Abstract
Currently Malaysia is the biggest producer of palm oil in the world. The world demand of palm oil will increase from now on. Apart from the edible oil, the palm oil industry also yields a huge amount of biomass including empty fruit bunch (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME). Generally POME is treated in anaerobic ponding (lagoon) system, generating a huge amount of methane which is not utilized effectively. Methane is a greenhouse effect gas, thus its free release should be reduced. The Kyoto Protocol encourages developed countries to cooperate with developing countries to reduce the greenhouse effect gas in the developing counties. This is called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Palm oil industry can contribute to reducing the greenhouse effect gases because the oil palm plantation is the great adsorption sink of carbon dioxide and furthermore any installation of modern methane fermentation systems for the treatment of POME can reduce methane by a huge amount. On the other hand, currently the issue of biomass resources is greatly focused on by the Japanese government to reduce the fossil resources in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission. According to the economic growth in Malaysia, development of new oil palm plantation in the tropical rain forest becomes no longer economically effective. In order to meet the increasing demand for palm oil in the future, it will become essential for the palm oil industry to cooperate with other industries, the environment and the society. CDM provides a mechanism for a complete methane fermentation system which can change the lagoon area to a profitable area for other uses. The implementation of CDM can also provide electricity using the methane fermentation system to supply to novel business with a very good price. This enables the production of many valued bio-products from biomass from the palm oil industry, such as ethanol, poly-lactate, organic acids, bio-plastics, etc. These palm oil policy and strategy would encourage the warm and wet countries around the equator to become a sustainable society.
