New research by scientists at the University of Leicester has found that CO2 emissions from tropical palm oil plantations could be 50% higher than previously thought.

The research was conducted for the International Council on Clean Transportation, an international think tank that wanted to assess the greenhouse gas emissions associated with biodiesel production.

Biodiesel Law Drives Up Palm Oil Demand

Biodiesel mandates like the RTFO and the corresponding EU policies, which require a percentage of biodiesel to be used in standard road fuels, have both a direct and indirect impact on palm oil demand.

The direct demand is due to the requirement for a suitable biofuel to mix with mineral diesel, while the indirect demand is the result of additional demand for food oil where crops formerly used for this purpose (e.g. rapeseed oil) have been diverted to biofuel use.

Peatland Biodiesel Is High In CO2

The problem lies in the fact that much of the additional palm oil being used to create European biodiesel comes from newly-created palm oil plantations on tropical peatland (e.g. in Indonesia).

Using tropical peatland to create new palm oil plantations releases vast stores of CO2 that were previously harmlessly locked away in the peat. This is akin to burning a forest or a large amount of coal – all the CO2 locked in the peat is released rapidly, having taken many millenia to accumulate.

Apparently, tropical peatland is one of the Earth’s largest and most effective carbon sinks when left uncultivated – but when used for plantations, the resulting degradation of the peat triggers huge carbon emissions that have not previously been accounted for when assessing the carbon emissions of biofuels.

Biofuel Policies Likely To Fail At Reducing Global CO2 Emissions

The outcome of all of this is that the carbon emissions caused by using biodiesel from tropical peatland palm oil plantations are so great that they cancel out any reduction in emissions relative to using standard fossil fuel diesel.

The end result is that as I have discussed a number of times before, the EU’s love affair with biofuels at almost any cost is gradually being revealed as the short-sighted, ill-conceived notion that many scientists and environmentalists have always believed it to be.

For more detailed information, the full report is available on the ICCT’s website.