What is the most significant contribution a Lao made to the field of technology?


Sowing the seeds for a truly green revolution
 
China Daily: 2010-02-22
 
Poisonous shrub can help to produce biodiesel for cars with residue
used as biomass to power electricity plants
 
Farmer Li Guangrong was overjoyed last year when he received a red
envelope filled with 3,000 yuan ($439) in cash.
 
The 59-year-old man from Southwest China's Yunnan province had not
expected to earn the extra money from looking after a jatropha
plantation during his spare time.
 
After all, planting rice and corn on 5-mu (0.33 hectares) of land
contracted to his family has been his top priority.
 
The Li family is one of more than 320 households in Yongxing town,
some 260 km north of the provincial capital of Kunming, who help plant
20,040 mu (1,337 hectares) of jatropha for Yunnan Shenyu New Energy Co
Ltd.
 
Jatropha, a perennial poisonous shrub, was previously never regarded
by local farmers in Yunnan as an industrial crop that could generate
economic benefit.
 
It was at most used as a living fence to protect fields from animals.
 
But in the eyes of Gou Ping, Shenyu New Energy's general manager, the
lush green shrub is a goldmine that could generate 400 million yuan in
annual sales for her company in the near future.
 
When jatropha seeds are crushed, the resulting oil can be processed to
produce biodiesel that can be used in a diesel car.
 
The residue can also be processed and used as biomass feedstock to
power electricity plants or used as fertilizer.
 
Each jatropha seed produces 30 percent to 40 percent of its mass in
oil. Jatropha can be grown in a range of difficult soil conditions,
including arid and non-arable areas.
 
"We are very confident about the biofuel industry. Many countries,
including China, have realized the renewable energy industry would
become a new engine for economic growth," Gou said.
 
Gou's ambition is in line with Yunnan province's plan to develop
renewable energy projects.
 
The mountainous province, which boasts the largest diversity of plants
in China, plans to build itself into a major biofuel production base
for China.
 
The province plans to be able to produce 500,000 tons of biodiesel
annually by 2015, according to a development plan for 10 key
industries issued by the provincial government in September last year.
 
Planting jatropha has been a focus for the local government's biofuel
development plans since 2007.
 
Yunnan currently has about 1.39 million mu (92,713 hectares) of
jatropha and plans to develop 3 million mu (200,100 hectares) of
jatropha by 2015, said Wang Weibin, director of the afforestation
division of the provincial forestry department.
 
Increasing environmental concerns and rising crude oil prices are
forcing countries including the United States and China to look for
alternative energy resources.
 
BP Plc, the largest oil and gas producer in the US, said in September
that biofuels would replace about 25 percent of gasoline and 8 percent
of diesel in the US in 2030.
 
US biofuel production will rise more than fourfold to about 2.3
million barrels a day in 2030 from less than 500,000 barrels a day in
2007, Katrina Landis, head of BP's alternative-energy unit, said in a
speech posted on the company's website in September.
 
Carbon dioxide
 
As the world's second largest oil importer, China is also promoting
the development of biofuel to reduce its dependency on imported crude
oil.
 
The country plans to be able to blend 2 million tons of biodiesel into
its annual fuel consumption by 2020.
 
China's annual crude oil demand is expected to exceed 400 million tons
this year and reach 563 million tons by 2020, according to a report
issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
 
The Chinese government declared at the end of November that China
plans to reduce the carbon dioxide emission per unit of gross domestic
product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent in 2020 from the baseline of 2005.
 
In order to realize such a target, non-fossil fuel consumption is
expected to account for 15 percent of the country's annual energy
consumption, up from the current 3 percent level.
 
"China has tremendous resources and could be a very important player
in the world's research and commercialization of biofuels," David
Wang, president of Boeing China, said at the World Route Conference in
Beijing in mid-September.
 
Wang said that if China could achieve the target of turning 75 million
mu (5 million hectares) of wasteland into jatropha plantation by 2020,
biofuel produced by China could replace 40 percent of the current
global aviation jet fuel demand. Currently the global aviation
industry consumes 1.5 to 1.7 billion barrels of jet fuel annually.
 
"But such an ambitious target cannot be achieved by the government
alone. We have to encourage enterprises to take an important role,"
said Wang from the Yunnan provincial government.
 
Hong Kong-invested Shenyu New Energy had planted 300,000 mu (20,010
hectares) of jatropha in Yunnan by 2008 and plans to develop 500,000
mu (33,350 hectares) of jatropha plantation in the province by 2010,
Gou said.
 
Shenyu is also building a jatropha oil processing factory with a total
investment of 65 million yuan.
 
The first production line will start operation in mid-2010 and be able
to produce 3,000 tons of biodiesel a year, Gou said. "The factory will
be capable of producing 100,000 tons of biodiesel annually at full
capacity. But the problem is we don't have enough jatropha to process
at the moment," he added.
 
Major problems
 
Cultivating good quality jatropha and the commercialization of
biodiesel are two major problems to be tackled. Yields of jatropha are
variable as the plant has not yet been domesticated or improved by
plant breeders. Currently one mu (0.0667 hectare) of jatropha can
produce 50 to 100 kg of seeds.
 
Local scientists in Yunnan are breeding two jatropha species that
could yield 150 km of seeds per mu at the Xishuangbanna Tropical
Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
 
It will also take a few years to develop a mass production and
distribution system for the commercial application of biofuels,
analysts said.
 
China has neither mandated the use of biodiesel in cars nor published
standards for blending it into fossil fuel.
 
That means big petrol stations run by State-owned PetroChina and
Sinopec can refuse to offer the fuel.
 
Some small biodiesel companies in Yunnan are using waste oil from
restaurants to produce biodiesel.
 
But their products are mainly used on tractors in the countryside.