By Li Huayu (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-14 17:29

With world oil prices hovering near $100 a barrel at the same time China is making ecology a national cause, experts and businesspeople are searching almost everywhere for new, cleaner sources of energy.

Yet there is one quite literally at their doorstep, as common as neighborhood restaurants and homes across the world's most populous country - used cooking oil.

General Biodiesel has made that its business since 2005 and now plans to build recycling facilities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wenzhou of East China's Zhejiang province.

Company Founder and CEO Yale W. Wong says that the planned initial investment for the four projects is about $500,000, which will increase to $100 million after about a year

Now with an office in Beijing, the Seattle-based company is planning to make high-quality biodiesel in China by cleaning and recycling vegetable oils originally derived from palm, canola, soy, linseed, coconut, mustard and cotton.

As energy saving and environmental protection in China are becoming increasingly pressing issues, the country has launched a wide series of policies to encourage the development of new energies, including increasing biodiesel output to 200,000 tons by 2010 and two million tons by 2020.

Eyeing the huge potential, General Biodiesel is also seeking joint-venture partnerships in China. Wong says that the company has identified some potential partners, and is expected to ink a deal during his recent 12-day visit.

One of the potential partners is in the aviation sector, Wong says, without revealing the company's name. He notes his company is testing feasibility of using biodiesel products as jet fuels.

Wong was a member of a clean-energy trade mission headed by United States Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Bohigian that visited China last week.

Processes used by General Biodiesel refine 99 percent of waste cooking oils, Wong says, using no water. One of the by-products is glycerin, which can be made into fertilizers or distilled to 99 percent purity and sold to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical markets.

The company now provides two types of biodiesel mixes, one 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel and another wholly biodiesel, which serve as affordable low-pollution alternatives to petroleum-based diesel.

Wong says a biodiesel vehicles have many advantages over a standard petroleum-fueled models due to their energy efficiency and much lower emissions.

Statistics from the US Department of Energy (DOE) show that every gallon of biodiesel replaces 0.95 of a gallon of petroleum-based diesel and for every unit of fossil energy used to produce biodiesel, 3.37 units of biodiesel energy are created.

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