Taiwan: Government Likely to Abandon Biofuel Project

Chen Wu-hsiung, who has been designated as the new chairman of the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA), said the production of agricultural crops for biofuel is not economically feasible for Taiwan because of the limited land available.

He said it would be more suitable for the island to give priority to growing food crops to help reduce imports and the keep food products lower for consumers.

The shift to using agricultural crops to produce biofuel for vehicles in many nations has been blamed as one of the major factors for the skyrocketing food prices in the world, especially in poor countries.

Chen acknowledged the global trend of replacing the traditional gasoline and diesel with biofuel.

But Taiwan does not possess the conditions for similar projects and the small scale of economy of the farm operations here, he said.

Instead of fighting for the limited arable land with farmers, developers of new energy sources should make use of other land without compromising food supply, he said.

The other consideration is that the presently available technical know-how and manufacturing equipment may use up more energy and generate more carbon dioxide in the process of converting farm products into biofuel, Shen added.

View the China Post story by clicking here.

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