SINGAPORE - China aims to use 6.7 million tonnes of ethanol and 11 million tonnes of biodiesel by 2010, meeting 10 percent of its forecast transport fuel demand, a government economist said on Thursday.
The country's emphasis will be to develop ethanol from cassava, sweet potato and corn, and biodiesel from animal and vegetable waste oil, said Wang Zhongying, director for the Centre for Renewable Energy Development at the policy-setting National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
"China has incentives for farmers to produce feedstocks," Wang told a biofuels conference in Singapore.
China unexpectedly emerged as an exporter of ethanol this year, but this 10 percent level of biofuel use could leave the country needing imports, given domestic plans to produce only 3.0 million tonnes by 2010, three times current output.
The NDRC, the country's top planning body, is keen to raise the country's use of the biofuel to reduce China's dependency on imported oil and to secure the income for hundreds of millions of farmers.
The country has plans to reserve 44 million hectares of land for biofuel feedstock growing, Wang said. Longer term, China will look to develop diesel from wild crops such as jatropha and cellulose ethanol agricultural and forest waste, as it forecasts 9 million tonnes of ethanol use and 15 million tonnes of biodiesel by 2020, he said.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
