Talk:Palm oil/Archive 1

Possible copyright violation

The recent material added by User:221.19.76.62 appears to be a near cut and paste from http://www.cspinet.org/new/200506021.html/ Without evidence that the editor holds the copyright to the material, I've reverted the addition. If evidence can be provided, then the material can be added again. I kept it as an external link, since that is of course allowed. - Taxman ^Talk 20:28, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

==Damage==Seems to me that the environmentalists are barking up the wrong tree! Just as flies do not cause rubbish, palm oil cannot cause environmental damage.

What appears to be of paramount importance is to take a level headed approach and examine the issue with an unjaundiced eye. If we do that, it appears to me that the environmental NGO's have jumped the gun in their condemnation of what, to me, is an extremely useful crop.

Take the issue of environmental damage caused by burning peat land to plant oil palm. The practice, which it is claimed by Wetlands to release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, to my mind, is reprehensible! So Indonesia deserves a rap on the knuckles here, for not coming down hard to put out this practice.

But there is an interesting article called "A lie big enough" in

http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=252&Itemid=57

which addresses this issue.

What the article has so succinctly pointed out makes sense to me. "Peat is peat, and whether palm oil.... or any living plant is growing on peat land, tons of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere."

Whilst the MPOC and the Palm Oil Truth Foundation appears not to be neutral parties, it is nevertheless important to give credit where credit is due and call the lie when it is so obvious!

In the final analysis, these environmental NGO's seems to me, to be doing the dirty spadework for competing oil seed industries.

Robin Draper 06:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately a lot of Palm oil Truth Foundation articles are inaccurate. There are many errors/half-truths on that site, which I've tried to point out to them - but have received no response to date. To your point: "Peat is peat, and whether palm oil.... or any living plant is growing on peat land, tons of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere." - this is true, but what they leave out is that undisturbed Peatswamp forest are a carbon sink. The moment you clear them, drain them etc - which you need to do to plant oil palm - you turn them into carbon sources. You also increase the likelihood of burn etc.

MPOB has less errors/half truths - but have tended to cherry pick the data they show i.e. the carbon sink/source potential of peatswamps under oil palm and natural vegetation. You need to have a look at more of the primary literature to get a better idea on what is going on. 202.188.73.63 (talk) 07:05, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Why include article on palm oil's environmental damage in this article? its totally irrelevant. the environmental damage is caused by certain irresponsible individuals, not palm oil itself. some of the claims are also exagerrated and not fairly researhed. read For more info on Malaysian oil palm industry's role in developing a sustainable agriculture system, read world.http://www. mpoc. org.my/CEO_to_Observer.asp for further enlightenment or http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com/ for further attacks on environmental NGOs.

Palm oil certainly doesn't cause enviornmental damage, it's the growing of the palms which causes the damge. Likewise gold doesn't cause damage, but gold mining does. Etc. Until we haev a separate article on palm oil agriculture we should include the environmental issues in this article. -Will Beback · † · 22:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Ugly Sean (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)==Palm oil and health risks== I'd like to see some more information about palm oil and health-risks (especially about the risk (or non-risk) of developing coronary hearth-disease). I don't know much about the subject, and a search on the various search-engines gives me mostly marketing-material from manufacturers of palm-oil or hydrogenated oils. Is there anyone that knows more about this, that can add some information about the subject?

Apparently, it is as important to have saturated fats in the diet as to have mono unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. When you cut out the saturated fats completely, you run the risk of losing their protective effects on the heart muscle, causing lesions on the heart among other health risks. Palm oil is quite saturated and having a little everyday could be beneficial, if there is a balance of fats in the overall diet. 71.228.97.78 01:08, 1 October 2007 (UTC)Rebel Mamma —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.228.97.78 (talk) 00:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC) I think I read that palm oil was loaded with vitamin e. Is this right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.42.30 (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Fran McCullough authored "The Good Fat Cookbook". I remember her writing about palm oil. Look her up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.205.153.122 (talk) 05:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the ever increasing use of additives such as Palm oil and Coconut oil contribute to increasing instances of allergic reactions to those of us susceptible to it. Case in point when my significant other created a special dessert being "careful" to use only "safe" ingredients was highly offended when I still had an allergic reaction (which, to me is not fatal, but is very painful in my mouth) and upon careful examination have found palm oil to be an additive to the margarine used. It's too bad that such allergens are becoming more acceptable.

