Biofuel Thrust
While world leaders gathered in Japan to find solutions to rising energy and food prices, a Chinese official reiterated that China’s support to biofuel development has not caused the global food price surge. Zeng Xiao’an, a deputy department director of the Ministry of Finance said China’s scale of fuel produced form corn is very small and China has already stopped all new projects.
China’s corn-based ethanol production capacity is only 1.3 million tons. But in the US, it’s 19.8 million tons. The US plans to produce 110 million tons of biofuel by 2020. It’s the United States that should take the blame for its massive production of fuels from corn and other grains that has pushed up their global prices. Facing the soaring food prices, especially since last August, the World Bank has said developed countries should reduce the amount of grain being used for fuel and increasing grain aid to regions worst hit by the food crisis.
Having a large population to support, China will not develop biofuel at the cost of grain security, said Zeng, but the central government will offer financial support for biofuel from agricultural waste, such as wheat straw, corn stalks, animal feces and non-grain farm produce, which China produces quite amount every year.
China has always encourage farmers to use green energies like biogas, methane which are both energy saving and environmentally friendly. And China is striving to build a environmentally friendly society.
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