Coconut Oil will save us

I saw a segment on the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program yesterday afternoon showing how in Papua New Guinea due to the strong reliance on imported oil and that it is very common for all vehicles to run dry due to the oil/fuel supply running out that a German guy there has "invented" (for want of a better word) no, lets say discovered, yes, DISCOVERED that Diesel fuelled vehicle will run just fine on a 100% coconut oil mixture, admittedly this stuff does solidify below 25 degrees C but but surely one of the petrochemical engineers out there could invent some kind of anti freeze/coagulent for this stuff?? it is green energy at it's best I reckon and cannot understand why we are not all using it??Link to site

Do you have any idea how many coconuts it would take to fuel just one car? Or how many trees it would take to grow those coconuts? Or how long it takes for a tree to mature?

Sure you can burn ANY vegetable oil in a diesel engine. Otto Diesel who invented the Diesel Engine planned on running them on Peanut oil. Coconuts are NOT a good substitute for the masses as they do not produce well, and do not grow outside of tropical climates. Soybeans, peanuts, and a number of other oil producing plants are a far better plan.

every country and government these days has a program to say their local cash crop will compete with saudi oil! oh, what a tragedy to say the least for the subsidies and funds that are handed out on these false hopes.

This is very funny.

Originally posted by Terapin


Sure you can burn ANY vegetable oil in a diesel engine. Otto Diesel who invented the Diesel Engine planned on running them on Peanut oil. Coconuts are NOT a good substitute for the masses as they do not produce well, and do not grow outside of tropical climates. Soybeans, peanuts, and a number of other oil producing plants are a far better plan.

Palm oil is the highest yielder at about 635 gal/acre where coconuts yield only about 287gal/acre, but I think that it would more wise to use multiple crops for oil production because some crops grow better in some climates than others.

LINK

Originally posted by etotheitheta
every country and government these days has a program to say their local cash crop will compete with saudi oil! oh, what a tragedy to say the least for the subsidies and funds that are handed out on these false hopes.

This is very funny.

iawtc texas tea, the original and still best.

Henry Ford, the automobile pioneer, did considerable research in finding suitable bio-fuels. He tried a variety of different plants from potatoes to peanuts in his search. One of the more successful substances that he found was hemp!

Henry Ford and hemp for fuel

I don't think that Henry ever tried to test the suitability of coconuts as fuel. Otherwise, he might have been "coo-coo for coconuts"

their gonna need billions of coconuts, go with sugar cane?

new Guinea can grow it there right?

Yes, any vegetable oil, without further refining, can be burned in a diesel engine, in Germany there are truck fleets running on it in a rapidly increasing scale since it hasn't been taxed like motor fuel, though that of course is changing now.

The biodiesel & ethanol industry is a complete waste of energy & tax money, it only works because it still involves the conventional petroleum industry & even brings in the big agricultural corporations like Monsanto etc, if there were no interest of any big lobbying group this nonsense wouldn't happen.

Buy an old diesel pick up or rabbit & you'll be able to drive for a long time to come, it's gona be expensive, but there will be fuel available.

reply to post by Spica


Haven't heard about the coconut oil revolution, but it is hard to imagine coconuts growing on the roadsides and farmlands of North America.

In fact, if we did not have such draconian laws in place currently, hemp farming would become a leading industry in the world. Check out the links below to see the various uses of hemp and how this amazing weed could truly save our planet:

Hemp car to complete 10,000 mile journey

A possible answer to global oil dependancy

Hemp oil fuels and how to make them

The environmental benefits of using industrial hemp

I hope that our government leaders will soon understand that by legalising industrial hemp production (non-thc producing varieties) our planet will be a much healthier place.

Just examine the multiple products this plant can produce:

en.wikipedia.org...




[edit on 18-9-2007 by solo32_98]

One problem in the mad dash for Palm oil in Indonesia is that the Rain forests are being cut down to plant Palm Oil plantations.
That is depriving the Oranutans of their natural habitat and also massively depleting the rain forest.