Addition of reference from the Northern part of Republic of the Congo

Hi everibody, I liked this article and I added some information I collected while traveling in Congo Brazzaville, north, by the Shanga river, and added also pictures I took there. Bye, Tornasole 22:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I appreciated that, and I would actually like to see someone adding the data on the consumption, and production of Palm oil, and palm sauce (mosaka) in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, the 2 Congos, etc, on the African continent. Themalau 11:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Palm oil tree or oil palm tree?

The article states that the oil is "obtained from the fruit of the Oil palm tree."

The caption for the photo describes what it shows as "Fruit of palm oil tree"

For clarity's sake, which is it?

Oil palm tree or simply oil palm. Palm oil is the name of the oil Nil Einne 05:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Cholesterol Stuff

In an attempt to clarify some of the saturated-fat/cholesterol discussion, I have moved several comments under this section. Jay L09 (talk) 20:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Moved from North Congo section

"It has never been established that saturated fats elevate blood serum cholesterol levels more than any other type of fat. It has never been established that blood serum cholesterol levels have any bearing on cardio vascular health, or on health generally."

Surely these sentences are nonsense? If there is no relationship between cholesterol levels and cardio vascular health, why is cholesterol level used, almost universally, as an indicator of cardio vascular health. See the Wiki entry on cholesterol for a close to home description of this!

Contradictory statements in cholesterol section

The current "cholesterol controversy" section states:

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.

At the end, it then also states:

It has never been established that saturated fats elevate blood serum cholesterol levels more than any other type of fat. It has never been established that blood serum cholesterol levels have any bearing on cardio vascular health, or on health generally.

These two statements appear to be directly contradictory with each other. The former appears to have attribution (although I am not able to check it myself), while the latter has none. Can somebody provide a source to back up the second statement? If not, I would suggest it should be removed. -- Foogod 01:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Attributions are difficult to find on this subject. However, there are reasons to doubt many statements, and to suspect that there are severe POV problems in much of what is published. I would make a few observations (without proof):

• Many falsehoods are obviously true. That is why the scientific method of checking hypotheses with experiments is so important. Because atherosclerotic plaques contain large quantities of cholesterol, it is obvious that high levels of cholesterol in the blood cause atherosclerosis. Because organic chemicals with different numbers of methylene groups behave similarly in the chemistry lab, it is obvious that all saturated fats have similar effects on the human body.
• Early experiments with feeding large quantities of cholesterol to rodents produced lumps of cholesterol on the inner lining of the arteries. However, these lumps were unlike human atherosclerotic plaques, which appear (when sectioned, stained, and viewed under the microscope) to have grown within the arterial tissue, not merely stuck to the inner lining of the artery. (There was an article, complete with pictures, on this in Scientific American a few decades ago.)
• Although a statistical correlation has been found between high serum cholesterol and atherosclerosis, there is a stronger correlation between low serum cholesterol and colon cancer.
• The increase in the probability of premature death from heart disease as a result of smoking is roughly equal to the increase from lung cancer. This encourages the tobacco industry to promote other causes for heart disease. Much of the food industry (in the US, at least) is owned by the tobacco industry. This connection may answer the question (under North Congo): "If there is no relationship between cholesterol levels and cardio vascular health, why is cholesterol level used, almost universally, as an indicator of cardio vascular health."
• Although it is obvious that eating fats which promote the production of cholesterol will increase the chances of death from heart disease, much research has failed to bear out this obvious hypothesis. Perhaps the effect of fat consumption on cardiovascular health is like the obvious motion of the Sun around the Earth.
• Stearate has been found to decrease cholesterol production, whereas palmitate and myristate increase cholesterol production. The three fatty acids are combined in the (US FDA approved) listing of "saturated fat." Jay L09 (talk) 20:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Biased and Misleading Health Claims

Many reports on the ill-effects of palm oil to health are clearly biased, misleading and were written or sponsored by none other than the soybean producers of the U.S. who are worrried about the threat of palm oil to their industry. This was reminiscent to the palm oil smear campaign of the 80's where frightening commercials were shown on U.S media, only to eventually be removed by law.

