A project, undertaken by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Engineering, a part of the Ministry of Agriculture, to extract ethanol from sweet sorghum has recently passed a verification check. The project rolled out the fast fermenting technology and the associated preparing techniques and equipment for solid sweet sorghum fermenting at an annual capacity of 400 tons. The technology can be used to produce fuel ethanol from sweet sorghum. The research team has achieved substantive progresses in fermenting solid sweet sorghum stalks, based on the previous efforts in the 9^th Five-year period. Researchers optimized the technical parameters for raw materials processing, strain preparation, fermenting process control, and distilling, which effectively reduced the energy consumption of the process and shortened the fermenting time, with a simplified operation, low residue sugar content, and high energy conversion. The project also completed the analysis and evaluation of other involving aspects, including technology, economics, environmental protection, and agricultural production. The findings have been granted with a Blue Sky Award for top ten pioneering technologies in the field of renewable energy, issued by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 2005.

The project has resulted in a pilot demonstration project in Anqiu City, Shandong Province with an annual capacity of 400-ton ethanol from sweet sorghum stalks. In the meantime, it constructed a commercial demonstration project with an annual capacity of 5000 tons of ethanol from the same raw materials in Huachuan County, Heilongjiang Province.