CLIFT, Roland. UK Professor: "Biodiesel is a complete scam", huge tropical palm oil carbon debt

Roland Clift is professor of environmental technology at Surrey University and sits on the scientific advisory council of Defra, David Miliband’s environment department (see: ).

Professor Roland Clift in an address to the Royal Academy of Engineering, stating that the plan to promote bioethanol and biodiesel produced from plants is a “scam” (2007): “ “Biodiesel is a complete scam because in the tropics the growing demand is causing forests to be burnt to make way for palm oil and similar crops. We calculate that the land will need to grow biodiesel crops for 70-300 years to compensate for the CO2 emitted in forest destruction.” [1].

[1]. Roland Clift, quoted in Jonathan Leake and Steven Swinford , “Top scientist says biofuels are scam”, Times Online, 10 June 2007: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1909827.ece .