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READERS JUST DON'T LIKE PALM OIL
(Editor's note: the following letter was written in response to Hawaiian Electric Company official Peter Rosegg's Nov. 15, 2007 letter, which was written in response to Rob Parsons' Nov. 1, 2007 story "The Answer, My Friend.")
Cross-examination of experts separates the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the false, the credible from the speculative. Why is Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) so in favor of public relations people writing letters in support of biofuels, but so afraid of cross-examination?
The Wall Street Journal notes that Indonesia now ranks third in the world in greenhouse gas emissions, due to deforestation, in order to produce palm oil. The HECO-Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) report states: "palm oil cultivation has also been responsible for widespread clearing of primary tropical forests, draining of peat soils, catastrophic fires in Southeast Asia, and a number of other negative social and environmental impacts... vegetable oils are substitutable with each other."
The world reality is that all palm oil produced is being consumed. If a company insists on buying "sustainable" palm oil, then whoever was buying that now must shift to the bad stuff. The total picture does not change.
Life of the Land sponsored Dr Tadeus Patzek, a world-class biofuel expert, at a Public Utilities Commission Evidentiary Hearing in December 2006. HECO sponsored no biofuel witnesses and refused to cross-examine ours. The Public Utilities Commission ruled in favor of biofuels. Now HECO has submitted a biofuels contract to the PUC with 89 redactions. We filed to intervene. HECO opposes our intervention on the grounds that we a party in the last docket. Maui Electric Company opposed our intervention in their planning docket on the grounds that we wanted to discuss biofuels and climate change.
Peter Rosegg touts Imperium Renewables' commitment to use local feedstock. At the Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting on Nov. 16, Imperium committed to a "commercially reasonable best effort" to use 10 percent local feedstock in years 10-35 of a 35-year contract. Imperium stressed that it had to be a goal, since anything else would interfere with their ability to raise funds to pay for this proposed plant.
Henry Curtis, Executive Director, Life of the Land
November 29, 2007
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