Dec 20 2010
Hawaiian Electric (HECO) has declared that the company is planning to construct a plant, where palm oil would be converted into biodiesel. The biodiesel would be essential for providing affordable electricity to the Hawaiian people and also decrease Hawaii’s reliance on imported energy sources.
Approval has been granted by Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission. But there has been a lot of opposition from radical environmental groups who have tried to prevent the development citing the impact palm oil production would have on rainforests as the reason.
Palm oil is mostly produced in those regions, which are below the poverty line and there is a desperate need to raise the living standards of the people living in these regions. These nations to a great extent need to develop such industries to trade in the world markets and supply the locals their wages. Palm oil could be one of those industries and hence it would be beneficial for the Hawaiian residents and people in other developing countries. Life style enhancements would take place such as access to education and clean homes.
Further when compared to corn-based ethanol or rapeseed oil from Germany, the palm oil, which would come from Malaysia, would be much more sustainable. Palm, being a perennial crop, unlike soya and other vegetable crops, which are annual, can be converted to biodiesel all through the year. It also does not need a lot of tillage and gives out considerably less green house gas emissions into the atmosphere. Thus it is not only affordable but also efficient and ecofriendly and hence HECO wants palm oil to be adopted as one of the biofuel resources.
People opposing palm oil want jatropha to be used, which would hamper the cost economies. Hawaii being inadequate in reserves of solar, wind and geothermal sources needs inexpensive energy sources like palm oil to generate electricity. HECO recently announced that biofuels were necessarily a part of Hawaii’s future allowing them to switch from black to green fuels relying less and less on imported oil.
Source: http://www.heco.com/