[Sustain] Valero Oil & Rendering Giant Darling Launch Noxious Agrofuel Venture

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

Prop 23 is not Valero Oil's only evil move on energy policy...

See:

Valero plans JV biodiesel plant with Darling International

http://cleantech.com/news/5020/valero-darling-jv-biodiesel-vlo-adr

Not only will such a move start a worldwide further ramping up of the 
incredibly environmentally disastrous factory animal ag industry, but 
under such a scenario, the current users of Darling's tallow and other 
fats (cosmetics, soap, paint and feed producers) will switch to crop 
based fats; most likely palm oil - because it is the cheapest 
alternative to rendered fats. This, combined with an inevitable 
resulting increase in factory based animal agriculture, will simply 
perpetuate and expand the same problem of excess greenhouse gas releases 
via land use shifting and deforestation, that is already being caused by 
-direct- plant based biofuel production.

Darling is making a move locally -now- which may reach a final vote in 
San Francisco on Tuesday October 12th. See: 
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/09/09/darling-international-enters-biofuels-sector-with-proposed-10-mgy-tallow-biodiesel-plant-in-san-francisco/

More Details & International Implications

Also see attached, a new report commissioned by the UK Department Of 
Transport 'Tallow_Biodiesel_Report_AEA' which shows that greenhouse gas 
emissions will -increase- when tallow rendering plants like the Darling 
facility are converted to produce biodiesel.

Note too that the UK report is very limited in scope and doesn't even 
consider the problems of land use shifting and deforestation.

This is not just a local issue. Darling is planning to do this with its 
rendering plants all over the world, and the move must be stopped in San 
Francisco, in order to keep it from getting press hype and spreading.

Eric Brooks
415-756-8844


-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: SF_ Biofuels_Ordinance.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 63735 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://list.sfgreens.org/pipermail/sustainability/attachments/20101004/1e17f740/attachment-0002.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Tallow_Biodiesel_Report_AEA.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 744052 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://list.sfgreens.org/pipermail/sustainability/attachments/20101004/1e17f740/attachment-0003.pdf>