In terms of biomass resource availability and mobilization, unlike oil, biomass resources do not belong to the Malaysian government. Private farms and independent smallholders control more than 77% of the palm oil, while governmental agencies possess just 6% (Nambiappan, 2018 ).
How many palm oil mills are there in Malaysia?
More than 100 million tons of palm oil fresh fruit bunches (FFB) were processed annually from Malaysia’s 446 palm oil mills (POM; Zamri et al., 2019 ). As a key product of palm oil FFB, the POM operation primarily extracts crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel oil (PKO).
Can palm oil biomass decarbonize power production in Malaysia?
The integration of palm oil biomass to decarbonize power production is a critical step in Malaysia’s quest for energy sustainability and carbon neutrality.
Does oil palm contribute to deforestation in Malaysia?
In Malaysian Borneo, oil palm was an important contributor to overall deforestation 16. Here, new plantations accounted for 50% of deforestation from 1972 to 2015 when using a five-year cut-off to link deforestation and oil palm development 17 (Fig. 3, Supplementary Fig. 2 and Supplementary Table 3 ).