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    Taiwan's Feng Chia University has succeeded in boosting the production of hydrogen from biomass to 15 liters per hour, one of the world's highest biohydrogen production rates, a researcher at the university said Friday. The research team managed to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide (which can be captured and stored) from the fermentation of different strains of anaerobes in a sugar cane-based liquefied mixture. The highest yield was obtained by the Clostridium bacterium. Taiwan News - November 14, 2008.


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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

China unexpectedly emerging as major ethanol exporter

Earlier, we reported about China's new biofuel policies, and showed that the country already is the world's third largest ethanol producer, after Brazil and the US, though lagging on biodiesel. Surprisingly, though, China is now unexpectedly emerging as a major exporter of ethanol as record-high crude oil prices and a U.S. deficit in the biofuel have pushed up its international price, triggering an impressive investment boom.

Industry officials said China's 2006 exports of ethanol, or ethyl alcohol made largely from corn or cassava, were set to exceed 500,000 tons (625 million liters or about 11,000 barrels per day). Shipments may reach 900,000 tons (1.13 billion liters or 19,000 bpd), some traders say. It had virtually no ethanol exports for fuel last year.

Most of the ethanol cargoes go directly or indirectly to the United States due to a switch this year to use ethanol as an additive for cleaner gasoline. Some are dehydrated in Caribbean countries for use in the U.S., helped by favorable taxes. "We predict it (2006 exports) may reach 900,000 tons," said a trader at an international house. "But due to recent softening in the international market, maybe we will revise the number down, possibly by around 100,000 tons."

However, not many are convinced that China can maintain a competitive edge for fuel ethanol exports in the future, especially if it has to keep importing cassava and as there is a ethanol plant building boom in the United States. China is the world's third-largest ethanol producer, behind Brazil and the United States, but in the past has used most of its output domestically, much for use in alcohol or chemicals but increasingly as a gasoline blend in agricultural provinces.

Brazil exported about 450 million liters to the U.S. last year, only about 4 percent of its total production. For many, Chinese exports of fuel ethanol came as a surprise as there were only four fuel ethanol plants until 2005. The product is heavily subsidized by Beijing, eager to develop alternative fuels to cut China's dependence on imported oil.

Yet officials said a window of opportunity had emerged, due to a surge in global ethanol prices, helped by a U.S. shortfall estimated at 2 million tons this year. Physical prices climbed to above $5.00 a gallon in May before receding toward $2.50:

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Coupled with high crude oil prices , this has encouraged small food ethanol producers to dehydrate their products for use as fuel, they said. Many have expanded capacity and built new plants.

Data and details of the trade are patchy, partly as it is difficult to distinguish between fuel ethanol and other alcohols, including hydrous ethanol, used also in liquors or chemicals.

But an official from China Songyuan Ji'an Biochemical Sales Co. Ltd., based in the country's top corn-producing province of Jilin in the northeast, told Reuters it alone would export 300,000 tons of ethanol -- or all of its output -- this year.

Of the total, most was exports of anhydrous ethanol to the United States, though there were some hydrous ethanol exports to South Korea and Japan for manufacturing liquors, said the official from Ji'an, China's top ethanol exporter.

Customs data showed exports of ethanol, including hydrous ethanol, totaled 477.65 million liters in the first seven months of this year, up 336 percent from the same period IN 2005.

The officials said ethanol plants were also sprouting across the country, especially with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top planning body, predicting Chinese fuel ethanol consumption will reach 6 million tons by 2020.

It was unclear how much ethanol China was producing this year, in addition to 1.02 million tons by the four government-sponsored plants in Jilin, Henan, Heilongjiang and Henan. Ji'an is also expanding its capacity to 450,000 tons by end-2006.

Yet the Ji'an official said China's total alcohol capacity, including fuel ethanol, would climb by 3 million tons to 10 million tons in 2006. It rose by 2 million last year.

"A lot of plants are being built," said the first trader, adding some of the new plants were focused on export business.

Another trader at a Beijing-based international house estimated there were now about a few thousand producers.

To avoid undermining the country's food security, Beijing is encouraging a shift in feedstocks away from grains, like corn, to non-grain crops, such as cassava, known also as tapioca.

In a sign of rising fuel ethanol production, one tapioca trader said Chinese 2006 cassava imports were heading toward 4.4 million tons, up by about 36 percent from last year.

China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Import and Export Co. (COFCO), the country's top state-owned trader, is also building a 200,000 tons per year (tpy) ethanol plant in the southern region of Guangxi, China's biggest cassava-producing province.

State media has said it is part of a plan by the Guangxi government to build 1 million tons of annual ethanol capacity.

COFCO is building another fuel ethanol plant in Hebei and doubling its alcohol capacity in Heilongjiang to 500,000 tons.

Domestic demand would depend on Beijing.

"You have to think if this export will last," said the second trader. "In the United states, they have lots of projects underway. The demand gap will narrow significantly next year."


More information:
International Herald Tribune: China emerges as major ethanol exporter - September 5, 2006.

Reuters: China emerges as ethanol exporter amid high oil - September 4, 2006.


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