The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted sugarcane ethanol the status of "advanced biofuel" after recognizing -- based on scientific studies -- that it reduces the emission of greenhouse gases by 61% when compared to gasoline.
The world's top economy is justifiably concerned about climate change, which increasingly threatens the quality of life on our planet. We all know that without energy, there can be no development, but the production and use of energy and industrial activity are large carbon emitters. The greatest challenge of our times is precisely to try to reverse the current trend of environmental degradation without disrupting economic growth in its role of generating employment, particularly in developing countries where the most shameful pollution is poverty.
Brazil has much to say in this debate. In the 1970s, the response we gave to the sudden increase in oil prices, when the country imported about 80% of our fuel, came in the form of the Pro-Alcohol Program. With ups and downs, government, businesses and research centers engaged in developing a competitive fuel -- sugarcane ethanol -- which quickly proved to be the product with higher agricultural productivity, higher energy efficiency, and more opportunity for socially-inclusive development, as wages paid in the sugar-alcohol industry are the highest in farming.
At the same time, the adoption of flex-fuel technologies ignited the process that enabled Brazil not only to develop the world's cleanest energy matrix -- with a 46% share of renewable energy against a world average of 13% and just 6% in industrialized countries -- but also to prevent releasing carbon emissions to the tune of 850 million tons since the Pro-Alcohol program was enacted. It is worth stressing that Brazil is now the only country in the world where gasoline -- not ethanol -- is the alternative fuel.
Therefore, the recognition sugarcane ethanol received by the EPA is not a surprise for us, and filled us with satisfaction.
But some analysts in the United States and Europe support the thesis that the production of sugarcane, accelerated by the success of ethanol, was displacing the growth of other food crops. This growth, they argue, pushed cattle ranching into extractive areas that, in this indirect land use change (ILUC), caused areas of native vegetation to be deforested. Of course, in the case of Brazil, they refer to the Amazon. This is an essential element in the current debate on the sustainability of biofuels.
The EPA's announcement shows that Brazil is not the only one to say that -- despite the theoretical ILUC possibility -- sugarcane ethanol does reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and acclaim it as an invaluable ally in the fight against climate change.
On August 19, 2009, in a major milestone for the scientific debate on biofuels, a meeting was held in Brasilia under the Memorandum of Understanding to Advance Cooperation on Biofuels between Brazil and the USA. The event was attended by about 50 experts in biofuels from both countries, who discussed aspects of the new U.S. legislation. Assisted by relevant ministries and government agencies, the private sector, Brazil's Sugar Cane Industry Association (UNICA), and the academic community (including several universities and the Institute for International Trade Negotiations), it was clearly demonstrated that the new areas of sugarcane production in Brazil are located in areas that became underutilized due to the increased productivity in cattle ranching.
Last December, in a side event at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations organized a seminar to highlight the contribution of sugarcane ethanol to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in cooperation with the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Institute for Space Research and UNICA. In the opening ceremony, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stated the EPA's keen interest in the Brazilian case, which we interpreted later as an indication of the direction their studies were taking.
The EPA's announcement has opened up huge economic and commercial opportunities. The U.S. Congress has set a target for U.S. energy consumption to include 80 billion liters of "advanced biofuels" by 2022. Of these, 15 billion liters could come from sugarcane ethanol. Today, Brazil exports only 1.5 billion liters of this product to the United States.
Unlike oil, sugarcane is not pumped as needed. One has to prepare the land, plant the cane, harvest it and turn it into ethanol in a mill that takes three years to become operational. In spite of the recent financial crisis, which has affected investment, domestic and foreign entrepreneurs decided to bet on ethanol, even before the EPA's announcement, as illustrated by the many joint ventures and acquisitions that have occurred in Brazil over the last few months.
These developments all provide much to celebrate, especially since, from now on, Brazilian ethanol will be recognized as the most competitive and cleanest global fuel option. New global opportunities for sugarcane ethanol also reinforce a fundamental principle of Brazilian foreign policy: that of socially-inclusive development. How many shortcuts could we have taken in the past in our efforts to fight social inequality and poverty, if developed countries were willing to share the technological advances they had achieved? Now, Brazil is determined to share our expertise in sugarcane ethanol production technology, installation, regulatory frameworks, and project management with other developing countries. We believe that the resulting reduction in oil consumption, increased local production of raw materials, bioelectricity generation from bagasse, job generation in poor societies, and the possibility of additional income from the export of surplus production generated by sharing this knowledge all translate Brazil's diplomatic mission toward developing countries.
The announcement of this positive final position of the U.S. government on Brazilian ethanol is proof that the combination of serious scientific and entrepreneurial work and coordinated action from the government, private sector and scientific community is an unbeatable recipe. We succeeded through the unprecedented cooperation of institutions and private sector partners who worked toward the common goal of defending Brazilian interests abroad. This joint governmental and private sector effort was essential to generate awareness and understanding of the sustainability of ethanol produced and consumed in our country. In the three years since the Memorandum of Understanding was established, the close cooperation between Brazil and the United States has been able to generate positive results in order to materialize a shared vision by the two largest producers and consumers of biofuels in the world: the creation of an international market for ethanol and biodiesel.
