June 11, 2007

China set to block all food-based ethanol production
 

China would not approve any more projects that use foodstuffs in the production of ethanol despite the country's growing thirst for the cleaner fuel, Xinhua news agency reported Sunday (Jun 10), citing a government official.

The focus will switch to ethanol produced from non-food materials such as cassava, sweet potato and cellulose, the official from the National Development & Reform Commission told a seminar on China's fuel ethanol development in Beijing during the weekend.

The NDRC official, who declined to be named, said all four enterprises currently engaged in corn-based ethanol would be required to switch to non-food raw materials gradually.

The enterprises in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces in north-eastern China, Henan in central China, and Anhui in eastern China, have a combined production capacity of 1.02 million tonnes of corn-based ethanol a year.

China's worries about the direction of ethanol development stem from the amount of arable land that needs to be used, reducing space for growing crops.

"Food-based ethanol fuel will not be the direction for China," said Xu Dingming, vice director of the Office of the State Energy Leading Group, who was also at the seminar.

Cofco Ltd., the country's largest food importer and exporter, will focus on sorgo in the future, Xinhua quoted the company's president Yu Xubo as telling the seminar.

Cofco owns the Heilongjiang enterprise and has a 20 percent stake in the Anhui enterprise. The company aims to produce 5 million tonnes of ethanol from sorgo in the near future, the report said.