Unless there are clear, peer-reviewed evidence of the research findings, inconclusive and confusing data and over-generalisations should not be cited, even on this site.

At the same time that pockets of rainforests in Borneo are cleared for oil palms, even greater areas are being destroyed in South America for the planting of soybeans, yet none of these pseudo-scientists make a fuss about it.

Why not provide us with some references to peer-reviewed journals on its health effects; write about the "palm oil smear campaign of the 80's" and write something for the Soybean page about the undoubted problem of forest clearance in South America? Nunquam Dormio 17:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

please read: http://www. mpoc. org.my/CEO_to_Observer.asp

There are only health benifits. Palm oil i associated with obesity, throat irritation and Resiratory problems. I came here in search of some bad effects. There are many cases of throat irritation, respiratory problem and various gastronomical problems associated with "oily" food from hotels in India. Many doctors advice to stay away from "oily" food in Hotels. The oil used in hotels is palm oil as it is the cheapest oil. Morever food activists claim that palm oil is not edible it is being promoted the same way corn in being exported all over the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.144.63.139 (talk • contribs)

yeah what a great source you're citing here. whining about the soybean producers while leading us to a link to the malaysian palm oil council website--128.252.154.133 19:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually it's a relevant point. While the MPOC site is obviously not unbiased it's a well established fact that soybean producers have sponsored a lot of the research. While I would agree we should primarily use peer-reviewed journals for scientific information, when it comes to things like allegations that the research may be biased there is nothing wrong with using a POV source provided it is clearly indicated... Nil Einne 05:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I too came here to confirm my own experiences with palm(me and a lot of my friends). I am totally convinced that palm oil is not edible and it promotes obesity throat irritation and respiratory problems. How because I (and my friends/relatives) have experienced it. Me and my friends/relatives abstainted from it our health conditions have improved drastically. The problem is right now I just cannot find any hotel that does not use palm oil. I am a bachelor and eat outside 4 times a day(I live in India) and that when you know the effect within a month. I am on the verge of morbid obesity because after succesfully avoiding the "cheaper" versions(which are being blamed as the culprit) I have started eating at a hotel that used a Premium Brand(which has not competition and is costly) "Ruchi Gold" It took hell longer but I am back to square one. The problem with finding "evidence" is that a hard working person(not a computer nerd like me) will never know that palm oil is affecting him. Any respiratory problems will be treated as asthama, nobody will every try to relate it to the food they consume(fortunately for my friend one doctor did that and he was saved, He stopped having food at a particular hotel and his respiratory problems dissappeared)

This article has done it. I dont think i will ever come back to wiki for the "truth". This article is criminally misleading.

millions of people in asia and around the world take oil palm on a daily basis. maybe its something to do with your hypochondriac mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.50.138.235 (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that sponsored researches can be bias but I believe the only place to find unbias opinion is from the end users. Many established fast food chains such as McDonalds and KFC uses palm oil for their fying. Would you suggest that these giant chains will risk law suits? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.94.66.125 (talk) 03:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

When is next year?

Someone wrote "The plants, which will start operating middle of next year …" some time ago. Anyone know enough about these plants that they can definitely write "2007" or "which started operating in 2006"? Nunquam Dormio 13:08, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Antioxidants query

Does palm oil have any antioxidants other than tocotrienols? If not, the current article is a bit repetitive. Nunquam Dormio 11:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Natural palm oil contains alpha, beta, gamma, and delta-tocopherols and alpha, beta, gamma, and delta-tocotrienols (i.e. all of them!). No other natural source contains this much vitamin E.

