Features:

Thailand prepares for more biofuels growth

10th August January, 2007

For over a decade Thailand has been a leader in providing a business climate favourable to the production of renewable energy sources. Now Thailand is on the verge of becoming the region's leading producer of biofuels. Thailand enjoys a strategic location at the heart of Asia - home to what is regarded today as the fastest growing economic market in the world. Specifically in southeast Asia and the Greater Mekong subregion, Thailand serves as a gateway where newly emerging markets offer great business potential. From Thailand it is convenient to trade with China, India and the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has a cumulative population of more than 500 million.

For two decades Thailand has experimented with various ways to use its resources for developing renewable energy. Seven to eight years ago, this evolved into an aggressive stance on the need to decrease dependence on imported energy, and the vulnerabilities that go with it. For the Thai government, seeking new and renewable energy resources became an even higher priority. One of the strategies chosen was the development of biofuels. As a country with an abundance of agricultural resources suitable for raw biofuels, Thailand was in a good position to advance its goal of being more self-sufficient. As in much of the rest of the world, ethanol was identified as the most readily accessible biofuel to produce. Two crops were abundant enough to start the process; sugarcane and the cassava root. Annual sugarcane productivity in Thailand is approximately 75 million tonnes, processed in 46 sugar factories across the country. It is cultivated mainly in the northeastern and central areas, which require less irrigation and less farm management.

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