Taiwan: Ethanol not the oil substitute

The signing of an alliance between Brazil and the US on Friday to cooperate in the promotion of ethanol has greatly boosted the prestige of the Latin American nation, but at the same time it has raised a number of tough questions such as, “if Brazil can do it, why can’t we?”

Many believe Brazil’s example in promoting ethanol demonstrates to the world what a determined nation can do to reduce its dependence on petroleum. But the fact is, there are many yet-to-be-resolved questions or myths about ethanol, even though it does have an important part to play as an alternative energy source of the future.
The Taiwanese government has acknowledged the desirability of biofuels and earmarked NT$300 million (US$9.1 million) for work in this regard. Government-run laboratories have researched the use of grain-based additives in gasoline and have found that producing ethanol from sweet potatoes is cheaper and more energy efficient than sugar cane and rice straw. Meanwhile, a scheme that will see government vehicles in Taipei City run on ethanol gasoline is set to go ahead this year, before the fuel becomes available to the public in 2011.

But this is way too slow and close scrutiny of the development of the nation’s energy industry shows that any potential ethanol industry in Taiwan appears risky. The government has still not canvassed opinion from the business sector on the possibility of establishing a commercial ethanol industry and it has yet to work out plans with automobile makers to produce vehicles that can run on gasoline and ethanol mixes.

Before jumping on the ethanol bandwagon, the government needs to consider how to prevent any possible increase in demand for sweet potatoes for fuel production from driving up the price to the disadvantage of consumers. It also has to investigate the possible environmental pros and cons, for example whether grain-based ethanol production releases more greenhouse gases than gasoline usage.

Taipei Times