Research Instituteof Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE), Honda Research and Development that
is a subsidiary of Honda Motor, and U.S. Department of Energy will jointly
start the substantiative experiment of the bioethanol they developed together.
The technology can produce bioethanol from stalks and leaves that cannot be
offered as food at the same cost to produce gasoline. It is a combination of
the pretreatment technology to recover sugar developed by U.S. Department of
Energy and the gene recombination fungus that RITE’s Dr. Hideaki Yukawa
developed. Resistant to fermentation inhibitors, and Yukawa’s fungus can use
sugar produced in the pretreatment at a low cost.
The new technology
will supposedly make it possible to produce bioethanol at 2.5 dollars per
gallon, almost half of the present cost. The substantiative experiment of
factor technologies will start in Japan in 2013, and experimental production of
1 ton per day will start in the U.S. in 2014. Subsequently, mass production
experiment will start in alliance with an American company. Production of
bioethanol was about 22,300 million gallons in 2011. However, most of the
production was made of fruits of sugarcanes and corns, and inevitably food
prices go higher.
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