A bog standard non turbo diesel car or van will run perfectly well on a 90% mix of veg oil and 10% diesel in summer and at least a 20% veg oil/diesel mix in winter with no modifications at all. You could fit a heater system allowing you to run on 90% Veg oil in winter if you so wanted.

Rape seed is easy and cheap to grow and grows very well even in Northern climates like the UK, the oil it produces runs very well in Diesel engines.

I have amongst others a 1996 VW T4 Van. 2.4 diesel that I currently run on 70%SVO (Straight vegetable oil) at around 45-50p a litre and it runs fine.
Ill drop this to around 20% when it gets colder.
The only problem is that when the engine is hot and I stop at the lights I get hungry as the exhaust smells like a BBQ

[edit on 18/9/07 by Chorlton]

[edit on 18/9/07 by Chorlton]

i thought forests were better for the atmosphere than a calculated (viewing fule consumption without taking fertilzer into account) reduction in CO2 emissions, but i'm probably old fashioned.

anyway, back on topic

Source

In Malaysia, the production of palm oil for biodiesel is a major
industry. According to a recent report by Friends of the Earth,
"Between 1985 and 2000 the development of oil-palm plantations was
responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in
Malaysia." In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest
have been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares
are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in
Indonesia...

In the Guardian newspaper George Monibot writes: "Almost all the
remaining forest is at risk. Even the famous Tanjung Puting national
park in Kalimantan is being ripped apart by oil planters. The
orangutan is likely to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos,
tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other
species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have
been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been
tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires which every so
often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm
growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable
oil field.

from www.abovetopsecret.com...


industrial agriculture works only for a limited amount of time, take India:

Source#2
Punjab and Haryana were at the forefront of the Green Revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which farm machinery, pesticides and fertilisers, irrigation and the replacement of traditional crops with high-yielding varieties dramatically increased productivity. The two states together now provide 80 per cent of the country's food surplus.

But the land is increasingly unable to support this burden of intensive agriculture. Crop yields--and water resources--are declining alarmingly, and some parts are close to becoming barren. Many farmers are heavily in debt from their investments in new equipment and reliance on chemicals, and rural unemployment is increasing. These are ominous signs of a deteriorating farm economy.

from www.abovetopsecret.com...

what biofules will certainly do is to a) increase consumer prices and b) give big biz tight and direct control of the land and with it, our food supply. soil erosion would be enough of a problem without biofuel production, obviously, see:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

to top it off, carbon dioxide is not toxic, it's in fact a fertilizer and its effect on climate is miniscule compared to that of water vapor and subject to saturation (diminishing returns). the idea of saving the world by destroying it one piece of land at a time is lunacy anyway.

[edit on 30.9.2007 by Long Lance]

Originally posted by Chorlton
One problem in the mad dash for Palm oil in Indonesia is that the Rain forests are being cut down to plant Palm Oil plantations.

You're a victim of disinformation. The rain forests in Indonesia are still intact. The mangrove swamps by the coasts are the ones that were cut down. Mangrove swamps are not orang-utan habitats. And it was cut down decades ago. The problem now is that with all this disinformation, there are no investors to help replant the area with any tree, palm, mangrove, whatever.

So what happens next? The Indonesians plant some of the area with paddy fields and soya bean and at the end of the season, practice open burning to clear the area for replanting, much to the chagrin of neighbouring countries like Malaysia and Singapore. Then the fires get out of control and burn more peat land from the cleared mangrove swamps. And then the yearly haze problem begins. It's a running joke. When the skies turn hazy, we start thinking, "oh no, the Indonesians are burning stuff again..."

