"The large-scale extension of bioenergy is a strategic choice for China. As the economy keeps booming, China is now increasingly thirsty for energy, especially some fossil fuels, like gasoline and diesel.  Since 1993, China has become a net importer of oil.  In 2005, 136 million tons of oil flowed into China, accounting for 6 percent of the world's total. China is now after the United States to be the second biggest oil consumer of the world – 317 million tons of oil was used in the same year. China produced 181 million tons of oil in 2005. However, it cannot fill the huge gap between domestic supply and demand

At the beginning of the 21st century, China launched its extension of gasohol, setting some cities in Heilongjiang and Henan as pilots. Since 2005, gasohol has been widely extended in five provinces, including Jilin, Liaoning, Henan, Anhui and Heilongjiang, and some other areas in Hebei, Jiangsu and so on.  "Why don't the police punish drunken driving? because the drinker is not the driver, but the car." It is a popular brainteaser nowadays in Heilongjiang, Anhui, Henan and some other provinces of China.  In fact, what the cars "drink" is gasohol.  Gasohol is a fuel mixture of gasoline and ethanol fuel. The two elements are mixed with a certain concentration to reduce the consumption of petroleum fuels, as well as to reduce pollution.

"I'm using gasohol for 11 moths, pretty much the same with gasoline," taxi driver Feng Baoguo from Henan Province said. He said that at the beginning he felt gasohol did not have enough power. But after washing fuel system several times, he found problems disappeared.  Now one liter of 93# gasohol that contains 10 percent of ethanol fuel costs 4.83 yuan (0.58 U.S. dollars) in Henan, while one liter of 93# gasoline values 5.09 yuan in Beijing.  Ethanol fuel can be mass-produced by fermentation of sugar or starch, which is widely obtained in various crops. It is a kind of bio-energy, or biomass energy, which is from plants and plant-derived materials.

The three leading state-control oil companies: China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (SINOPEC), and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), are all expanding their business globally, in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, which arouses some voices about China's threat to global energy security that Chinese high-ranking officials refute stoutly.

However, some experts believe that China's energy demand will still witness rapid growth in the next 15 years. They think as in the process of urbanization and industrialization, and with less-advanced energy technology, China's growth in energy demand is inevitable.  Environment problems also come. Some big cities are always shrouded in thick smoke. Acid rain falls on one third of China's total land area. When coming across a traffic jam in Beijing, passengers often get dizzy by automobile's tail gas.

Since it is a sustainable energy that offers environmental and long-term economic advantages over traditional energy, biomass energy is now being promoted by the government. The Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced last week that the government would give financial support to bio-energy and bio-chemistry development, including subsidies, preferential treatment in taxation, and building a venture capital system."