Palm Oil in Biodiesel

I believe that the last paragraph in the section on biodiesel is misplaced. This paragraph has more to do with detrimental environmental effects than the application of palm oil in biodiesel. Should somebody move this paragraph to a more appropriate section (such as the section directly above biodiesel)?

Environmental biases

The article has a heavy bias towards an environmentalist viewpoint. Listing the tons of CO2 as an environmental impact holds the assumption that increasing CO2 has any environmental effects at all. This point is very debatable at best. Many, as do I, believe that CO2 is not harming the environment, but may have a small benefit. The links at the bottom are heavily biased towards liberal activist groups.

Few with any creditablity subscribe to your views "that C02 is not harming the environment", and by that I mean articles published in peer-reviewed journals, rather than dodgy websites. 202.188.73.63 (talk) 06:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

No there is a clear consensus on this among scientists, I recommend you read the reports from the IPCC.
— Apis (talk) 22:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed revision on "Health" in palm oil article

Draft rewrite: please tell me if you are already OK by this so I (or you) can replace the other Health-article part already.

Health

Palm oil, despite being the most used vegetable oil for cooking (primarily because of its huge use in industrial food preparations), is one of the most unhealthy cooking oils available (after Coconut oil) . Besides via the references, this information can also be derived from the table found at the cooking oil article, which gives the percentage of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Their heavy use nonetheless in the commercial food industry can thus only be explained by its comparatively low price, being one of the cheapest vegetable or cooking oils on the market . Given the unhealthyness as a cooking oil, consumers are best to avoid it and use an alternative, more healthy, cooking oil as canola oil, soy oil, ... (see also: Cooking_oil). This should be done when they eather prepare the food themselves or when they buy prepared foods. The latter however may not be simple as palm oil is described on food labels simply as "vegetable oil", instead of "palm oil".

Red palm oil, when compared to regular palm oil however, has found to be more healthy. This is a result of several mitigating substances found in the red palm oil which slightly reduce the unhealthyness of the saturated fats, also found in the reed palm oil. These compounds are:

• betacarotenes (present in higher amounts as in regular palm oil)
• tocotrienols
• co-enzyme Q10
• squalene and ubiquinone
• Vitamin A and Vitamin E .

Zippo 15:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, let's take your contribution one thing at a time. Just to be really clear here - I'm not trying to be mean to you by being this specific. What I'm trying to do is to help you become a better editor. I genuinely appreciate the desire to contribute, and you have every right to do so. But you're going to need to make some changes in how you write! That's perfectly okay. Everybody has a learning curve. Onward:

Palm oil, despite being the most used vegetable oil for cooking

• How do you know it's the most used vegetable oil for cooking?

-->references added

is one of the most unhealthy oils available (after Coconut oil and palm kernel oil).

• On what basis? Because it contains relatively more saturated fats? You need to show that this is necessarily unhealthy. The section that you replaced had studies showing that, despite the preponderance of saturated fats in palm oil, there are some mitigating factors. You need to have something at least that solid - with references - if you're going to replace what was written.
• Palm kernel oil is hardly a common dietary oil

--> references added --> palm kernel oil removed

• The language "can be clearly seen" isn't backed up by the table. How is it clear that the oil is unhealthy?

--> references added

Their heavy use nonetheless in the commercial food industry can thus only be explained by its comparable low price.

• This constitutes original research. You're coming to this conclusion, without giving anything to back it up. Maybe it's because palm is easy to grow? Maybe it's because of where palm grows? Maybe it's because the yield is high? Maybe it's because of lots of things. In any case, you need to have references for statements like this.
• You probably meant "comparatively" instead of "comparable"

-->references added, by the way yield is not high, from my references added you might also see this. This "high yield" has however been incorrectly included in the article in another section of the article. Please remove this.

• • It doesn't particularly matter if palm oil is used in the preparation, if it's not present in the product to any significant degree.

--> might still be worked on, just see if the rewrite is already better and approvable

I'll stop there for now. Again, I'm not trying to criticize you for the sake of being critical, but what you've written isn't up to the standard required for inclusion in Wikipedia. It's certainly not the case that I'm collaborating with the palm oil industry. You might want to be a little more careful in making asccusations like that.

