diesel oil

Chinese scientists are working on new technologies and breeding oil-rich rapeseed species to fuel its fast-growing economy with bio-fuel. Experts attending an ongoing international conference on rapeseed say that China, whose annual rape production is 30 percent of the world total, should use farmland to manufacture biological diesel oil, an effort that will reduce its dependency on petroleum-based diesel and cut emissions. Rape is recognized by scientists the world over as one of the best raw materials for biological diesel oil. But because of backward technologies the country is making only 100,000 tons of biological diesel oil a year out of rapeseed, said Prof. Huang Fenghong at the oilseed research institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. One of the country's largest bio-fuel projects has been carried out in the southwestern border province of Yunnan, with 25,000 hectares of oil-rich jatropha curcas trees planted last year to yield biological diesel for automobiles. By 2020, China's will be able to produce 12 million tons of bio-liquid fuel such as fuel ethanol and biological diesel, replacing some 10 million tons of refined oil products.