China to Miss its 2010 Ethanol Target
According to a recent Reuters report, China will miss its 2010 ethanol as fuel target. This is because China is not relaxing control over non-grain feedstocks, at the same time as restricting ethanol production through grain.
“We are unable to meet the ethanol target. The major reason is because of a shortage of raw material,” said Ren Dongming, a deputy director with Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.
This is quite significant, since China has been ranked as the third largest ethanol producer in the world.
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Since China is such a large crude oil importer, any methods to reduce oil dependence meant a potential gain for the economy, as well as potential emissions reductions. However, due to food security concerns, in June China began to restrict ethanol production, utilizing grain products for food production rather than energy products.
China’s ethanol target had been a blending 2 million tonnes of ethanol in gasoline by 2010 and 10 million tonnes by 2020. Additionally, ethanol consumption had begun to be phased in across the country, leading to concerns about fuel supplies.
The ten Chinese provinces using ethanol fuel were:
- South China: Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region;
- Northeast: Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces;
- North: Henan and Hebei provinces;
- East: Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces; and
- Central: Hubei Province
Photo Sources: rfarmer and swanksalot via Flickr under a Creative Commons licence.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect much of anything from China anymore. If they couldn’t get Beijing clean for the Olympics, the most important international event in their history, I fail to see what they WOULD consider changing course for.
It seems to me like, 100 years from now, China may be environmentalism’s final frontier.
Also, in many ways, I think Chinese environmental problems will be seen as the dirty legacy of the American model - by taking the American lifestyle and applying it to nearly 2 billion people, China grossly highlighted the problems with our lifestyle, and proved we were living the high life on borrowed time.
You have to credit China for taking some responsibility for it’s ethanol program. if it’s driving food prices up, then it needs a second look.
The US, on the other hand, refuses to even consider reviewing ethanol mandates and subsidies. So 1/3 of the corn harvest (about 1/10 of the world’s corn) will be converted to ethanol and burned in SUVs. Meanwhile, about a billion people don’t have enough to eat.
China looks sensitive and careful by comparison.
[...] China to Miss its 2010 Ethanol Target According to a recent Reuters report, China will miss its 2010 ethanol as fuel target. This is because China is not relaxing control over non-grain feedstocks, at the same time as restricting ethanol production through grain. [...]