If China’s Green Leap Forward fails for whatever reason, it won’t be because of the lack of cash. Generally speaking, it has never been better to be a clean tech entrepreneur or project developer. Investment dollars are pouring in globally from hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds, multinational corporations and development banks. Take these recent developments, for example:

• The clean development mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol, for example, provides the much needed financial lifeblood to take IRRs of wind farm projects over the “hurdle rate.” There has been some criticism about the use and abuse of CDM by some camps, such as a front page article by The Guardian, but I thought China Environmental Law’s response was spot on. China is by far the world’s biggest market for CDM projects, accounting for a whopping 73% of transactions in 2007. Hong Kong joins the CDM fray as well.
• Sycamore Ventures and the China Association of Resources Comprehensive Utilization (CARCU), which operates under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, are to launch a US$ 1 billion dollar Greenstar fund to invest largely in China’s environmental sector.
• The World Bank will provide additional $440 million in loans for three energy efficiency projects. This will constitute one-third of the bank’s loan portfolio in 2008 to China. The three projects consist of energy efficiency financing, desulfurization in Shandong and infrastructure in medium-sized cities in Liaoning.

All this is not to say that China is reliant on external sources of funding. In fact, according to a Reuters report, Gao Guangsheng of the National Development and Reform Commission expects China to fund 90% of its renewable energy development by domestic sources of funding. Separately, Don Ye, founding partner of Tsing Capital’s China Environment Fund, for seven years, and still, China’s only fund 100% dedicated to clean tech investments told The Green Leap Forward, “There’s a trend to self sufficiency both in terms of talent as well as investments. By the end of this year, we expect to see quite a few RMB-denominated investment funds come to the market.”

Provincial and municipal governments are also investing big in renewable energy. The northeastern municipality of Tianjin has committed to invest RMB 200 million a year into mergers and pre-IPO deals in solar, wind and energy storage businesses. The southwestern province of Sichuan is pushing solar development in a big way, as evidenced by last weekend’s Western China PV Conference held in the province’s biggest city, Chengdu (成都). The governments of Chengdu and adjacent Shuang Liu (双流) county, together constituting the aviation hub of China, have now have established the Chengdu (Shuang Liu) Photovoltaic Industrial Park with the goal of becoming China’s “solar PV valley.” I’ll write more about the Western PV Conference in my next post.

There will be occasional bottlenecks to capital availability. Last month, the central government raised bank reserve ratios yet again to reduce liquidity in the market so as to combat inflation. The series of bank reserve ratio increases has resulted in a tightening in the availability of bank loans for renewable energy projects (although these have tend to affect foreign project developers, which are typically last in line, more than the major state-owned enterprise developers, which get priority access to capital) . But such a phenomenon does not detract from the favorable patchwork of investment policies enacted by the central, provincial and municipal governments for clean energy. If I were a betting man, my money would be on the red (the color of RMB 100 notes) to continue chasing the green (energy).

(This article is contributed by our guest writer, Julian Wong, and was first published in The Green Leap Forward.)

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In the wake of the looming food crisis, biofuels are becoming more and more suspect as a sustainable long term substitute for oil, and in fact, are viewed as one of the chief culprits in the soaring prices of corn, soybean and other agricultural commodities that are feedstock to biofuels production. The diverted demand of such agro commodities to biofuel production has so interfered with agro production for food that the Chinese government enacted a ban on the production of grain-based biofuels.

China Clean Energy or CCC (OTCBB: CCGY), a producer of biodiesel (which is the focus of this post) and specialty chemicals (green chemistry is a ripe topic for a future post!) based in the city of Fuqing in the southeastern province of Fujian, seeks to produce biofuels in a smarter way. Embracing the concepts of “waste-equals-food“, “cradle-to-cradle“, and the “circular economy“, CCC is collecting waste vegetable oil, specifically cottonseed and rapeseed oil and turning them into biodiesel. These feedstock are much more inexpensive than their non-waste versions (i.e. raw cottonseed and rapeseed) because they are not perceived as useful inputs.

Gary Zhao, the CFO of CCC, explained how waste rapeseed oil is used in an exclusive interview with The Green Leap Forward:

Rapeseed oil is typically produced by pressing the fibers of the rapeseed. After the rapeseed has been pressed, there is still some oil left in the residual fibers that are typically discarded In fact some 10% of the oil is still left and it is rich in fatty acid. Through a chemical process, we are able to extract this remaining oil and convert it to biodiesel. As for the leftover fibers, that can further process it to be used as boiler fuel or animal feed.

By using “waste” feedstock instead of raw grains, CCC is able to indirectly continue to use waste grain feedstock which is otherwise prohibited and at much reduced prices as the raw grains (see story on soaring grain prices here), but more importantly, harness a previously untapped source of energy that would otherwise be discarded as waste.

