Chief of China National Centre for Biotechnology looks at common myths about biofuels

Wang Hongguang, Director-General of the China National Center for Biotechnology Development (CNCBD), recently published an informative piece on China's bioenergy plans. In the text, Hongguang feels he has to eliminate some commonly held myths about biofuels, and instead focuses on the advantages of the bio-economy. Some of the misunderstandings are deliberately perpetuated by those who oppose the transition to a climate-neutral, clean post-oil future.

Hongguang has identified four common myths surrounding the development of biomass energy, as they relate to the specific situation of the People's Republic:

Misunderstanding one: "biomass energy will use up a great deal of grains. In developing biomass energy, grains can be used as raw materials but sweet sorghum, sweet potato, cassava, straws, sugar canes can also be used as raw materials; both various kinds of waste oil and rapeseeds can be used to produce biochemical diesel oil.
China abounds in non-grain biomass resources with starch, grease, cellulose, hemicellulose and xylogen as the bases. For the moment, China's annual grain outputs amount to 500 million tons, while over 700 million tons of straw will be produced. In China, there is an area of about 100 million hectares that is not suitable for planting grain crops but can be used to plant special plants as energy resources; and the area of pieces of land on which man-made forests can grow add up to 46.67 million mu. If 20 percent of such an area were made use of, about 10 billion tons of biomass could be produced each year; with such biomass energy resources as cassava and sweet sorghum added, at lest about 100 million tons of alcohol and biochemical diesel oil could be produced each year and such an output is equivalent to twice the output of the Daqing Oilfield [China's largest]."

Misunderstanding two: "biomass energy will strive for land against the production of grains. The raw materials for biomass energy can be produced by making use of eroded and poor lands, sloping fields and ameliorated saline lands, and it is completely possible that it does not compete for land against the production of grains."

Misunderstanding three: "The cost for biomass energy is high. It is expected that biomass energy will become one of the energy resources with the lowest costs. The three major reasons are as follows: firstly, the raw materials for biomass energy are less expensive, easy to develop, and easy to transport; secondly, as biomass energy can be produced on the spot, production costs can be saved by a large scale; thirdly, as breakthroughs have been made in biomass energy technologies like biochemical diesel oil, production of hydrogen from biomass, and oil extraction from biomass, costs for energy production will be cut down by a large margin."

Misunderstanding four: "biomass energy technologies are not mature yet. Biomass energy, which mainly makes use of the Bio-fermentation technology, is a kind of comparatively mature technology. As a whole, China's biomass energy resource technology has evolved into a stage where studies and industrialization develop together with each other. The technological level of China's fuel ethanol has become leading internationally. If calculated according to the present price of petroleum, it is completely possible to realize the objective that a large-scale production can be realized without any subsidiary from the State."

Hongguang instead identifies two major reasons why China should be developing biomass energy on a large scale:

Firstly, "to improve the ecologic environment. Biomass energy will not produce much carbon dioxide when being used, and green plants will absorb a great deal of carbon dioxide when conducting photosynthesis instead. Therefore, the discharge of carbon dioxide will be cut down in a large scale by developing biomass energy."

Secondly, "to increase farmers' incomes. To develop biomass energy can create employment opportunities and bring more incomes to farmers. It is briefly estimated that to create a "green Daqing Oilfield" is equivalent to give RMB 120~150 billion yuan [€11.8-14.7/US15.5-19.4 billion] originally used to import petroleum to farmers and biomass energy enterprises while 12~15 million jobs could be thus created."

In a country where social inequalities and the rift between the farming class and the wealthy urban elites is growing rapidly, investments in bioenergy offer a step towards closing this gap (earlier post). This is one of the main reasons mentioned by senior Chinese officials: bioenergy holds the potential to redistribute wealth, to revitalise the rural economy and to elminate some of the social and economic push-factors that drive farmers towards the cities and into the migrant working class, which lives in dire circumstances. China's internal migration is the largest migration ever seen anywhere in peace time, and frankly, the phenomenon is a social tragedy of vast proportions.

As Amnesty International just recently reported, these migrants end up in a miserable situation, as they are being treated as an 'urban underclass' which is often denied rights to adequate health and education services, which is housed temporarily and poorly and which is vulnerable to exploitative working conditions:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: biomass-to-liquids :: rural development :: social justice :: migration :: China ::

This is why it is crucial for China to develop strategies to revitalise the agricultural sector, which still employs the majority of the Chinese labor force. Bioenergy has been identified as one of the options, as it brings badly needed incomes, value to farmers' lives and of course mass employment.

Recently, China has made substantial progress in its development of biomass energy. The State Forestry Administration and PetroChina Company Limited (PetroChina) signed an agreement, which prescribes that since this year, both parties will jointly set up a series of forestry biomass energy resource bases in Yunnan and Sichuan; and at the initial stage, the scale of any base will not be smaller than that of a demonstrative base for Jatropha curcas L. forest that can provide raw materials to exploit 200,000 to 300,000 tons of biochemical diesel oil and the area of all those bases will add up to over 600,000 mu.

By the end of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period, PetroChina will build up a production capacity to produce over two million tons of alcohol made from raw materials other than grains, shape up a scale for commercial purposes that can produce 200,000 tons of forestry biochemical diesel oil, and provide supports to build up raw material bases of biomass energy resources with an area of over 400,000 hectares. As shown by survey statistics, it is found out that there are 154 tree species with their respective seeds having oil content above 40 percent in China and over a dozen of such tree species can be cultivated and exploited in a large scale. By 2020, over six million tons of oil would be produced if 200 million mu of energy resource forests were cultivated.

Although the price of petroleum in international markets has somehow decreased for the time being, the fact that mineral energy resources are gradually becoming deficient will remain unchanged. Biomass energy including fuel alcohol, biochemical diesel oil, marsh gas, biomass power generation, and production of hydrogen from biomass is publicly recognized as one of the most important alternate energy sources that are featured with cleanness, being highly effective, safety, and sustainability. Major technologies for biomass energy have already shown a trend of getting mature and large-scale production of biomass energy is being developed in many countries, thus biomass energy is playing an important role in increasing the amount of energy resources, adjusting the energy structure and ensuring energy security.