Abstract
The Japanese government is promoting a biofuel program to deal with environmental and energy security problems and to promote rural development. At present, verification tests and large-scale projects for biofuel production have been launched, but current agricultural products based on biofuel production have experienced some problems in the way of high production costs, securing feedstock, and food availability. The most crucial task for the Japanese biofuel program is establishing sustainable criteria for biofuels, which determine the limitations of GHG emissions, and pay close attention to bio-diversity, food availability, and social consequences. To realize these goals, further research and dialog with related countries and regions will be required. The governments of Asian countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, the Philippines, and South Korea) are promoting biofuel programs to address energy security and environmental problems, and to contribute to agriculture and rural development. Current biofuel production has experienced some problems, because of difficulties securing feedstock and high production costs in these countries. The expansion of biofuel production and utilization has a limitation in these Asian countries. Although the governments of these countries set biofuel production and utilization targets and mandates, these countries are struggling to meet these targets and mandates. These countries will have to modify these ambitious targets and mandates in the near future because the expansion of biofuel production and utilization has a limitation in these countries.
Keywords
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- 1.
This figure is estimated from [2].
- 2.
Japan relied on oil for 77.4 % of energy consumption in 1973, and 71.5 % in 1979, but this dropped to 49.4 % in 2001 [3].
- 3.
Nippon means Japan in Japanese.
- 4.
500 million L of crude oil is equivalent to 800 million L of bioethanol.
- 5.
As for Japanese biofuel production and programs, it depends on [4].
- 6.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries calculated the production of domestic biofuel at 6 billion L to the year 2030.
- 7.
Ethyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether (ETBE) is made from bioethanol and isobutylene.
- 8.
If they are concerned that bioethanol production of the trading partner country will dramatically decrease, oil refiners should report their situation to the Japanese Government.
- 9.
In the case of Brazil, the panel reported that bioethanol production from existing crop land could eliminate 60 % more GHG emissions than gasoline. This means Brazilian bioethanol production from existing crop land can pass the draft criteria. The panel also reported that bioethanol production from converted pasture land could increase GHG emissions 8 % over those of gasoline. However, these criteria are applied to each project if the project is fairly evaluated as a demonstration project. This means these criteria will not apply for most of the domestic project for the time being, because Japanese biofuel production is in an experimental stage. The notification recognized it would be necessary to examine domestic criteria for these LCA analyses, whenever bioethanol-related technological developments occur.
- 10.
This section is mainly derived from [10].
- 11.
- 12.
The directive 2009/2028/EU set sustainability criteria for biofuel. These criteria cover greengas saving, land with high biodiversity value, land with high carbon stock, and agro-environmental practices. Section 5.2 covers the criteria.
- 13.
13.5 Baht/L is applied for E85 (85 % bioethanol blended gasoline) and 1.3 Baht/L is applied for E20 (20 % bioethanol blended gasoline) [20].
- 14.
Cassava production data are derived from FAO [21].
- 15.
Biodiesel production and export are converted from tons to L (0.88 kg/L). The original data are derived from Licht [15].
- 16.
Total cost of biodiesel was 4.2 MYR/L in 2007. However, the diesel retail price was 1.5 MYR/L and 0.58 MYR/L was a subsidy from the government in 2007 [14].
- 17.
1 USD is equivalent to 3.19 MYR (November 2013).
- 18.
Biodiesel production is converted from tons to L (0.88 kg/L). The original data are derived from Licht [15].
- 19.
The domestic coconut oil production data were derived from USDA-FAS [13].
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Koizumi, T. (2014). Biofuels and Food Security in Japan and Other Asian Countries. In: Biofuels and Food Security. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05645-6_4
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