The first time I remember making a connection between food and fuel was watching Anik Szapiro sniffing butane at the Redfern Legal Centre, south of the Sydney CBD in Australia, when I was a young law student working as a volunteer legal assistant. Reputedly a veteran of the WWII Polish forces, by this time Anik [...]
In Malaysia, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said that the lowered price of crude palm oil made it possible for the country’s 15 biodiesel plants to resume full production at full capacity and make a profit. The government, he said, would buy 500,000 tonnes of biodiesel in the next year [...]
In Kenya, an article in IRIN highlighted the struggles of the newborn local jatropha industry. The industry profile highlighted the impact of rising diesel costs, and a 500 percent increase in the price of jatropa seeds from $15 per kilo to $92 per kilo. Test planting results have shown that local jatropha would take up [...]
In Thailand, General Motors announced an agreement with state oil company PTT to support research into cellulosic ethanol, expend biodiesel sources, develop alternative fuels including compressed natural gas, as well as expand R&D for hybrid and fuel cell engine technologies. GM also announced a partnership with the Thailand Automotive Industry Association that would propose an [...]
“‘Change, change, change!”‘ Fidel Castro wrote, regarding the US Presidential campaign, in a column published this morning in Havana. “I agree, ‘change!’ but in the United States,” he continued. “I enjoyed seeing the embarrassing position of all the U.S. presidential candidates.”
However, change appears to be coming more quickly for Cuba’s biofuels policy than for Castro’s [...]
