Renewable energies department of presidential office announced that Iran has acquired the technical knowhow for production of biofuels, adding that a biofuel production pilot project has been launched in Shiraz with a production capacity of 1,000 liters per day.
Akbar Shabanikia underlined the importance of using ethanol as an alternative fuel, saying the product is appropriate for vehicles, Shana news agency reported.
The official stated that ethanol, which is a plant-based fuel, is produced from waste and blending 4 percent of it to motor fuel could improve the performance of engines considerably.
Given Iran's daily gasoline consumption of 60 million liters, blending 4 percent of bioethanol to gasoline could reduce fuel consumption by 2.5 million liters per day, he noted.
Bioethanol is biodegradable and far less toxic than fossil fuels. In addition, by using bioethanol in older engines can help reduce the amount of carbon monoxide produced by the vehicle, thus improving air quality.
Ethanol fuel is often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline.
World ethanol production for transport fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007 from 17 billion to more than 52 billion liters. From 2007 to 2008, the share of ethanol in global gasoline type fuel use increased from 3.7% to 5.4%. In 2011, worldwide ethanol fuel production reached 22.36 billion US liquid gallons (bg) (84.6 billion liters), with the United States as the top producer with 13.9 bg (52.6 billion liters), accounting for 62.2% of global production, followed by Brazil with 5.6 bg (21.1 billion liters. Ethanol fuel has a gasoline gallon equivalency (GGE) value of 1.5 US gallons (5.7 liters), which means 1.5 gallons of ethanol produces the energy of one gallon of gasoline.
