In its fiscal 2007 budget proposal, Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MOE) made a request for 11.5 billion yen (U.S.$0.1 billion) to finance a strategy to accelerate the use of biomass energy. The proposal was published on August 29, 2006. The strategy would include a large-scale verification project for supplying E3 gasoline, a blend of gasoline with 3 percent bio-ethanol made from wood waste.

The project would utilize an ethanol plant in Osaka, and start operation during fiscal 2006 with an annual production capacity of 1,400 kiloliters. By blending in ethanol, a maximum of 47,000 kiloliters of E3 gasoline per year could be produced and supplied to 40,000 vehicles at 100 gasoline service stations in Tokyo, Osaka and their neighboring prefectures.

The strategy also includes a project in Miyakojima Island, Okinawa, in southwestern Japan E3 gasoline containing bio-ethanol derived from locally provided sugarcane would be substituted for all the gasoline consumed on the island (approximately 24,000 kiloliters per year).

Estimates show that using E3 gasoline as an alternative to conventional 100% gasoline in Japan could result in an approximately 2.5 million ton reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This would account for about 23 percent of the 2010 CO2 emissions reduction target for the transportation sector (11 million tons of CO2) set by the Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan adopted in April 2005.

http://www.env.go.jp/en/

Posted: 2006/11/11 11:13:59 AM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Government , Transportation