JAPAN: Sake may power Japanese cars in the future

Japanese scientists turn rice into biofuel for cars. Japanese motorists may one day pump their cars full of sake, the fermented rice wine that is Japan's national drink, if a pilot project to create rice fuel is a hit with locals in this Japanese mountain resort. The government-funded project in Nagano, 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of Tokyo, will produce a cheap ethanol brew of rice origin with the help of local farmers who will donate farm waste such as rice hulls. If the project catches on with locals, it could pave the way for similar endeavours across Japan that will see Japanese cars running on Japanese-made biofuels in the future, said Kazuhiro Mochizuki, Associate Professor at Tokyo University's Institute of Industrial Science. Japan, the world's second largest gasoline consumer after the United States, is entirely dependent on crude oil imports and it has been hit by the surge in oil prices. With hefty carbon emissions reduction targets to meet under the Kyoto protocols, Japan is turning to biofuels. Scientists working on this project hope to show that biofuels are feasible and inexpensive by developing a low-cost fuel and encouraging a local community of about 10,000 people to help produce it. A sweet-sour aroma, similar to that of unfiltered sake wafts into the air in the field of a former high school where production has just begun. Unlike the spacious sugar cane plantations in Brazil, the No.1 ethanol exporter, family farming is dominant in Japan, with a majority of farmers working regular jobs and growing rice, the staple food, in their spare time. "When we try to produce bio-ethanol in Japan, we obviously cannot make huge corn fields here unlike the way they do in the United States. So we turned to rice, which we have traditionally used for many purposes," said Michizuki. Scientists say there is plenty of potential to develop biofuels from agricultural waste and abandoned farmland. "Rice is food, so we are not going to turn all our rice into fuel, of course. But many of the rice paddies here are currently not in use to avoid over-production. So we decided to make use of those fallow fields." With one 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rice needed to produce 0.5 litre of ethanol, the main challenge will be creating a low cost biofuel that can compete with ordinary gasoline, which is now sold at around 135 yen ($1.13) a litre, including gasoline related-taxes of some 56 yen.

ITN Source | May 19, 2007

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