China To Double Ethanol Production by 2020
On December 5, 2016, China's National Energy Administration (NEA) published a five-year plan that aims to increase ethanol production to four million tons by 2020 despite the government maintaining strict control over the use of food grains. The target remains unchanged from the previous five-year plan that ended in 2015. NEA intends to increase the share of non-fossil fuel consumption from 12 percent to 15 percent by 2020, in part through the vigorous development of fiber ethanol from the inedible parts of plants. The plan prioritizes the development of cassava and other non-grain ethanol sources over crops used for human consumption. NEA also aims to raise the country’s biomass energy capacity to 15 gigawatts by 2020.