Ethanol
Biofuels policy in China should include Brazilian sugarcane ethanol
05/14/2012
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Domestic production is a difficult proposition, but the Chinese government appears to be moving gradually to establish a more agressive domestic biofuels policy. The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) welcomes China's progress in that direction and believes that in the long run, Brazilian sugarcane ethanol can help meet the country's rising demand.
“It is remarkable that China has adopted a more ambitious biofuels policy. We believe the Chinese government should complement that strategy by allowing ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil to be added to domestic production, a step that would bring significant contributions in terms of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, specifically in the country's rapidly expanding transport sector," says UNICA’s Senior International Affairs Advisor to the President, Géraldine Kutas.
Consumption target
China's National Energy Bureau announced on April 24 that the government set a goal of using five million tons of ethanol fuel between 2011 until 2015, nearly twice the amount consumed in the previous five-year period (2006 to 2010). In 2011, China imported approximately 55% of its petroleum consumption.
According to the Deputy Director at the Tsinghua University Nuclear Research Institute's New Energy Research Center, Li Shizhong, “the biofuels industry is an integrated system that can drive the development of a variety of other industries, including agriculture, chemicals, plastics, automotive, power generation, transportation and services while helping boost domestic demand.”
Limits to production
Successive increases in China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in recent years spell trouble for large scale biofuels production in the country: "There are clear limitations involving land and water use, which runs counter to the realities of an expanding population with rising purchasing power. Theoretically, this scenario could favour Brazilian sugarcane ethanol imports,” concluded Kutas. |
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