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CHAPTER 4. |
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General Assessment of Opportunities and Challenges for Developing Biofuel in Vietnam |
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CHAPTER 4. |
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General Assessment of Opportunities and Challenges for Developing Biofuel in Vietnam |
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4.1 Advantages |
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- Energy security and environmental protection in Vietnam has been an urgent issue which has attracted the Government’s attention.
- Vietnam has favorable conditions for producing biofuel from biomass as it is a tropical country that has an agriculture-based economy.
- Vietnam has initially started applied researches on biofuel production and consumption, and has gained some positive results.
- Vietnam has invested its scientific and technological potential for the production and consumption of biofuel. Its contingent of biologists are being trained and supplemented. Some of its fuel blending and distributing enterprises have set up petrochemical facilities which provide favorable conditions for acquiring modern technologies for biofuel production which can partly replace imported fossil fuel.
- The production and consumption of biofuel has become a widely accepted tendency worldwide in seeking renewable fuel sources. Several countries have gained remarkable success in this regard, such as Brazil, the U.S., Germany, Japan, China and Thailand. Vietnam will have access to valuable lessons learnt from the process.
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4.2 Disadvantages |
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- Level of technology and equipment: Most of local alcohol producers are using obsolete and incomplete equipment which has small designed capacity (under 10 million liters per year) and consumes large amounts of energy. Moreover, the theoretical extraction rate is only 80% (compared to over 90% in developed countries). As these producers use only traditional biomass (cereal and molasses), their production costs are high. Producers of animal and vegetable oil also use obsolete equipment with a low rate of extraction. The research on blending alcohol and animal/vegetable oil with fossil fuel is only at an experimental phase.
- Quality of human resources: There is a short supply of well-trained scientists and technicians in the field. They lack adequate experience in using modern technology for biofuel production (from production of biomass materials to commercial products). The number of leading scientists capable of keeping up with the pace of state-of-the-art technology is inadequate.
- Investment limitation: The development and utilization of biofuel requires long-term investment in research, production, distribution systems, human resources training, improvement of capacity and facilities, import of modern technology and equipment, and improvement of the community awareness of the issue. However, limited investment, mostly from the State budget, has been allocated extensively for experimental projects. R&D investment by other economic sectors has not been utilized. Investment in R&D and biofuel consumption in Vietnam is way below the international level.
- Limitation on development and applied research: There is still a lack of coordination between related authorities responsible for putting development and applied research into practice. Existing production facilities have not been fully exploited. Applied research has not been consistent, research outcome has been limited to the laboratory and experimental workshop level, and research does not come from market demand. No “breakthrough” has been made to partly replace fossil fuel with biofuels
- Materials for biofuel production: The biomass source is still produced using old strains and traditional cultivating methods, which leads to low productivity and quality. A lack of a feasible planning for the development of materials whose quality is suitable for technology and production meeting market demand will make it difficult for mass production.
- Legal system: In the field of biofuel production, Vietnam has yet to formulate mechanism and incentives for investment, attraction and development of human resources, improvement and development of materials, technological transfer, intellectual property rights protection and investors’ interest. Regulations on environmental protection regarding the promotion of clean fuel consumption as well as standardization of biofuel have yet to be introduced.
- Limitation of international cooperation: International cooperation in research, development and utilization of biofuel, including building a legal framework for the production and consumption of biofuel, research, training and transfer of technology and equipment, is inadequate and falls short of expectations.
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Since the year 2007, Vietnamese government has been issued new policies related to development of production and use of biofuels in Vietnam as follows: |
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1. DECISION No. 177/2007/QD-TTg OF NOVEMBER 20, 2007, APPROVING THE SCHEME ON DEVELOPMENT OF BIOFUEL UP TO 2015, WITH A VISION TO 2025 |
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2. DECISION No. 1855/QD-TTg OF DECEMBER 27, 2007, APPROVING VIETNAM'S NATIONAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY UP TO 2020, WITH 2050 VISION |
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3. DECISION No. 1842/QD-BNN-LN OF JUNE 19th, 2008, APPROVING OF THE SCHEME “RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND USAGE PRODUCTS OF JATROPHA Curcas L. IN VIETNAM IN THE PERIOD 2008-2015 AND WITH A VISION TO 2025 |
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In the year 2007, The Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam also issued the national standards on E100 and B100.
Since then, many companies and institutions started to plan and to implement their activities in research, development and production of biofuels. |
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(See Annex) |
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