Biofuel

Utilization of bioethanol

Nowadays, Brazil and the USA are the leading bioethanol producing countries in the world.

In Brazil, the ethanol program can be dated back to 1975 due to the sharp increase of world oil price after the Arab oil embargo and a sharp decrease in sugar price. In order to reduce the need for oil imports and provide an additional market for Brazilian sugar, the government began promoting the production of ethanol for blending into gasoline (i.e. petrol) with supporting policies and market mechanisms. More than fifteen billion liters of fuel ethanol was produced in 2005, which accounted for 40% of transport fuel in Brazil.

The success of ethanol program in Brazil is a result of strong government support. The Brazilian government has required that ethanol make up a certain percentage of fuel supply since the start of the alcohol program. The blending ratio of ethanol to gasoline is set at 20% (as of 200. The government also offers preferential tax for flexible-fuel cars. This boosts the application of flexible fuel cars from 1% of new car sales in 2001 to 53% in 2005. Since flexible-fuel car can use gasoline blended with ethanol up to 85%, this also offers the flexibility of fuel choice for car users during price swing of fuels (biofuel for transportation).

In the USA, ethanol is produced primarily from corn and wheat. It has been used as a transport fuel since the early 1980s. In the year of 2005, fifteen billion liters of fuel ethanol are produced, comprised of 3% of the total US consumption of gasoline) on volume basis in that year. Two types of ethanol fuel are available (as of 200, i.e. E10 (ethanol is blended directly into gasoline in a mix of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline by volume) and E85 (85% ethanol mixed with 15% gasoline by volume). All gasoline vehicles in use in the U.S. today can use E10 without engine modification. Another blend, E85 is mainly used for government fleet vehicles, flexible-fuel vehicles and urban transit buses. The 15 percent gasoline used to formulate E85 is to assure cold weather engine starting and to enhance flame luminosity in case of fire.

In the Mainland, ethanol production facilities are mainly run by state-owned enterprises. Since launching of the ethanol fuel programme in the Mainland in year 2000, the ethanol production capacity in 2005 reached 1.02 million metric tons and about 0.92 million metric tons of ethanol was produced in the same year. The central government set a target to increase production capacity to 4 million metric tons by 2010. Corn and wheat are the major raw materials for the production of bioethanol. E10 is being tested in some Mainland provinces and the central government aims at replacing 15% of the country's transport fuel by biofuels by year 2020.