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I will take this opportunity to send you some information about bio-fuels in Brazil.

As rising food prices continue to threaten food security around the world, Brazilian ethanol is one obvious solution being largely ignored. Brazil started to create its efficient fuel alternative since the first oil crisis hit the world in the 70s. Now Brazilian drive cars moved by ethanol or gasoline mixed in any proportion and internal consumption of ethanol in the country is already superior to gasoline's.

Brazilian ethanol is produced from sugarcane without any governmental subsidies and the fuel has a very competitive price. Researchers are increasing the productivity (more fuel extracted per sq.km. of crops) by adapting sugar canes species to each type of land and topography. The productivity now is more than 3 times the records of 30 years ago and it keeps on raising, being expected to soar very soon when the technology to extract ethanol from cellulosic materials (crop waste) will be available for large scale production.

Ethanol production in Brazil uses just one percent of  total arable land, and the country can expand its sugarcane fields without disturbing sensitive land areas, just by tapping land such as depleted pastures. Just raising intensity of cattle production from the current 0.8 animals per hectare to 1.2 animals (a target already far exceeded in many parts of the country) would release about 80m hectares of land for crops. There remains plenty of room for expansion: the country has 355 million hectares of farmable land, of which 7 million hectares under sugarcane of which the amount used to make ethanol fills 3.4 million hectares (compared to 200m hectares of pasture, about 21m hectares of soya and 14m hectares of maize). Another 105.8 million hectares remained available, which allows Brazil to increase ethanol production without affecting the environment or food. Meanwhile, the country's food production had doubled in the past decade.

Another persuasive fact for incentiving ethanol production in Brazil is the electric energy that is generated as a by-product of ethanol processing: taking into consideration the energetic balance, the electricity generated in sugar cane processing in Brazil is almost as large as its ethanol equivalence. It's like a two large scale hydroelectric plants generating electricity exactly when it's more necessary: in the Brazilian dry season! So the producers of ethanol are also having increasing revenues by selling electricity to the country's national electric system, which has become an strategic and reliable source of electricity. For all these reasons, ethanol in Brazil is a win-win game for the country, the farmers, the consumers and the environment.

Off course Brazilian ethanol does not intend to concur with petroleum, but it could ease the current oil crisis by supplying a small part of the world energy demand. The problem is that much of Brazil's ethanol exports continues to face prohibitive tariffs and other barriers to developed markets in the US and Europe. The developed world appears purposely myopic in relation to the opportunities Brazil presents, maybe it's because that would upset wealthy US and European farmers - a price apparently not worth paying.On Not all biofuels are the same; we can do biofuel well or poorly posted 1 year, 5 months ago 27 Responses