According to a report on the website of the US “Business Week” magazine on January 6, because the production of biofuels is not only expensive, but also brings environmental damage and rising food prices.
According to reports, in 2007, the United States legislated to produce 9 billion gallons of gasoline blended fuel in 2008, and this figure will rise to 36 billion gallons by 2022. In 2013, the EPA required fuel-producing companies to add 14 billion gallons of corn ethanol and 2.75 billion gallons of advanced biofuels produced from wood chips and corn husks. In 2009, the European Union also put forward a target: by 2020, ethanol should account for 10% of the total transportation fuel. Although the cost of producing ethanol is high, the crux of the problem is not that, because these policies in the United States and Europe are not helping to solve poverty and environmental problems. Global ethanol consumption has increased fivefold in the more than a decade since the 21st century, and rising global food prices have had a severe impact on the poor.
In addition, the production of biofuels is not worth the harm to environmental protection. The process from growing crops to producing ethanol requires a lot of energy. Forests are also sometimes burned to meet land needs for crops. In response to these problems with producing biofuels, both the European Union and the United States have lowered their ethanol production targets. In September 2013, the European Parliament voted to reduce the expected target for 2020 from 10% to 6%, a vote that would delay this legislation until 2015. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also trimmed its 2014 biofuel production target slightly.
Similarly, the domestic biofuel ethanol industry has also encountered an embarrassing situation. Earlier, in order to solve the problem of aging grains, the state approved the construction of 4 fuel ethanol production pilot projects during the “Tenth Five-Year Plan” period: Jilin Fuel Ethanol Co., Ltd., Heilongjiang China Resources Alcohol Co., Ltd., Henan Tianguan Fuel Group and Anhui Fengyuan Fuel Alcohol Co., Ltd. Co., Ltd. Under the guidance of the policy, a large amount of production capacity was launched quickly. By the end of 2005, the 1.02 million tons of fuel ethanol production capacity planned and constructed by the above-mentioned four enterprises had all reached production.
However, the initial model of developing biofuel ethanol by relying on corn as raw material proved to be unworkable. After several years of intensive digestion, the domestic supply of old grain has reached its limit, unable to meet the raw material demand for fuel ethanol. Some enterprises even use up to 80% of new grains. However, as food security issues become increasingly prominent, the government’s attitude towards the use of corn for fuel ethanol has also changed significantly.
According to the report issued by the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in 2006, the state proposed to “mainly focus on non-food and actively and steadily promote the development of the biofuel ethanol industry”, and then reverted the approval power of all fuel-dependent projects to the central government; from 2007 to 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission three times It is required to comprehensively clean up the corn deep processing project. At the same time, the government subsidies received by companies represented by COFCO Biochemical have been shrinking. In 2010, the flexible subsidy standard for biofuel ethanol for designated enterprises in Anhui Province enjoyed by COFCO Biochemical was 1,659 yuan/ton, which was also 396 yuan lower than the 2,055 yuan in 2009. The subsidy for fuel ethanol in 2012 was even lower. For fuel ethanol made from corn, the company received a subsidy of 500 yuan per ton; for fuel ethanol made from non-grain crops such as cassava, it received a subsidy of 750 yuan per ton. In addition, from January 1, 2015, the state will cancel the VAT first and then refund policy for the designated production enterprises of denatured fuel ethanol, and at the same time, the denatured fuel ethanol produced by using grain as raw material for the preparation of ethanol gasoline for vehicles will also resume the levy of 5%. consumption tax.
Faced with the problems of competing with people for food and land with food, the development space of bioethanol in my country will be limited in the future, and the policy support will gradually weaken, and biofuel ethanol production enterprises will face increasing cost pressures. For fuel ethanol companies that are accustomed to relying on subsidies to survive, the future development prospects are not
Post time: Mar-30-2022