CCC currently has a biodiesel production capacity of 11,000 tons per year, but it has just received US$15 million in financing for a significant expansion that will bring production to 100,000 tons per year by the beginning of 2009. CCC’s biodiesel market is distinctively local in nature. Zhao explained: “Unlike the US or Europe, there is no mandate for biofuel production in China, so the costs of transporting the fuel over long distances do not make [economic] sense.”

Transportation doesn’t make ecological sense either. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of biodiesel (and other biofuels) is whether the net energy balance of biodiesel is positive or not. In other words, critics have charged that the amount of energy produced by biodiesel is less than, or barely exceeds the amount of energy needed to make biodiesel (including an accounting of the energy needed to harvest the grain through mechanized farm tools and transportation of such grain at various stages of its production cycle).

Biofuel production has also been heavily criticised for diverting away valuable food resources. Such criticisms target the conventional raw grain-based mechanized harvesting biofuel production seen in the US or Europe. The CCC process is distinctive for relying on non-food fuel sources and by focusing on local markets, both in terms of it supply of feedstock and its biodiesel end-customers, thereby substantially reducing energy needs and improving the energy payoff of its products.

Using waste as inputs also contributes to a dramatic improvement in the economics of biofuels production. One of the key insights (see #3 in link) gained by an venture capitalist, Michael Butler of Cascadia Capital, is that:

Waste or waste byproducts are the most sensible alternative-fuel inputs: There’s far less pricing pressure associated with sludge or algae versus corn as long as proven technologies are harnessed. And we’ve also seen that efficiencies soar off the charts if the right waste products are used as feedstock.

Perhaps, then it should come as no surprise that CCC is already operating profitably after only a two years of being in the biodiesel game.

CCC’s medium to long term plans to build biodiesel processing plants in Xinjiang and Hebei are again driven by its business model of “localization”; those two provinces happen to be the top producers of cottonseed in China. Being close to the source of cottonseed leavings will limit transportation and energy needs and also create new markets for its products outside of Fujian.

Zhao thoughtfully addressed concerns of limited availability of feedstock. Taking waste vegetable oil as an example, he explained:

The average Chinese consumes 16 kg/year of vegetable oil. That is roughly 20 million tons/year for all of China. If only 10% of such “ditch” [waste] oil can be recycled, we are looking at an availability of 2 million tons/year. Right now, we only produce 11,000 tons/year of biodiesel.

Zhao pointed out further that CCC entertains the possibility of diversifying further to other waste feedstock, thereby increasing its potential supply base.

“China is already the world’s largest importer of grain based products,” Zhao accounted, “and as the standard of living of China increases, consumption of pork, beef and chicken will increase… all these animals require grain.”

“We will never use food-based feedstock. We don’t believe in it.”

(This article is contributed by our guest writer, Julian Wong, and was first published in The Green Leap Forward.)

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Founder and Editor - Eugene Tay

Eugene is the Director of Green Future Solutions and the Founder/Editor of AsiaIsGreen. He has a master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Nanyang Technological University and a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from the National University of Singapore. He is also currently an adjunct lecturer at a local polytechnic. He worked previously at the National Environment Agency, Resource Conservation Department, and managed waste minimisation and recycling issues.

Eugene is a volunteer with the Environmental Challenge Organisation and a Youth Environment Envoy with the National Environment Agency. He was a commendation award winner of the Green Wave Environment Competition 2007. He also writes frequently to the local newspapers and his published letters and articles are listed below:

• To save ourselves, we must get back to nature (Straits Times, 25 Dec 07)
• Clean power, green power - Electricity suppliers should disclose carbon footprints (Today, 22 Oct 07)
• After Live Earth, Give Up Hope (Today, 7 Jul 07)
• Six things we can do to protect the environment (Straits Times, 6 Jun 07)
• The green spirit (Today, 5 Jun 07)
• Global warming: Four possible scenarios (Straits Times, 15 May 07)
• The real culprit of global warming? Human activities (Straits Times, 5 May 07)
• Data on waste useful (Sunday Times, 6 Aug 06)
• Score a Green Goal for Singapore too (Straits Times, 8 Jul 06)
• Bouquet for SingTel’s efforts to be environmentally friendly (Straits Times, 22 Jun 06)
• It takes time to inculcate recycling culture. Do more to educate people to cut waste (Straits Times, 15 May 06)

Guest Writer - Julian Wong

Julian Wong is the author of The Green Leap Forward, a blog that explores China’s green efforts, policies and technologies, and also the author of The Solar Coaster, a blog on solar energy. He is currently a Fulbright Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing researching renewable energy policy and entrepreneurship, and holds a M.A. in Environmental and Energy Policy from Duke Nicholas School of the Environment, and a J.D. from Duke Law School. Julian was a private equity mergers and acquisitions attorney in New York and Hong Kong and a member of the New York City Bar Association Energy Committee.

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