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Brazil Aims to Dominate Ethanol Market |
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By Mario Osava*
Brazilian
ethanol is more efficient and environmentally friendly than U.S.
ethanol, and turning it into a global substitute for gasoline is
within reach. But it's not all roses.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 26 (Tierramérica) - Brazil
aims to produce enough ethanol to substitute 10 percent of the gasoline
consumed worldwide within 18 years. That would mean increasing its
current production of 17,300 million liters 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 liters 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
liters 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 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 alcohol,
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 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
added.
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 liters) did not prevent the northern giant from
importing 1.6 billion liters of Brazilian fuel alcohol last year,
when increased demand drove up maize prices.
In addition to destabilizing 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 the
first place.
In Brazil, alcohol 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 liter of ethanol requires
30 liters of water," criticizes Temístocles Marcelos, environmental
policy director at the labor union CUT. In the southern city of
Ribeirao Preto, capital of sugar and alcohol, 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 authorize
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.
Labor 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.
* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent. |
