Fuel ethanol promotion in China needs to be accelerated

On September 19, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Jilin Fuel Ethanol Co., Ltd., the chief engineer of the company, Yu Zhanchun, stated that through many years of production practice, the production technology and manufacturing cost of fuel ethanol in China has approached the U.S. level and can be faster. The pace of promotion to more provinces and regions. The reporter learned that the promotion and use of fuel ethanol in China has obviously lagged behind the development of the situation, and there are still many problems in the promotion process.

In June 2001, at the 105th State Council's Prime Minister's Office, the country’s first large-scale fuel ethanol production base was approved for establishment, which opened the prelude to China’s bioenergy construction. This company is Jilin Fuel Ethanol Co., Ltd., which was founded on September 19 of that year and has a designed fuel ethanol capacity of 600,000 tons per year. Subsequently, the country established a number of production bases in Heilongjiang, Anhui, Henan, and Guangxi provinces. At present, China's larger-scale fixed-point production of fuel ethanol includes: Jilin Fuel Ethanol Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang China Resources Alcohol Co., Ltd., Henan Tianguan Enterprise Group, Anhui Fengyuan Biochemical Co., Ltd., and Guangxi Zhongliang Biomass Energy Co., Ltd., etc. With a production capacity of nearly 1.5 million tons/year, plus other similar domestic companies, the total production capacity is expected to exceed 2 million tons/year.

The above-mentioned domestic fixed-point fuel ethanol enterprises in addition to ensuring the closed use of their provinces, some companies also need to provide fuel ethanol pilot demonstrations in some cities in neighboring provinces. For example, Fengyuan Biochemical Co., Ltd. in Anhui Province also has to undertake the supply of 7 cities in Shandong, 5 cities in Jiangsu, and 2 cities in Hebei.

In spite of this, the promotion of the use of fuel ethanol in China is still far from sufficient compared with the international level. At present, the degree of fuel ethanol is relatively high in the Americas, of which the total production and consumption in the United States and Brazil account for more than 90% of the world's total, and China's share is only about 1%. Up to now, only 10 provinces and regions in China have implemented pilot demonstrations, which consume 17 million tons of ethanol and gasoline, and the total consumption of gasoline in the country is about 20%. The industry generally believes that under the increasingly pressing background of China's energy situation and environmental pressure, the speed of popularization and use of fuel ethanol lags behind the development of the situation, and the closed use in some pilot demonstration areas is not smooth.

One of the reasons for the slow implementation of fuel ethanol is due to concerns about “competition with the people”. Experts believe that as long as planning is right, there will be no situation of “competition with the people”. Yu Zhanchun introduced that 3 tons of corn can be converted into 1 ton of fuel ethanol, 1 ton of feed (high protein is fully retained) and 67 kg of corn edible oil, and 1 ton of carbon dioxide by-product can be used as oil field flooding. He believes that 80% of the grain in Jilin Province is corn, and it will become an aged grain if it cannot be digested every year, and the economic value will be lost. Sometimes, when it comes to a bumper harvest, if there is no way to digest it, it will be purchased by some traders at a price of RMB 0.6/kg, which will result in an increase in yield for farmers and benefit overseas. "Since the company started production, it has purchased 2 million tons of corn every year in Jilin, and the average purchase price has been maintained at more than 2 yuan/kg. Farmers have received real benefits. This has actually increased the contribution to agriculture." But at the same time Said that the local fuel ethanol enterprises must adapt to local conditions, mainly using non-grain materials such as cassava, sugarcane, and straw. For example, Jilin Fuel Ethanol Co., Ltd. has established a base of 3,000 tons of sweet corn in Yancheng, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province.

Another reason for the impediment to the promotion of fuel ethanol is the serious market chaos and insufficient government supervision and escort. For example, on March 21 this year, Guangxi Zhongyin Biomass Energy Co., Ltd., the country's largest producer of cassava fuel ethanol, was forced to shut down in full due to various reasons. Previously, the company has cumulatively produced more than 480,000 tons of cassava fuel ethanol, equivalent to replacing nearly 450,000 tons of petrochemical gasoline resources. The suspension of production of the company caused the National Development and Reform Commission to attach great importance to it, and sent a joint coordination team to Guangxi for investigation and research the next day. The investigation team believes that: First, the promotion transition period in the region is too long, resulting in a decline in the market coverage of ethanol gasoline; Second, the mixed use of inferior oil products, regular gasoline and ethanol gasoline leads to increased fuel consumption of some vehicles, power decline, resulting in misunderstanding of ethanol gasoline; Third, the fuel ethanol companies themselves face difficulties.

To this end, Yang Yuying, deputy director of the business division of Sinopec Sales Department, believes that the market cannot completely achieve the sales and use of ethanol gasoline for vehicles. The main reason is that the gas station components are complex and a considerable number of social gas stations are still selling ordinary gasoline. And the price is lower. This shows that the relevant departments are not thoroughly implementing the relevant regulations and that the industry is not sufficiently scrutinized.

Nowadays, the industry has reached a consensus that in order to improve the energy structure, the use of fossil energy should be reduced as much as possible, and more renewable energy should be used. China proposed to raise the proportion of non-fossil energy to primary energy consumption to 11.4% during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period and reduce the total discharge of major pollutants by 8% to 10%. Li Ye, director of the Science and Technology Department of the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Department, said that biofuels represent a trend in the world's energy development and have been fully acknowledged in both academia and industry. The legal orientation and strategic significance of the development of non-food biofuels in China is beyond any doubt.