The Chinese government plans to expand use of ethanol in gasoline as energy by 2020, a move to improve the environment and stimulate the development of the country's agriculture.
The plan was issued and published by 15 government departments, including the National Energy Administration and the National Development and Reform Commission on Wednesday.
China is to realize mass production of cellulosic ethanol, and improve the technology, equipment and production of biological liquid fuel to reach the world's top level by 2025, according to the plan.
The ethanol fuel will effectively reduce the vehicles' carbon and particulate matter emissions, which will help reduce air pollution.
One ton of ethanol can help reduce 34 percent of emissions in its life cycle, said Le Youhua from China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, the China National Radio reported.
Zhou Dadi, vice director of the China Energy Research Society with the National Development and Reform Commission, told the Global Times on Wednesday that developing bio-fuel ethanol will also help change China's energy structure and reduce reliance on petroleum import.
According to a long-term development plan on renewable energy released by the National Development and Reform Commission, China will consume about 10 million tons of bio-fuel ethanol by 2020.
The cost of making ethanol fuel is comparatively low, which is simply made by redundant corn and straw.
Moreover, developing bio-fuel ethanol can help improve the country's regulation of the grain market, as it builds a long-term, stable and controllable processing channel for primary agricultural products.
Le said that producing ethanol fuel is an effective way of dealing with redundant agricultural products, and "We can also use cassava as a raw material if the other agricultural products are in shortage," Le said.
However, the development and promotion of bio-fuel ethanol in the country also faces challenges, according to Zhou, because the technologies to transform corn or straw into ethanol need to be further developed as the current conversion rate is only 20 percent to 30 percent.
Another challenge is to supervise grain cultivation as more people might seize land to grow grains for ethanol, which may lead to huge grain waste in the country, according to Zhou.
