Power from Palm Oil

I seem to be annoyed at certain things. My recent notes about apples from China, is an example. Because it seem ridiculous that we - with a climate that is great for growing apples - should expend so much money and energy on importing them. I felt - and still feel - that this is particularly true when it is for something like apple juice. This seems to be an ideal way of (a) smoothing out demand - we do not have to eat a massive supply of apples during late autumn, but could use our harvest and keep it throughout the year, and (b) apple juice is an ideal way of using those mis-shaped and damaged fruit that we seem so reluctant to buy in the supermarket.

Anyway, I was similarly annoyed when I read that planning permission has just been granted to build the UK's first Palm Oil fired power plant.



George Monbiot of The Guardian, described it as

the maddest energy scheme the world has seen since Ferdinand Marcos built a nuclear power station on a geological faultline.

(You can read the full article here)

These power plants use a very cheap plant based oil - mainly palm and soya. They are very cheap - but also very destructive. Large areas of Brazil are being cleared to grow palm and soya oil. The same is true in Malaysia and Indonisia. Large amount of tropical rain forest - the lungs of the Earth, are being cut down for this.

Some evidence shows that these oils are far more damaging than using petrol. It is claimed that up to 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted for every tonne of oil - tens times higher than petroleum.

And now, it seems that one local council has granted planning permission for a Palm Oil plant to be built in Dorset. You can see a bit more about it here.

I hope and pray that it is the only one built, but the firm building this one hopes to build another in Bristol. Palm oil will be imported via Rotterdam. People in poorer countries will go hungry so that we can have power. This is not caring for the environment or looking after our neighbour.

At the moment, I am not sure what I can do about it, but over the next week or so I will look and, at least, make sure that my electricity company is not going to buy electricity generated this way.

Luke 10:27