2 in the world.