So what to do? Work on developing your writing skills! Waitak 14:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your recommendations

Thanks for your recommendations, I will rewrite the article section; however as I am doing so to benefit the poor (with special focus to the Penan, after having seen Bruce Parry's Tribe documentary on them) and as the article section is unfairly forgiving to the palm oil industry, I however would like to see it changed. Sorry for the truthfully, hasty and incorrect accusation by the way.

PS: I will try to rewrite the biodiesel part too, to which I would like to point to the fact that zero emission technologies would be better used instead of biofuels (given its many problems on the environment, social impact, ...). Hope thats OK too.

Best regards,

Zippo 16:16, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I also serve the poor, as it turns out. You might find my user page interesting, if that's your focus. As it turns out, I've also worked with the Penan tribe to a small degree.

As for the biodiesel section, you're welcome to contribute, but be aware that these are very contentious issues, and that your treatment of the controversy should be encyclopedic (present the issues and let the readers draw their own conclusions) rather than trying to promote your own viewpoint. That's not easy to do, but it's required here. Waitak 16:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Further proposed rewrites of the palm-oil article

Below you will find my rewrite of 2 other sections of the palm oil-article (just as I mentioned a few days ago). Please look into this too after you finished with the other rewrites (in the cooking oil-article and in this article's Health section). Thanks

Environmental and cultural impact

At the moment (2006), the cumulated land area of palm oil plantations already sits around 11 million hectares. As demand of palm oil is rising and is expected to climb further, particularly for use in biodiesel (see below), more and more areas of tropical forest will need to be cleared to accomodate the set-up of oil palm plantations. The clearing of these tropical forests would unavoidably increase global warming and destroy the habitat of certain endangered species (as the orangutans in Borneo and the Sumatran tiger and Asian rhinoceros) and drive them to extinction.

Also, besides these few species, oil palm plantations may also negatively influence -and introduce the extinction of- several other species, as the areas where most plantations are set up (Malaysia, Indonesia) are also major biodiversity hotspots

Finally, as a last additional problem, the set-up of the oil palm plantations combined with badly controlled logging and land-clearing by large timber companies are threathening the livelihood of minority tribes such as the Penan and Iban in Sarawak, Borneo island,

Because of these major problems, there are increasing concerns from environmental organisations and other NGOs about the social and environmental impacts of the palm oil industry. Also, they have set-up several actions against these companies and governments, to such extent even that in April 2007, Malaysia, one of the major planters and producers of palm oil, expressed concern about the "media campaign" initiated.

These actions by environmental organisations and other NGOs have been launched as they feel that the introduced problems of the oil palm plantations set-up are worse than the limited benefits this biodiesel from palm oil (e.g. towards global warming, ...) can bring.

As a result, governmentaland environmental organisations are now moving away from biofuels made at a non-eco friendly way (which includes biodiesel made from palm oil) and are now asking to drop support for it . However, instead, they still keep supporting biodiesel from other oil sources as jatropha and other more environmental biofuels.

Here's a potential rewrite of the above, stopping just before your last three paragraphs:

As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11 million hectares. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further, particularly for use in biodiesel (see below). Rising demand may result in more tropical forest being cleared to establish new palm plantations. The is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:

• Increase in global warming.
• 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 and land-clearing by large timber companies that accompany the establishment of palm plantations threatens the livelihood of minority tribes such as the Penan and Iban in Sarawak, Borneo.

Please take a look at how to do citations. (You'll see some examples if you look at the source to what I've added, above.) It adds a lot to the quality of the article to have the citations done properly and thoroughly. If you haven't already done so, you should also read through the links in the "Welcome" section of your talk page. They really help.

A lot of what you need to work on is just basic quality of writing. You're doing better on typos! But phrases like "Finally, as a last additional problem," really need rewriting. You've already said "Finally,", so you don't need to say "last" and "additional". A very good writer once said, "You know you've finished not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to remove." Waitak 16:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

-->please take a look at the lines you skipped, I added some references and tried to make the text somewhat better (aldough I did not yet succeeded in this).

