Word: biodiesel
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...Some of those changes are elementary - producers shouldn't just recycle, they should aim to buy recycled paper the first time around. Instead of using polluting diesel generators on the set, filmmakers could buy ones that run on less-carbon intensive biodiesel - which, Begley points out, has the additional benefit of "smelling like French fries instead of diesel gas." But some of Begley's suggestions would seem to challenge the star system of at the heart of the Hollywood galaxy. Why, he asks, should we reserve singe cars for celebrities? "Load it up," exhorts Begley. "Get some grips and electricians...
...film carbon neutral, from the first script sessions to the ultra-light DVD packaging. (The movie bombed, but at least it made a lighter impact on the Earth when it did.) This season the action show 24 will set the standard for green production, with all-recycled scripts, biodiesel power and LED lights. (Jack Bauer will not begin chasing terrorists in an L.A. city bus, however.) Given Hollywood's penchant for copying success, if a hit like 24 goes green, expect the rest to follow...
...byproduct of the oil-palm tree such as those being planted in Riau, is used for cooking and as a food additive. Growing it has long been a big business in Southeast Asia. But it can also be used in the production of a relatively clean-burning alternative fuel: biodiesel. As oil prices have soared in recent years, Indonesian companies have been converting vast tracts of forests and peat bogs into palm-oil plantations to feed a rapidly expanding biodiesel industry; between 1995 and 2005, the amount of Indonesian land being used to grow oil palms increased by some...
...biodiesel boom has a high environmental cost, however. Critics say it's contributing to global warming. Tropical forests help remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. Burning and clear-cutting not only eliminates one of the planet's crucial air-filtration systems, the process also releases even more carbon dioxide into the air, in smoke or as gases released during the decomposition of forest waste. Annual clearing of Indonesia's carbon-rich peatlands alone releases some 1.8 billion tons of greenhouse gases, according to a Greenpeace report. Indonesia is the world's third largest emitter...
...That may be so - but as long as there is demand for biodiesel, it seems unrealistic to expect Indonesia to stop converting forests into plantations. These days, Riau's main highway is clogged with trucks carting processed palm oil from local refineries to the Sumatran port town of Dumai. Outside one house, not far from the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, a woman weighing out heavy red palm fruit on a scale in her front yard says her family used to only sell fruit from their 200 palm trees. But with the high prices palm oil fetches these days, she says...