Page 136 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

122 K. T. Lee and C. Ofori-Boateng

Fig. 14 Environmental impacts associated with transportation stages in the life cycle of PME.
T1 Transportation of oil palm seedlings to plantation site, T2 transportation of FFB from palm
plantation site to oil mill, T3 transportation of RPO to transesterification unit, T4 transportation of
biodiesel from transesterification unit to consumer

be used in a minimal quantities, while efficient treatment of oil palm seeds are used
for nursery.

5.2 Emissions Associated with Oil Palm Plantation

Emissions from the plantation are determined from material balance of the major
substances such as N 2 O, CO, CO 2 , particulate matter into and out of the production
stage. Since oil palm is a perennial crop, during the life cycle for the generation of
FFB and uptake of nutrients, the harvesting and decomposition of biomass residues
varies, hence making emissions data unavailable at early stages.
In the plantation stage, all the impact categories were significant compared to
the other production stages but were higher for land use (98.51 % of total land
use), minerals (96.75 % of total minerals), radiation (58.62 % of total radiation),
climate change (58.42 % of total climate change), ecotoxicity (51.79 % of total
ecotoxicity), respiratory inorganics (43.46 % of total respiratory inorganics), fossil
fuel use (46.62 % of total fossil fuel use), and acidification (34.58 % of total
acidification) (Fig. 13) excluding impacts from transportation stages. The use of
fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and diesel use were the main sources of these
emissions. Organic fertilizers could be used in place of inorganic ones in order to
reduce some of these emissions. The commonly used herbicide, paraquat dichlo-
ride, is found to also emit quite substantial amount of minerals and metals into the
soil. Table 4 shows the emissions of heavy metals/minerals associated with the
production of 1 kg FFB from the plantation stage.