A Survey on Awareness for Biofuel in Kingdom of Thailand

Abstract

Biomass energy systems are expected to be useful for making low carbon society. For the wide spread of biomass energy systems, acceptance by the consumers is important, but recognition for them by the public is obscure at present. It has remarkable feature of supplying liquid fuel which can be used traffic energy without thoroughgoing modifications of transportation systems. We launched a social survey to investigate the perception of biomass fuels in Kingdom of Thailand and the responses were analyzed with conjoint analysis. Subjects were asked to choose their favorite petrol for their car from four alternatives of fuels with attribute of percentage of alcohol, material crops, unit costs and CO₂ reduction rate. The analysis proved that sugar canes and cassavas are favored than rice straws for raw materials. Alternatives with larger amount of CO₂ reduction were preferred and high cost alternatives were avoided. Effects of respondent characteristics on choice behavior were also analyzed.