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Greenpeace says biodiesel industry falsified rapeseed yields, inflating them by 400 percent

December 31, 2007

Greenpeace spokesperson Michael Hopf, said that biodiesel “produces as many fine carcinogenic particulates as do fossil fuels,” and said the biofuels advocates have falsely quadrupled the biodiesel yield of rapeseed. Hopf said that a field produces 35 gallons of biodiesel per acre, compared to industry claims of yields of 140 gallons per acre.

Hopf added that “If half the available farmland in Germany were used to grow rapeseed, the total production would be less than five percent of the total annual consumption of gasoline in Germany. On that same land it is possible to grow 6.8 million tonnes of wheat, or 41 million tonnes of potatoes. Germany has to choose between producing food or vegetable oil to run its cars.”

Greenpeace has been active in opposition to biodiesel production, primarily in terms of opposing Indonesian oil palm industry expansion.

Recently, the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior blocked a 33,000 tonne load of palm oil from leaving the port of Dumai. The Rainbow Warrior was positioned by its crew so close to the oil tanker that the tug boats can’t move it from the dock area.

The cargo of palm oil was headed for India, and Greenpeace used the exercise to highlight the impact of deforestation on the peat lands of Riau province in Indonesia. Greenpeace believes that the peatland forest store 14.6 billion tonnes of carbon that would be released to the atmosphere if the forest are cleared for oil palm.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace released its “Cooking the Climate” report which concluded that forest clearance in Indonesia for palm plantations has made the country the third largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, behind the United States and China.

The study found that Indonesia is losing 2 percent of its tropical forest each year to deforestation, and that the resultant emissions more than offset the gain from switching from fossil fuels to biofuels. Indonesia has six million hectares of palm under cultivation and plans to expand this to 10 million hectares by 2015.

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    Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under Research 

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