Malaysia stops giving licenses for biodiesel production projects

The headline the Houston Chronicle gave this AP story, "Malaysia Suspends Biodiesel Effort" is a bit alarmist. Malaysia is still promoting biodiesel. The government is in fact worried that the fuel produced in the 32 biodiesel projects it has greenlighted thus far will be so popular that the food market will be deprived of palm oil. The 32 projects can produce about 3 million tons of biodiesel (a year?). Palm oil is used to prepare foods and is a major source of biomass for biodiesel production in Malaysia. So the effort is not suspended, just new licenses. Last year, the government received 87 applications for permits to produce biodiesel in Malaysia.
[Source: Houston Chronicle]