Biofuel plant ‘could be anti-green’

A biofuel production plant to be built in Scotland with
environmentalists say the cheapest available source of biomass is palm oil from south-east Asia, where plantations have been created by removing vast rainforest areas, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and threatening endangered species.

A spokesman for Ineos Enterprises, the company behind the biofuel plant, said it was their “intention” to source the raw material from sustainable sources.

But environmentalists fear that with palm oil available at about half the price of Scottish oilseed rape, economics may take over; they called for Scottish Executive funding to be subject to an environmental audit.

Scotsman