Worst still, the Indonesian government is reluctant to let their neighbours help combat the fires. And every year they promise to tackle the situation. Every year they say the problem won't repeat. Nothing gets done. And guess what? The burning has started again. Just do a quick search on Google for the keywords "hotspot fire indonesia". There's your greenhouse gas emitter right there.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, there are no new forests being cut down. The palm oil plantations that were set up during the British colonial era are the ones that are being cut down, to make way for housing development. Those statistics about clearing the land for oil plantations are skewered. The land cleared was originally rubber plantations, again set up during the British era. Rubber is no longer that profitable now, with the advent of synthetic rubber and better rubber recycling methods.

The whole palm oil smear campaign started when palm oil began competing with soya oil as the cooking oil of choice, mainly because it was cheaper. Cheaper to produce, cheaper to process, higher yields. First they said palm oil has cholesterol. Rubbish, considering that it's vegetable oil. Then they said we're decreasing orang-utans habitats. Also nonsense considering no new rainforest clearing projects are being undertaken.

Now the smear campaign is still going on considering palm oil produces three times as much oil as soya. It's a better option for biodiesel production compared to soya. It has always been about competition with soya. I don't hear any complains about clearing mangrove forests in Indonesia for soya. Doesn't that seem odd?

The only problem with orang-utan or rhino habitat loss we have right now are coming from illegal loggers and poachers. And those are dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Public shaming is also included. Most illegal logging activity takes place in Sabah, in East Malaysia at the border of Indonesia's Kalimantan state, in Northern Borneo.

Our park rangers have trouble pursuing the loggers and poachers because they'll slip past the border to Indonesia. I'm not sure what the Indonesian government is doing on their side. Probably not much since it's a good source of income for a poor country.

While you are all reading from second hand sources with an agenda, I've got the benefit of living in the region for over two decades. If they really wanted to call attention to the situation from an ecological angle, they would have highlighted habitat loss of various water fouls and crocodiles. Crocs aren't as cute and human-like as orang-utans, which locally means "jungle person". They would have also highlighted the fact that coastal mangrove swamps provide a water break to dampen the effects of tsunamis. You don't hear any of these, because it doesn't fit the agenda.

Originally posted by Beachcoma

Originally posted by Chorlton
One problem in the mad dash for Palm oil in Indonesia is that the Rain forests are being cut down to plant Palm Oil plantations.

You're a victim of disinformation. The rain forests in Indonesia are still intact.

I beg to differ. The Rain Forests are NOT intact at all.

"In this era, Indonesia with the assistance from foreign companies (the involvement of the companies was possible due to Foreign Investment Law in 1967), has become the biggest log exporter in the world."

www.wrm.org.uy...



www.globalforestwatch.org...

The rate of forest loss is accelerating. On average, about 1 million ha per year were cleared in the 1980s, rising to about 1.7 million ha per year in the first part of the 1990s. Since 1996, deforestation appears to have increased to an average of 2 million ha per year.

Indonesia’s lowland tropical forests, the richest in timber resources and biodiversity, are most at risk. They have been almost entirely cleared in Sulawesi and are predicted to disappear in Sumatra by 2005 and Kalimantan by 2010 if current trends continue.

And finally heres something from a US source.
www.american.edu...

Indonesian rain forests are being devastated. For wood and for the land for Palm oil plantations. That is a FACT

reply to post by Chorlton


Use Google Earth and have a look. Plantations are not difficult to spot.

I live around the region. I know what goes on here. In fact, your links back up my assertion that it was cleared for logging, illegal or otherwise.

And you know what? They don't log all the trees. Not every tree is suitable. The legal operations usually replant the area with teak saplings. It's the illegal operations that are a problem.

Re-read my post and stop arguing because I quoted you. When I said intact it was because all the posts here seem to make out like the rainforests here are gone and all we have are secondary bush forests. I'm just trying to clear things up, and my response was for all who were jumping aboard the "palm oil is bad" bandwagon.

The lowland tropical forests are also known as mangrove forests, because that's what they are.

Edit to add: One more thing, palm oil trees require rolling terrain. the lowland areas make poor plantations.

[edit on 30-9-2007 by Beachcoma]