InfoSAWIT, KUALA LUMPUR – On 22 October 2024, Malaysian Oil Scientists and Technologists’ Association (MOSTA) would conduct a conference with the theme "Palm Oil Industries and Circular Economy” in Kuala Lumpur. It would be one way of President of MOSTA, Tan Sri Augustine Ong to promote sustainability attribute from palm oil itself.
One main focus in the conference would be about the latest evidence revelation scientifically about the power of carbon absorption by palm oil. It is said that palm oil that is hardly 10 times more than other seeds oils, showed that palm oil is more effective in carbon absorption. In its optimal condition, palm oil would produce between 17 to 19 tons of oil per hectare per year even though it just reached four tons per hectare in the average.
“If the harvest would escalate, there would be big leap in carbon absorption,” Professor Dennis Murphy of University of Wales said as InfoSAWIT quoted from NST, Tuesday (6/8/2024).
Murphy also mentioned palm oil has its potential to absorb carbon well. It would be equal to tropical forest in some cases, and better than other oil plants.
Carbon absorption by trees and tropical plants would do more than 1.000 million tons of CO2 atmosphere in every year. But the process is threatened by the forest deforestation and dry peat. To solve the imbalance between emission and carbon absorption, it would be important to reduce net emission and escalate carbon absorption capacity.
He also explained the effective policy to escalate carbon absorption would be about to plant tropical plants in agroforestry system, limit forest deforestation, plant the peat, and audit carbon impact in the main planting system. In this context palm oil was identified as the good candidate to produce energy from labors’ employment.
President of MOSTA, Tan Sri Augustine Ong emphasized that to increase carbon absorption would be realized by developing plants varieties that produce more. “Fresh fruit bunch got escalated up to three times. This coujld escalate carbon absorption twice more when the new variety was just planted for the next decades,” he said.
The conference would discuss the strategies to maximize biomass absorption potential that might not be taken for advantages, such as, the leaves, stalks of palm oi. “Only science would make palm oil critics silent,” Ong emphasized. (T2)
