Ethanol Development Should Be Under Supervision

Jakarta, July 1 (Antara) - Development of ethanol should be put under the control of a single agency with authority to facilitate production of ethanol as an alternative fuel, an expert said. Low Emission Development Strategy Cluster Coordinator of the Indonesia Climate Change Center (ICCC) Artissa Panjaitan said there are too many agencies in Indonesia with authority to regulate development of ethanol. "The bureaucracy is too long to be faced in seeking the license to develop ethanol," Artissa said here on Monday. He cited in Brazil, which has succeeded in developing ethanol as an alternative fuel has only a single agency with full authority over development of ethanol. The agency has the authority to determine conversion of ethanol or sugar that the mechanism is efficient, he said. If the price of sugar is too low the excess in sugar production is processed into ethanol and if sugar price is too high blending of ethanol could be reduced, he said. The market mechanism in Brazil could run smoothly as production of sugar and ethanol is handled by the same industrialists that they could arrange production to meet the market demand, he said. He said the blending of ethanol with gasoline is based on a certain ratio that could be used to measure consumption of oil fuel. "The problem in Indonesia is that the country has no control over reasonable consumption of oil fuel," he said. Other countries that have made progress and succeeded in the development of ethanol are China and Thailand. "China is more serious in developing bio-ethanol as it oil reserves are shrinking," he said. Earlier, he said, in the coming years ethanol would be cheaper in price than oil fuel with shrinking oil reserves. He said ethanol could be produced from sugarcane, cassava, cellulose and seaweed. The basic material are relatively easily available in the country . He said failure in developing sugarcane-based ethanol industry in Lampung was that ethanol was not produced in an integrated industry with the producer also having sugarcane plantation to guarantee supply of the raw material.