Biofuel in China
Farmers in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou provinces are welcoming big change in their lives. they living condition maybe can get big improvement, and Chinese government perhaps find a good way to change the underdeveloped status in northwestern china. that's Biofuel industry.
reports said USA company Becco biofuel Ltd. will invest 2 billion US$ in panzhihua city within 10 years to build a jatropha base and a plant which can produce 400,000 Tons biodiesel. that's not the only story. UK company sun biofuel also will invest about 4 billion RMB and Chinese local oil company CNCOOC will invest 2 billion RMB in panzhihua city. all of these companies are competing to construct self jatropha base for future biofuel market.
it's a good thing for a poor province to get billions RMB investment. and the investment is really very tight close to local farmers. only with the farmers involvement, the money can be turned into jatropha trees and biofuel. obviously, farmers can get reward to improve their condition. of course, all the beautiful visions are based on the success of these projects. so I would like to be pessimistic and list the following concerns:
1) threaten to food agriculture: if all the farmers think they can make more money from the jatropha tree and aren't willing to planting other crops or fruit trees, it will bring potential risks once biofuel market declines.chinese has a very bad behavior: if someone can make money or get good returns in something, all the people or companies will run out of their savings or borrow money to do the same thing crazily. I have seen many cases in many industries.
2) threaten to ecosystem: if all the hills are only covered by jatropha, single species will cause potential ecosystem problem. many countries actually treat jatropha as a weed because of its toxic seeds that can spread rather easily and create dense stands on uncultivated lands. what's more, single species ecosystem can easily multiply disease and insects, and jatropha can be the host of cassava virus.
3) company business ethic: although many chinese medias reported these companies' investment news, I hardly can see the same news from foreigh medias. I checked online news related BECCO biofuel and Sun biofuel, and didn't find their press about activities in china. on the contrary, I found their activities in spain, africa. maybe I am too sensitive, but I don't know government officials have checked their accounts and have verified their money or not. thinking about Becco biofuel, they will invest 140 million EURO in spain in recent years and at the same time, they will invest billions dollars in china. I am very curious where they get the capital? current I didn't get any funding news about them.
4) uncertain biofuel market: biofuel market is still in very early phase. many feedstocks can be used to produce biofuel. currently it's hard to say which one is better. we only can say the oil content of jatropha is relatively higher than most of other feedstocks. but how about the overall ratio manufacturing cost to economic value? still under the research, I think.
Written by Keanu Zhang - Visit WebsiteRelated posts: No Related Posts
