May 15, 2006
Oil prices have created a new business opportunity for state-owned Taisugar, which has decided to expand its sugarcane growing fields this year to produce bioethanol. The company is looking to maintain approximately 30,000 hectares of sugarcane fields by 2009 to produce a yearly output of 1.5 million kiloliters of bioethanol fuel for motorized vehicles.
For the first stage of the project, Taisugar will plant sugarcane and sweet potatoes on 3,500 hectares in Jiayi and 4,500 hectares in Kaohsiung. The company will also add ethanol biorefineries at three sugar refinery plants in Huwei, Nanjing and Shanhua to produce fuel for motorized vehicles.
Taisugar's first bioethanol refinery is slated to be built at the site of its Nanzhou sugar refinery in Pingtung, consisting of two production lines for sugarcane and sweet potatoes which could produce over 3 million kiloliters of bioethanol.
The project could revitalize Taisugar's once-flourishing sugarcane business, which has declined in past years due to liberalization policies in the sugar industry.
Minister of Economic Affairs Huang Ing-san has shown his support for Taisugar's project, noting that Taiwan's own sweet potatoes are also an effective raw material to produce bioethanol. Minister Huang added that the future for a bioethanol industry appears promising, and provided that land costs are deducted, the costs of producing of bioethanol should be lower than that of gasoline.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Council of Agriculture have reached an agreement that would provide
NTD 45,000 in subsidies for every hectare of land used towards bioethanol production.
(United Daily News)
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