Imperium - Not Sustainable

Proposed Imperium Renewables Inc. Plant (100 million gallons per year)

Imperium will import "sustainable" palm oil. But Duff Badgley, who heads a Seattle-based group called One Earth which staged a protest outside of Imperium's downtown Seattle offices, calls sustainable palm oil "an industry-financed hoax."

Clearcutting in South America

Initial areas of concern:

In our good intentions, we may be increasing global warming and paying higher electric rates

1. Imported biodiesel that encourages rain forest destruction is net contributor to CO2
2. Although its contracts are with suppliers who guarantee the palm oil plantations have not destroyed rainforest or wetlands, it still increases palm oil demand so other buyers will obtain their supply from non-ecological sources. See the Oil Palm page.
3. To supply oil for 120 million gallon Maui plant will require 206,000 acres of Oil Palms, 650,000 of jatropha or 530,000 acres of Kukui. Only 140,000 acres of biofuel land has been identified in all of Hawai'i. 37,000 acres is in sugar cane. This means most or all of the feedstock will be imported - not grown on Maui
4. Jatropha seeds and leaves are poisonous to people, animals and birds. It is an undesirable invasive specie for Maui. See the jatropha page for more info.
5. If foreign palm oil stays lower priced than locally grown feedstocks, then no local feedstock will be used unless price supports or tariffs are imposed.
6. 24,000,000 gallons of glycerin waste product will be produced each year by the Maui plant. Unless a plant is built that burns glycerin or it is used to create methanol for the biofuel system, this will be dumped in our landfill.