Green & Biofuels

Environmental issues remain one of the most visible and prominent issues facing the Chinese government.  China’s environmental problems are both widespread and interlinked with corporate action, government policy, and consumer demand.  Chinese environmental degradation is not limited geographically to areas of heavy industrialization and is present in the forms of air pollution, water resources, soil pollution, deforestation and desertification, biodiversity, and the strain of a large population.

The primary government department tasked with environmental protection is the  Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of the Peoples Republic of China (cn). The MEP is tasked with protecting China’s air, land, and water from pollution and reports directly to the State Council.  By law, the MEP is required to implement environmental policies and enforce environmental law and regulations. It also serves as China’s nuclear safety agency.  The agency has trouble in these duties as a result of uncooperative local-level governments and the ease of paying fines over legal and regulatory compliance.

Despite short comings in the government’s overall environmental protection enforcement and regulatory frame-work, actual Chinese investment in green energy is the highest in the world as of 2012, with $65 billion invested, making up almost a quarter (24%) of all global green energy investment and almost double that of the United States for the same period.  The Chinese government’s use of long-term incentives and targeted goals makes green energy investment a stable and attractive choice for investors.

This same approach of using targeted goals and long-term strategy has been implemented in the China’s development of biofuels and bioenergy.  Biofuels and bioenergy create not only an environmentally friendly sources of fuel and energy, but to also contribute to greater overall energy security as a result of domestic bioenergy development and production.  The main biofuels developed in China are bioethanol, biodiesel, biobutanol, biogas, and biohydrogen.  Current government goals under the 12th Five-Year Plan aim at utilizing 5 million tons of ethanol fuel during the time period (2011 to 2015).  At present, a lack of raw materials and difficulties in the collection, storage, and transportation of materials is causing difficulties in increasing biofuel production.