South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is redoubling its efforts to develop clean energy by constructing two new plants using locally rich resources of cassava and byproducts from its sugar-refining industry to produce ethanol as fuel.

"The projected plants will help reduce pollution from automobile exhaust," said an official with the regional commission of economy and trade.

According to the official, the two plants will be situated in this regional capital and the city of Guigang, respectively.

The plant in Nanning will have an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons of ethanol, and the one in Guigang will be able to produce 200,000 tons of ethanol annually on completion. The two projects will cost more than one billion yuan (about 121 million US dollars).

Development of hydropower is another aspect of the region's efforts to explore clean energy sources. As a key player in the country's program to transmit electricity from the west, where the economy is underdeveloped but there are abundant natural resources, to the east, where the economy is developed but there is a lack of resources, Guangxi has been making efforts to exploit its rich hydroelectric resources.

On July 1, construction began on the Longtan Hydropower Station, with a total investment of 24.3 billion yuan (about 2.93 billion US dollars) and an installed capacity of 5.4 million kw, on the Hongshui River. It will be able to generate 18.7 billion kwh of electricity annually on completion in 2009.

In addition to the Longtan Hydropower Station, the region has also built a number of other major hydropower stations and a great number of small hydropower plants, with the combined installed capacity amounting to 4.14 million kw.

In a step to support the development of clean energy and protect the local environment, the regional government has worked out policies to encourage the use of electricity-consuming appliances in schools, hospitals and hotels instead of coal-burning devices, and the use of methane for cooking.

The region has made good use of easily obtained crop straw, and built more than 1.02 million methane ponds in the region's rural areas. So far, the availability of methane for cooking in Guangxi's rural villages amounts to 12 percent.

The popularization of clean energy in rural areas has saved a large area of forests from destruction. The forest cover in Guangxi now stands at 41.3 percent, about seven percentage points more than six years ago.

Sun Yu, vice-chairman of the regional government, said that in the next five years 1.32 million methane ponds will be built in the region's rural villages, and by the year 2005, the availability of methane for cooking will be 30 percent in Guangxi's rural areas.

(eastday.com 10/01/2001)