Italy's "green fuel" crops to help cut global warming

Xinhua - English

ROME, March 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Sugar-beet, sunflowers, fruits and cereals could help Italy fight global warming, thanks to a new lawaimed at replacing fossil-derived fuels with green alternatives, Italian News Agency ANSA said on Monday.
Classic Italian crops are ideally suited for the production of bioethanol and biofuel, which emit 40 percent and 70 percent less carbon dioxide respectively than traditional fuels, according to Italian experts.
Italy has promised that bioethanol and biofuel will make up 5.75 percent of the Italian fuel market by 2010 and nearly 12 percent by 2020.
Biofuel is made from sunflower seeds, soy and rapeseeds, while bioethanol can be produced with sugar beet, wheat and grapes.
Italian Farmers, who have been pressuring the Italian governmentto promote biofuel and bioethanol for some time now, called for further investments and bigger tax breaks.
They have been at the forefront of a campaign to promote publicawareness of how the products offer viable alternatives.
The farmers association Coldiretti recently unveiled the world's first ever motorboat powered by sunflower oil, which produces far less smoke than a normal diesel motor.
If left untaxed, experts calculate biofuel would be competitivewith diesel.
Taking sunflower oil, for example, Coldiretti pointed out that a farmer can produce about 3,000 kilos of sunflower seeds from a single hectare of land and from these seeds about 1,300 kilos of oil can be squeezed.
Besides tax, the main production costs currently stem from transport. In order to be financially viable, production plants need to be built as close as possible to the crops.
Supporters of the alternatives have therefore urged the Italiangovernment to invest more in new plants, asking them to convert a series of disused sugar workshops into biofuel factories.
Italian auto giant Fiat already manufacturers cars able to run purely on bioethanol but these are used only in Brazil. The South American country is the world's largest producer and user of biofuel and bioethanol, which is available in all gas stations, ANSA said. Enditem