NAGOYA: Toyota Motor Corp., oil distributor Eneos Corp. and four other Japanese companies said Wednesday that they have established an association for research on technologies to produce bioethanol fuel for automobiles.

The Research Association of Biomass Innovation for Next Generation Automobile Fuels was set up on July 1, with its headquarters in Okuma, a town in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima. The town co-hosts Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s  Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the site of a triple meltdown that followed a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

The association will explore fields including efficient systems for bioethanol fuel production, ways to utilize oxygen and carbon dioxide emitted during production and technologies to cultivate crops used as raw materials for the fuel.

The other four members are automakers Suzuki Motor Corp., Subaru Corp. and Daihatsu Motor Co., a Toyota unit, as well as trading house Toyota Tsusho Corp.

Koichi Nakata, head of Toyota’s Carbon Neutral Development Division, was appointed to concurrently serve as chairman of the association.

JIJI Press