Asia is one of the largest continents in the world with a population to match. Asia holds roughly thirty percent of the worlds land mass. Most of Asia is in the northern Hemisphere. China is one of the top three major energy producers and consumers of energy output for the world. Combined with the other two nations a total of 40 percent of energy was produced and consumed a total of 43 percent. (Grillot, 2006) Being combined with the other two nations and consuming almost half of the worlds total energy output is no laughing matter. The current trend in the resources that are being used, the world can’t sustain the power consumption that is needed to give everyone the needs they desire.
Humans need energy to live simply surviving to developing major cities in which to live. Many forms of energy have surfaced over the years, between renewable and non renewable. The task of meeting the needs is one that weighs heavily on the minds of the people which realize that we can’t keep using the sources we have in the ways that we are. We have to consider other resources to energy consumption than non renewable resources. Asia faces the problem that they hold 60 percent of the world’s population.( ) Asia is on the forefront of becoming a more industrialized country which will need more energy consumption and more strain on the resources in which are being used. As the current trends of using; coal, gas, wood or oil as their main source of energy. The resources are going to become scares. Alternate forms of power need to be addressed such as ethanol. It has been reported that the Chinese first started to use natural gas around 200 B.C to produce salt from salt water in evaporators.(DOE, 2007) The production of natural gas is expected to rise 17 percent between 2005 – 2010 with an expected demand rate to raise twenty six percent in the same time frame. As it plans PetroChina a natural gas company has stated that it plans by 2010 to produce 70 percent of the counties out put of natural gas. (Jing, 2005) Natural gas is a cleaner burning source of fuel than its counter part of petroleum; it is still a nonrenewable form of energy. There will be only so much before they are faced with a dying source of energy and nothing to replace it with. China came in second in the consumption of oil bringing in a total of 6.4 trillion barrels in 2004. (Grillot, 2006 ) Only being surpassed by the United States in its consumption of oil. Just like natural gas; it is nonrenewable and quickly coming to an end. With raising prices for oil China has turned its eyes to a renewable form of energy such as Ethanol. In 2005 China converted 2 million tons of grain into Ethanol.(Brown, 2006 ) China has known about Ethanol for some time but it’s interests in it didn’t sway far from just the theories. As other nonrenewable fuel sources tightening, China has started to research biofuel as an alternative to gasoline and other power needs. There will be a total of nine provinces which will experiment with Ethanol by the end of 2005. China is looking to Brazil for their knowledge on Ethanol production. (Young, 1994)
What is Ethanol and how is it produced? According to Wikipedia, ethanol also known as ethyl alcohol, drinking alcohol or grain alcohol, is a flammable, colorless, slightly toxic chemical compound. The production of ethanol or ethyl alcohol from starch or sugar-based feedstock is among man's earliest ventures into value-added processing. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/resource/made/
How is it produced? There are two production processes: wet milling and dry milling but the main difference between the two is in the initial treatment of the grain as seen in example A and B below.

THE ETHANOL PRODUCTION PROCESS - DRY MILLING

Example A
In dry milling, the entire corn kernel or other starchy grain is first ground into flour, which is referred to in the industry as "meal" and processed without separating out the various component parts of the grain. The meal is slurried with water to form a "mash." Enzymes are added to the mash to convert the starch to dextrose, a simple sugar. Ammonia is added for pH control and as a nutrient to the yeast

THE ETHANOL PRODUCTION PROCESS - WET MILLING

Example B In wet milling, the grain is soaked or "steeped" in water and dilute sulfurous acid for 24 to 48 hours. This steeping facilitates the separation of the grain into its many component parts

While the basic steps remain the same, the process has been considerably refined in recent years, leading to a very efficient process.
Now we know what Ethanol is and how it is produced, lets look at it’s history. Ethanol has been used by humans since prehistory as the intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic beverages. This was obvious when dried residues on a 9000-year-old pottery found in northern China. Its isolation as a relatively pure compound was first achieved by Islamic alchemists who developed the art of distillation during the Abbasid caliphate, the most notable of whom was Al-Razi. Keep in mind that ethanol is not a new fuel. As a matter of fact ethanol was used as a lighting fuel in the 1850s. During the Civil War, a liquor tax was placed on ethanol to raise money for the war. The tax increased the price of ethanol so much that it could no longer compete with other fuels such as kerosene in lighting devices. Ethanol production declined sharply because of this tax and production levels did not begin to recover until the tax was repealed in 1906 http://marketpower.typepad.com/market_power/2006/06/the_history_of_.html
In 1908, Henry Ford designed his Model T to run on a mixture of gasoline and alcohol, calling it the fuel of the future. In 1919, when Prohibition began, ethanol was banned because it was considered a liquor. It could only be sold when it was mixed with petroleum. With the end of Prohibition in 1933, ethanol was used as a fuel again. Ethanol use increased temporarily during World War II when oil and other resources were scarce. In the 1970s, interest in ethanol as a transportation fuel was revived when embargoes by major oil producing countries cut gasoline supplies. http://marketpower.typepad.com/market_power/2006/06/the_history_of_.html
Ethanol was first prepared synthetically in 1826, through the independent efforts of Henry Hennel in Britain and S.G. Sérullas in France. Michael Faraday prepared ethanol by the acid-catalysed hydration of ethylene in 1828, in a process similar to that used for industrial ethanol synthesis today. The need for ethanol production became necessary in the early 1970s. This was due to the oil embargo in 1973 by the Arabs which created a crisis. Congress responded to the petroleum shortage by passing the Energy Tax Act of 1978, which provided an exemption to the 4 cents/gallon federal fuel excise tax on gasoline for fuel blended with at least 10 percent ethanol. In 1980, Congress followed that up by passing two additional bills, the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980 and the Energy Security Act of 1980. Both measures promoted energy conservation and domestic fuel development. http://e85.whipnet.net/ethanol.history/

