Chapter 10: Palm Oil as an Energy Crop

Palm oil is known as a versatile vegetable oil with numerous applications ranging from food ingredients to non-edible products. At present, with the price of fossil fuels remains volatile in the world market, palm oil has emerged as a potential energy crop which can provide a renewable and sustainable energy source owing to its high productivity and low cost production. In this chapter, the potential of palm oil as energy crop was discussed thoroughly which includes a comprehensive economic analysis. In addition, issues and challenges surrounding palm oil as an energy crop were elaborated in details. Furthermore, the current research and development of palm oil which aims to enhance its prospective as a sustainable and productive energy crop were highlighted as well. Hence, it can be concluded that palm oil has a huge potential to be developed as a sustainable energy crop to solve the issue of energy crisis.