New elements in China's ongoing biofuels policy-work
Quicknote bioenergy policies
Over the past few years, China has been working on a compre- hensive bioenergy and biofuels policy, with goals and strategies included in the next Five Year Plan (earlier post). In the meantime, separate ministries and agencies are working out more concrete implementation and support steps.
The People's Republic's Ministry of Finance released a series of bioenergy measures, published in a document last Friday. The document only deals with liquid biofuels (biodiesel, ethanol, bio-oil and other liquid biofuels) used for transport. We are awaiting more details, but some elements of the document have been translated:
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biobutanol :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: China ::
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Over the past few years, China has been working on a compre- hensive bioenergy and biofuels policy, with goals and strategies included in the next Five Year Plan (earlier post). In the meantime, separate ministries and agencies are working out more concrete implementation and support steps.
The People's Republic's Ministry of Finance released a series of bioenergy measures, published in a document last Friday. The document only deals with liquid biofuels (biodiesel, ethanol, bio-oil and other liquid biofuels) used for transport. We are awaiting more details, but some elements of the document have been translated:
- China will grant subsidies to bioenergy-producing companies when international crude oil prices fall below the green alternative's production cost, but only if the lower price lasts for a long period of time.
- The subsidy-guarantee will ensure the sound development of biofuels and attract more investments in the sector.
- Through a series of measures, unused land in mountainous areas will be made available and utilized for planting biofuel feedstocks, mainly sweet sorghum, corn and sweet potato.
- Technological and research developments that promise to find wide applications in the sector, such as research into cellulosic ethanol or the development of new bioconversion technologies, will also be financially supported by a myriad of fiscal and other measures.
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biobutanol :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: China ::
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Sunday, November 12, 2006
EcoSecurities registers 22 biogas projects under the CDM in Mexico and the Philippines
Eighteen of the 22 projects, planned in the Mexican states of Puebla and Veracruz, were developed by EcoSecurities in conjunction with Cargill and Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM). The additional 4 projects, in the Phillipine provinces of Tarlac and Bulacan, were developed by EcoSecurities and Philippine BioSciences Co. (PhilBio).
These projects will reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by the release of methane from wastewater lagoons. Methane is a greenhouse gas 21 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Combined, the projects have the potential to generate over 131,000 Certificates of Emission Reduction (CERs - one CER represents 1 tonne) per year :
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: climate change :: Kyoto Protocol :: Clean Development Mechanism :: biogas :: Philippines :: Mexico ::
The CDM is a mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol which allows industrialised countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (so-called Annex 1 countries) to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries and count them towards their Kyoto targets.
British-based EcoSecurities, which develops and trades carbon credits, is pushing to boost its generation of carbon credits. Next year it plans to source 50 million to 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas credits in Asia.
Recently, a number of critical organisations has pointed out that carbon trading has become a mechanism that is missing its original targets (earlier post), whereas others have revealed that CDM projects and their benefits seldom reach the poorer countries (earlier post), most notably those in Africa (earlier post).
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posted by Biopact team at 3:07 PM 0 comments links to this post