Asia Cleantech Capital will be presenting a session on sustainable mobility at the Asian Development Bank’s 2010 Transport Forum in Manila, May 25-27. See detailed program here.
Category Archives: Transportation
India Looks to Africa for Oil
No surprise that India has been beaten by China for oil exploration bids in Myanmar, Kazakhstan and elsewhere over the past few years. With serious shortages and blackouts seriously affecting and threatening India’s economic growth, India is looking to Africa, South America, Pakistan, and elsewhere for new supplies.
China Fuel Shortages Spreading
With oil prices over US$100/barrel, China’s independent refineries are understandably balking at supplying at a loss. The government is forcing independent suppliers to take the brunt of the massive inflation affecting the country, causing shortages to even Shanghai and Beijing.
Transport fuels from New Zealand biomass a reality
March 3, 2008 (Scoop) – Biofuels generated from New Zealand-grown softwood feedstocks have been identified as a feasible, large scale option for meeting both the low-carbon transport vision of the Government’s 2007 Energy Strategy (NZES) and Biofuels Sales Obligation (BSO), say the authors of a report by the New Zealand Lignocellulosic Bioethanol Initiative.
Australian industry looks to gas, coal for transport fuel
February 26, 2008 (The Australian) – A move to develop a national agenda to create a multi-billion-dollar industry producing liquid transport fuels from coal and gas will be launched today by the Rudd Government.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson will use a conference in Brisbane to set the scene for gas and coal offsetting Australia’s huge and growing oil import bill.
Australia last year spent $7.5 billion on energy imports, more than it gained from selling oil, gas and coal overseas.
The country has only about eight years of oil at current rates of extraction but more than 100 years of gas and about 600 years of coal. Continue reading
India in slow lane in drive for greener fuels
February 14, 2008 (Economic Times)- India’s failure to agree a biodiesel policy has forced firms to shelve expansions plans, putting it way behind energy-hungry rivals like China in the drive to greener fuels, a top industry representative said. The delay has also left edible oil processing companies, which have built capacity to turn 1.2 million tonnes of jatropha into biodiesel, in the lurch and $227 million poorer, said Sandeep Chaturvedi, head of the Biodiesel Association of India. Continue reading
Thailand’s greener energy future
February 11, 2008 (Bangkok Post) – To cope with high oil prices and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Thailand must pursue four options: development of renewable energy, energy efficiency, nuclear energy and carbon capture and storage. However, renewable energy has certain limitations, and options for each country are different depending on availability of natural resources, technologies and manpower. This is why the Thai government has mainly concentrated on renewable energy based on domestic raw materials and wastes.
Financial incentives together with the provision of information to investors and consumers have proved to work wonders, for instance in the promotion of biofuels. The consumption of gasohol (E10) more than doubled in 2007. With the introduction of E20 in 2008, daily demand for ethanol should reach two million litres by 2011 when new cars capable of using E85 should be on sale.
Rethinking biofuels in the Philippines
January 23, 2008 (Inquirer.net) – The hottest debate in town involves something vital to motorists: fuel. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who ironically enough authored the Biofuels Act of 2007, wants to apply the brakes on its implementation, citing the recent warning of 1998 Nobel laureate for chemistry Dr. Hartmut Michel that our government’s biofuels program could endanger the country’s food security and harm the environment. The Biofuels Act, which was signed into law in January 2007, requires the oil industry to sell diesel with a minimum 1 percent biodiesel blend (B1) within three months after the signing of the law and gasoline with 5 percent bioethanol (E5) in two years. The Biofuels Act aims to reduce the nation’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, save hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign exchange annually, cut the carbon-dioxide emissions believed to cause global warming and revive the moribund sugar and coconut industries. Continue reading
Toyota Tsusho develops low-cost biodiesel technology
January 21, 2008 (Jiji Press) – Toyota Tsusho Corp. said Monday it and two other firms have jointly developed a technology to produce biodiesel fuel at lower cost.The other two companies are Ohta Oil Mill Co. and Toyota Chemical Engineering Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Tsusho.
Biodiesel is made by blending methanol into plant-derived oil. The new technology requires smaller amounts of methanol and alkali catalysts than conventional technologies.
In addition, the new technology makes water removal facilities unnecessary.
Conventional technologies require such facilities because they involve the use of large amounts of water to remove glycerin, a major by-product.
As a result, initial investments needed for biodiesel facilities using the new technology will be about half the levels required for conventional facilities.
Toyota Tsusho plans to put the technology into actual use in Asia as early as 2010.
KMP doubts advantages of Jatropha
January 20, 2008 (Sun.Star) – The Kilusang magbubukid ng Pilipas (KMP) in Southern Mindanao expressed doubts about the advantages brought by Jathropa planting as well as the Biofuels act that is currently being debated upon.
“Foreign-funded Jathropa plantations are encroaching on agricultural lands and it only adds to the existing laws and policies that cause food deprivation among the poor Filipinos like the 70 percent farmers and farm workers in the country,” Celso Pojas, KMP-SMR spokesperson said in their e-mailed statement.
He said KMP received reports from their members that 300,000 hectares of land in Compostela Valley alone are targeted for Jathropa planting.
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