Distillation of ethanol from water yields a product that is at most 96% ethanol, because ethanol forms an azeotrope with water. Absolute ethanol was first obtained in 1796 by Johann Tobias Lowitz, by filtering distilled ethanol through charcoal.
Antoine Lavoisier described ethanol as a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and in 1808, Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure determined ethanol's chemical formula. In 1858, Archibald Scott Couper published a structural formula for ethanol: this places ethanol among the first chemical compounds to have their chemical structures determined. http://e85.whipnet.net/ethanol.history/
I believe that one of the biggest challenges that face Asia is the implementation of policies that provide institutional support to get the ethanol industry off the ground. Proposed legislations for ethanol production usually are met with much hesitation by oil companies, car manufacturers, and consumer interest groups. Oil companies have no confidence that there will be adequate infrastructure to support the blending of current fuel with ethanol. On the other hand, car manufactures are worried about the potential of increased car warranty issues created as a result of possible defected car engines using biofuels.
In China the government has implemented a freeze on new corn ethanol plants. Any new ethanol facilities in China have to use non-food feedstock. It however, has allowed corn-based ethanol plants already in operation to move forward with production. Non-approval for new ethanol facilities by the government would mean that the facility will have to be shut down. As a consequence, new plants can only be built if they use non-food feedstock.
In Malaysia the government is looking to postpone the plan to introduce "EnvoDiesel", domestic diesel required to contain a minimum 5% palm oil-based biofuel. Concerns on sustained surges in feedstock costs and incomplete product testing were cited as reasons for the delay.
In Thailand the Asian Development Bank (ADB), an institutional lender, has urged Asian governments to promote clean energy to maintain their booming economies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said in a speech that” Asian governments need to "actively pursue" clean energy, including biofuels, to support growth and poverty reduction in a responsible, sustainable manner.” (Asia News 2007)
It seems that governments in Asia are faced with maintaining biofuel policies over a long period of time. According to Philippine Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla “the challenge many developing countries face is funding renewable energy projects, which are often up to three times more costly than conventional sources.” (Asia News 2007)
Added to the lack of policies to sustain ethanol production, the supply stability of raw material to produce ethanol is another challenge. Ethanol is primarily produced using corn or sugarcane. So far, countries in Asia such as china have been using mainly corn and wheat as raw material for Ethanol. Thailand produces ethanol from cassava, India mostly form sugarcane, and Malaysia and Indonesia from palm oil.
Mass production of these raw materials requires land which is already accounted for growing food to meet worldwide demands. As a result energy crops are caught in a tug of war between ethanol production and food. “The competition over the use of land for food or fuel will be much greater in developing countries than in the United States, unless farmers grow energy crops on marginal lands or rely heavily on agricultural wastes. According to a December 2006 study by the International Food Policy Research Institute, a global think tank, producing enough ethanol to replace world gasoline demand would require five times more corn than is planted today and 15 times as much sugar cane, assuming that those are the two main sources.”(Moberg 2007)
Ever since the evolution of grains to crops, crops have been used mainly to feed people and livestock. However, that is changing in response to high oil prices, political turmoil in the Middle East, and global-warming fears. Farms are energy’s great green hope. This new found hope will require more than double the land acreage already dedicated to produce crops. This demand for biofuels already has triggered the demand for farm land expansion. In 2006 Singapore set forest fires to clear land to plant oil palms. The palms are expected to supply 90 biodiesel plants under construction in Malaysia.
The growing potential of biofuels appears to create a substantial opportunity for the world's farmers. Crops used for raw material for ethanol production could potentially provide farmers with a source of demand for their products. About 80 developing countries, for instance, grow and process sugarcane that is used to produce ethanol. Other energy crops include maize, soybeans, rapeseed, and oil palm. Many developing countries already grow or could grow these and other potential energy crops for the use of ethanol production
A modern biofuels industry could also provide developing-country farmers with a use for crop residues like stalks and leaves, which can be converted into ethanol. Every year farmers allow enormous amounts of agricultural waste to remain in the fields. These wastes are either plowed under or burned. Utilizing these remains could provide for ethanol production without losing a large portion of food crops as well as reduce the dependency on oil.
It seems that Ethanol Production is leading in the right direction of a cleaner gas emission fuel. According to Times Online, “corn-based ethanol gives 35 percent more energy than it takes to produce”, which led to a lower gas emission by 18 to 19 percent lower than traditional fossil fuel (Macarteny, Reid, 2006). There are a variety ways that ethanol fuel can be produce, which is why ethanol production is so successful, from corn-based to sugar cane, and even cellulose. Currently the main choice of ethanol production is corn-based, which shows concern around the world. It would require an additional 129,000 square mile of farmland, the size of Kansas and Iowa, to meet the president’s goal of production. Environmentalist argued that the large-scale of corn or grass to produce ethanol would cause a widespread of deforestation (Vinas, 2006). It seems that the process of creating a clean fuel would reduce the gas emission, but at the cost of destroying land fields. It may seem that ethanol production has its advantage in reducing the impact on global warming, but at what price are we paying for it in the future? Mark Z. Jacobson, a Stanford University Atmospheric Chemist study said, “Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution, but our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage (Shwartz, 2007).” The issue is not how the ethanol is being produced, but how it will react with the current condition of its exposed area. It would seem that ethanol production would only stand the test of time, as we approach the future with advance technology with vehicles powered by electricity, solar power, or even hydrogen. Hydrogen has always been the ideal source of fuel, since it is the most abundant element in the world.