Update: I included this information in another article, you may now discard it if you like Update 2: I already removed most, and rewrote the small part again, however you may still discard it completely

Zippo 08:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Related issues and problems

A related issue is the conversion of Indonesian peat bogs into plantations, a practise driven by the global demand for palm oil, hardwood, and paper pulp. Such practises are responsible for 2000 million tonnes of CO₂ emitted annually in Indonesia: 600 million tonnes from the decomposition of dry peat, and 1400 million tonnes from fires resulting from the draining of the bogs. The decomposition of peat releases so much CO₂ that peat swamp could be worth more for their carbon value than palm plantations for their oil.

Moreover, the plantations are often run by agribusiness companies, and local residents in places like West Papua and Kalimantan are losing out on jobs to migrant workers. In addition, unfairnesses in the way that palm oil firms in places such as Borneo can make workers perpetually indebted to the company. Another cultural impact is the increase of land conflicts in places such as Kalimantan, where there is a lot of expansion of plantations for palm oil.

Palm Oil as Biodiesel

The numbers given for waste products seem to not match other sources. Other sources show around 1 ton empty fruit bunches per ton CPO, not the 5 tons listed in the article. POME estimates are also very high. The link for the reference shown is not active. [Biomass Utilization in Malaysia National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST, Japan) ]

This makes a big difference in CDM projects to reduce GHG from palm oil.

192.163.20.232 (talk) 07:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Palm oil, like other vegetable oils can and is used to create biodiesel, which can be used as a replacement fuel for gasoline, diesel and LPG in internal combustion engines. Biodiesel is promoted as a form of renewable energy that greatly reduces net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, until recently it was being touted as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect and also the possibility of peak oil. However, recent research has confirmed that the benefits of biofuels to counter global warming will be small if not unexistent.

Also, given the many problems that are inheritly linked to oil palm cultivation, research into different sources for the production of first generation biofuels has been done. The research conducted has yielded possible replacement candidats for palm oil (as jatropha), which are considered less damaging to the environment

However, regardless of these new innovations, biodiesel production from palm oil is still globally catching on and will continue to increase. As such, several projects have been started in a number of countries around the world. A quick review:

Malaysia

The Malaysian government is refocusing the use of palm oil to the production of biodiesel to cater to the huge demand from European countries; it has encouraged the building of biodiesel plants. This is due to the higher prices of fuel and increasing demand for alternative sources of energy in the Western world.

The plants will start operating middle of next year and produce 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel annually. Strong demand for biodiesel from Europe as well as Colombia, India, South Korea and Turkey has fueled the industry's growth as more countries seek to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

Malaysia has already begun preparations to change from diesel to bio-fuels by 2008, including drafting legislation that will make the switch mandatory. From 2007, all diesel sold in Malaysia must contain 5% palm oil. Being the world's largest producer of crude palm oil, Malaysia intends to take advantage of the rush to find cleaner fuels.

With the growing emphasis on biodiesels presenting a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels it is important to recognise that these benefits are partly negated when forest is cleared to make room for biodiesel crops such as oil palm. NGOs are now alerting the international arena to the fact that despite thousands of square kilometres of land standing unplanted in Indonesia there is still clearance of tropical hardwood forest for palm oil plantations. Furthermore, as the remaining unprotected lowland forest dwindles, developers are looking to peat swamp for conversion, which causes a draining of the peat, which not only unlocks the carbon in the surface covering of trees, but begins an oxidation process of the carbon in the peat reserve--which can be between 5,000 to 10,000 years worth of carbon locked into the ground. Drained peat is also at very high risk of forest fire, and there is a clear record of fire being used to clear vegetation for palm oil development in Indonesia.

Australia

On 23 Nov 2006 Australia's first palm oil based biodiesel plant was opened in Darwin. When fully operational in 2007 this plant should produce 140 million litres of biodiesel annually.

