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Comment by howling | Hacker News Reader

The article (as many others) fails to address the single most important question in the palm oil debate.

What alternatives are there if we are to avoid palm oil? How are they more environmentally friendly?

Algal oil is a potential substitute. There was a laundry detergent manufactured from algal oil instead of palm oil however there was pushback from consumers because the algae were genetically modified.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/sep/29...

Scaling algal oil production is a problem that is currently being worked on.

There probably isn't a single alternative since I think thats part of the problem here, it's a become a monoculture. Practically speaking though it can be replaced with various nut or vegetable oils, which of those are most environmentally friendly depend on the location and farming methods.

Palm oil effectively replaced partially hydrogenated oils in various junk foods when we learned how unhealthy trans fats were. Fully hydrogenating these oils will not have exactly the same properties as partial hydrogenation, but for many purposes it will work ok in many of these junk food applications. Fully hydrogenated oils don't have the trans fat issue, but it will require consumer education to make this point clear.

What alternatives are there if we are to avoid palm oil? How are they more environmentally friendly?

With palm oil being used for biofuel, one way to cut back on it is cut back on energy consumption.

Promote passive solar design.

Promote walkable, transit oriented planning.

Develop better public transit.

Tax the absolute hell out of private vehicle ownership.

Etc.

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