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ENERGY: Brazil Aims to Dominate World Ethanol Market
By Mario Osava*
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 31, 2007 (Tierramérica) - Brazil is working towards producing enough
ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline consumed worldwide within
18 years. That would mean increasing its current production of 17.3
billion litres a year by a factor of 12, without sacrificing forests,
protected areas or food cultivation.
The government called on a group of experts to study the possibilities and
impacts of a sharp increase in fuel alcohol production from sugarcane.
The group led by the Interdisciplinary Group for Energy Planning of
Campinas University, and coordinated by physicist Rogério Cerqueira Leite,
concluded that Brazil could produce 205 billion litres of ethanol by 2025.
A comparable volume will be produced by the rest of the world, predict
experts.
By then, the global demand for gasoline will reach 1.7 trillion litres a
year, with a 48-percent increase predicted over two decades. In addition
to 10 percent of that volume, Brazil will have to produce ethanol for its
growing internal market. The country already has 2.6 million vehicles that
run on this fuel alcohol, with the addition of two-thirds of the new cars
manufactured here, which total more than two million a year.
Increased ethanol production is essential. The experts' report says there
will be a 40-percent hike in output per hectare of sugarcane through a new
technology based on hydrolysis. The United States and Brazil agreed to
cooperate in developing this approach during the Mar. 8-9 visit by
President George W. Bush in Sao Paulo.
Potentially, hydrolysis, which can take advantage of any cellulose
material, could double productivity, but the goal was set at 40 percent
based on known technologies and because part of the sugarcane waste (pulp
and straw) is used in generating electricity, not ethanol, explained
Carlos Rossell, a researcher with the group.
This technology involves some complicated challenges, such as breaking
down very tough plant structures, which will require a great deal of
effort to make it viable on an industrial scale, Rossell told
Tierramérica.
U.S. and European scientists are farther along in this research and
benefit from much bigger investments, but Brazil has the advantage of the
immediate availability of the sugarcane, ready to be processed. The
others will have to go into the fields to bring in the stalks and other
bio-material, mostly from maize, with additional costs, he said.
For the same reason, the expertise that can come from the United States,
whose ethanol production is based on corn, doesn't resolve the Brazilian
problem. The raw materials are different, the researcher said.
Brazil and the United States, the world's two leading producers of
biofuels, agreed also to cooperate in developing an international market
for these products, despite being in opposite situations.
Brazil is preparing to turn its 32-year experience with fuel alcohol into
massive exports, while the United States will have to rely on massive
imports of ethanol inputs to achieve its goal of cutting gasoline
consumption 20 percent by 2017.
For now, the United States produces a little more ethanol than Brazil
does, but production costs are 40 percent higher, according to industry
leaders in Brazil. The U.S. tariff barrier of 54 cents on the dollar per
gallon (3.8 litres) did not prevent the northern giant from importing 1.6
billion litres of Brazilian fuel alcohol last year, when increased demand
drove up maize prices.
In addition to destabilising the international market, increasing maize
prices and soybean prices (the former's replacement for animal feed), U.S.
ethanol is hardly environmentally efficient.
Each unit of energy used in U.S. ethanol production generates just 1.3 to
1.8 units of renewable energy, while sugarcane reaches a minimum of 8.3
units. As such, U.S.-produced ethanol does little to curb emissions that
cause climate change, which, along with high-priced petroleum are the main
reasons biofuels are being promoted.
In Brazil, ethanol also faces limitations. Peasant farmer movements and
many social activists condemn the growth of agro-energy that hurts food
production. Environmentalists fear further expansion of the farm frontier
into Amazon forests, especially as land prices increase.
Fuel alcohol production has "negative environmental, social and economic
impacts for the communities," it generates few jobs, and "consumes a lot
of natural resources - each litre of ethanol requires 30 litres of
water," criticises Temístocles Marcelos, environmental policy director at
the labour union CUT. In the southern city of Ribeirao Preto, capital of
sugar and alcohol production, today there are more prisoners than rural
workers, he told Tierramérica.
The experts' study, however, points to the creation of five million new
jobs if the ambitious production plan is implemented.
The Brazilian experience is of concern "because of poor management,"
Délcio Rodrigues, energy specialist with the environmental group Vitae
Civilis, told Tierramérica. "The government doesn't take action to contain
the damages from monoculture, local governments authorise inappropriate
projects out of short-term interests, and official agencies are not
capacitated to regulate the sector."
In Sao Paulo state, home to more than half of Brazil's ethanol production,
60 percent of the sugarcane fields are burned in order to facilitate
cutting, polluting the air and causing a number of illnesses. The
sugarcane industrialists are also accused of subjecting their workers to
unhealthy and exhausting work conditions, which, according to reports,
have also led to death.
Labour relations comply with the laws, and the trade unions operate
freely, Fernando Moreira Ribeiro, secretary-general of the Sao Paulo
Sugarcane Industry Association, told Tierramérica.
The burns are also legal, and are to be abolished by 2020, he said. The
solution would be accelerated if cellulose ethanol production were further
advanced, because it uses sugarcane leaves.
Furthermore, ethanol benefits all of humanity by reducing carbon dioxide
emissions. Its incorporation into Brazil's national energy matrix and its
international marketing - which should be unrelated to that of
petroleum - "depends only on political will," said Ribeiro.
(*Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the
Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced
by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and
the United Nations Environment Programme.)
(END)
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