Zippo 09:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Need info

Need info about fractionated palm kernel oil, a food ingredient that shows up in ingredients lists. What is it, and is it healthy or not? Badagnani 04:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Moved to talk for discussion

This needs reliable sources for verification and needs to be rewritten for proper balance, once appropriate sources have been found.

Palm oil, both consumed and shunned, is also admired and scorned. In its almost 100 years of development in Malaysia, it continues to brace new challenges. First, there were smear campaigns by American Soybean Association saying palm oil is unhealthy and a main cause of heart attacks. After 15 years and 160 nutritional studies, it was accepted that palm olein has similar cholesterol-lowering effects as olive or canola oil.

--Ronz (talk) 02:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the following excerpt should also be removed:
There has been controversy to why palm oil is not as widely used in the US than it is in Asia. The US produces a lot of corn oil and therefore in order to keep their corn oil selling they had to say that plam oil is not good for health and that it is bad and corn oil should be bought instead. But this is only an unconfirmed myth.[79]
I have not been able to find "reference 79" (Vessby, B. 1994. "Implications of long-chain fatty acid studies" INFORM 5(2): pages 182–185.) However, an article referencing it seemed to be suggesting that Vessby was pointing out the cholesterogenicity of saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid. It is therefore unclear how the reference bears on this new alleged smear campaign in favor of corn oil. Rather than remove the excerpt, I merely added verbiage to the effect that it was unclear who was allegedly doing the smearing. Perhaps another resolution is preferable... Jay L09 (talk) 15:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Biofuel, jatropha vs palm

I've made a few edits here recently to tone down some superlative claims. We've had several anonymous users "comparing" palm oil against jatropha in glowing terms - I strongly recommend that we don't go down the route of a direct comparison, as it isn't something that can easily be done here. Indicating a preference for one crop or the other would have to include a number of other geographic and political factors which would fall outside the scope of this article. If editors wish to try to do this sort of comparison, can I suggest you air your suggestion here first. To help, this is my understanding of the arguments.:

• the benefits of "sustainable" biofuel have not been disputed here. But there is a question about which is the best source to use (palm being just one of many possible Energy crops). There is also a related question about such a biofuel that creates competition for (new & existing) food/cosmetic/hygiene-product crops, potentially pricing it out of reach for some uses, and which is driving up demand for new palm plantations at the expense of land used for food crops or being otherwise environmentally-valuable.

• Arguments in favour of palm seem to be based around the low manual labour input and relatively high yield - even more so if producers can get funding to use more than just the kernal in a "2nd generation" fuel. The higher labour input needed for harvesting jatropha has been described as "slave labour" and "low social capital" in pointed comments by some anon editors. But the higher labour requirement can be viewed positively if it is being sourced from developing regions where subsistence levels are poor, there are few opportunities for employment, and little in the way of cash crops. But both 2nd generation palm & jatropha as a fuel crop are "emerging technologies", so the best techniques to use are still being worked out. We need be careful to avoid putting down non-encyclopedic WP:OR

• Palm has a higher water demand compared to Jatropha, so palm is not an ideal crop in areas of water stress (i.e. much of the developing world and beyond). Thus while a jatropha crop may give a smaller crop of biofuel, it can be grown in locations that are more marginal, and therefore avoid impacting on drought-affected areas, or on existing tropical forest and peat lands.

• The other issue comes down to meeting this demand with damaging agricultural practices, notably on the islands of Indonesia, where their govt has been seen to be incapable of effective intervention against a destructive land-grab for palm plantations.

Ephebi (talk) 10:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio

I removed these two edits [1] because they were copied from [2] --Ronz (talk) 03:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

So what's POV?

Anon User:63.84.78.114 dropped a POV template on the Environmental, social and cultural impact section in the article but hasn't identified what's wrong here. Anon left edit comment: "This section smells of corporate greenwashing." A lot of the previous comments been about getting this wording neutral. So unless Anon can come up with a more tangible explanation then the template will have to go. Ephebi (talk) 00:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

As there has been no attempt to justify the claim after several days, I have removed the template. Ephebi (talk) 08:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)