"Brazil's Road to Energy Independence"

"Brazil's Road to Energy Independence: Alternative-Fuel Strategy, Rooted in Ethanol From Sugar Cane, Seen as Model"
Monte Reel
The Washington Post
Sunday, August 20, 2006.

Gas stations in Brasil offer ethanol, gasoline or premium gasoline. But "the gasoline varieties are blends that contain at least 20 percent ethanol. The pure ethanol is usually significantly cheaper -- 53 cents per liter (about $2 per gallon), compared with about 99 cents per liter for gasoline ($3.74 per gallon) in Sao Paulo this past week." Ethanol has about 70 percent of the fuel efficiency of gasoline, but is the better buy at current prices. Ethanol has replaced about 40 percent of the country's gasoline consumption.

The Center for Sugarcane Technology in Sao Paulo state has worked for decades to improve efficiency in ethanol production with efforts ranging "from the genetic structure of sugar cane varieties to the industrial components of extraction. By the time oil prices began to rise steadily in the early years of this decade, ethanol producers had reduced production costs of a liter of ethanol from about 60 cents to about 20 cents."

"The ethanol extracted from corn yields only about 15 to 25 percent more fuel than the fossil fuels that were used to produce it. In Brazil, according to industry studies, the sugar-based ethanol yields about 830 percent more."

In 2003 Volkswagen introduced the first flex-fuel vehicle to the Brazilian market, and other companies -- including General Motors and Ford -- have followed suit. "Several major automakers predict that such vehicles will represent 100 percent of their production by the end of the year, eliminating gas-only models."

Many Brazilian and U.S. experts "agree that the future of ethanol resides neither in sugar nor corn, but in cellulosic ethanol, a biofuel that theoretically could be extracted from almost anything from switch grass to scrap paper. The United States is leading research into developing cellulosic technology, and the Energy Department this month announced it was dedicating $250 million for two new research centers dedicated to the cause."

I recall not too many years ago people making fun of Brazil for its emphasis on ethanol, and questioning the potential of ethanol production,but for many years I have felt that research and development of biomass coversion programs was a hight priority.