Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) announced an agreement for the construction of a new cellulosic ethanol research facility in Japan.
The new Kazusa-branch facility of Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Fundamental Technology Research Center, will be built within the Kazusa Akademia Park (in Kisarazu, Chiba). Honda plans to build a single 1,050 square-meter building as a testing facility. The construction is scheduled to begin in April 2009, with the goal to begin operations in November 2009.
Honda is continuing its collaborative research on bio-ethanol production technology with RITE (Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth) which began in 2006 and has been conducting research on the bio-ethanol conversion process using an experimental plant built within the Honda R&D Co., Ltd. Fundamental Technology Research Center (Wako, Saitama) since April 2007.
In order to move toward practical application of the technology, Honda decided to build a new facility as it became necessary to conduct a research using a large-scale experimental facility which enables more accurate evaluations, the company said.
A recent report on cleantech patents in the U.S. showed that Honda has received more than any other company over the last seven years.