Originally published in Portuguese by Valor Econômico on March 15, 2010
#5
I assumed that replies to reasons 1-4 would be negative, telling me why I'm wrong and ethanol is great.
So I left this one blank, for folks to post their own reasons for why ethanol is overrated.
#4 Solar PV panels are the cleanest global fuel option
Electric cars are the future, they won't burn any fuel.
You could burn ethanol to make electricity, but solar panels are more efficient.
(See reason #1 for details)
Per-mile, an electric car charged by solar panels is already cheaper to operate than an ethanol-powered car.
And solar panel prices are dropping by 20% annually.
An acre of solar panels generates far more power and far less carbon than an acre of biomass.
#3 Per gallon, ethanol has less potential energy than gasoline
Every young male pyromaniac knows that gasoline is a lot more explosive than alcohol. (That is, the living ones like me do. :-)
Internal combustion engines are powered by explosions, which is why they are so loud and inefficient. 70+% of the energy in fuel becomes wasted heat.
Ethanol has only two-thirds the power of gasoline
"Gallon for gallon, pure ethanol contains one-third less energy than gasoline, and the ethanol industry acknowledges that E10 reduces mileage by about 2 percent." (NY Times)
#2 Wood is the cleanest biofuel option
Aside from aviation, home and business heating are most untenable energy uses for electricity.
Unlike using it to power a car, burning fuel for heat is highly efficient, and electricity is expensive in comparison, evident to anyone with electric heat in a cold climate.
We will continue for the foreseeable future to heat our homes and businesses by burning carbon-based fuel.
But for that purpose, wood or wood chips are superior to ethanol in cost and carbon footprint.
And wood is sustainable. Old-time Vermonters estimate that a 7-acre managed woodlot provides enough wood to heat one home indefinitely. (That's in VT - if you haven't lived there, I can tell you, it's cold.)
In fact, rather than making ethanol, Brazil should manage the Amazon forest: take out the old trees, burn them to generate electricity, transmit it to Rio to charge electric cars. That would power cars more miles per acre of Amazon forest, in a more sustainable manner.
#1 Electricity, not ethanol, is cleanest global fuel option
The future of transportation is electricity, not any fuel.
The reason is simple: the internal combustion engine (ICE) horribly inefficient.
So inefficient that, instead of burning the fuel in you car, you get more mileage if you :
- burn the fuel and generate electricity
- transmitting the electricity, losing an average of 20%
- use it to charge a battery
- use that charge to power a car
(Incredible but true; see Wiki electric_car for details)
This is true of any fuel. ICEs are at most 25% efficient; it's an accepted law of physics.
Electric cars have their limitations, but note that the hybrid Chevy Volt will go 40 miles on a charge. The average car is driven 14,000 miles a year, which is less than 40 miles a day. Yes, all the miles you drive won't be on electricity, but half should be easy. And the pure-electric Nissan Leaf does 100 miles on a charge; that covers most commutes.
Rather than making ethanol, it is more efficient and environmentally-friendly to generate electricity from biomass to charge electric cars. You don't make ethanol, you burn the whole plant, sugarcane or corn.
Oil, ethanol and natural gas will supply two transportation nitches:
- long haul trucking, but rail will replace that, and future rail will all be electric
- air travel; electric airplanes are in the very distant future, if at all
I predicted years ago that cane ethanol would eventually dominate other sources because it quite simply produces more per acre by far than any other source, including cellulosic technologies.
The price of sugar is at record highs thanks in part to competition for it with ethanol. Bad harvests will have a similar impact on fuel prices as OPEC embargos if we become highly dependent on ethanol.
Sugar is a form of food. This competition for arable cropland between car fuel and food is the fatal flaw in trying to grow a replacement for fossil fuels. At some point, the expansion of cane fields will begin to exacerbate the destruction of rainforests and other carbons sinks like the Cerrado. They actually already do that but nobody can deny that "eventually," they will have to do that.
Brazil recently reduced the amount of ethanol in its gas because the price had gotten too high.
They guy is just hawking a product for profit and using global warning to do it. Destroying the biosphere in an effort to save it is as dumb as is sounds.
Yeah, sugar is kind of a food, but then again, so is ethanol. Both are metabolized for energy or converted to fat, and both are chronic poisons that should be consumed in moderation.
We produce WAY too much sucrose and glucose-fructose syrup, and it's making us sick. Although I prefer waste biofuels, to the extent that fermented ethanol fuel diverts carbohydrate production from the sweetener industry, it helps mitigate the frightening epidemic of metabolic syndrome that's sweeping the globe.
We should be focused on using our organic wastes to produce fuels.
That give us a triple benefit;
no waste dumped in the the environment,
no methane produced from decay,
fuels enough to run the world, and combined with solar and wind, energy enough to run the world.
see my profile for details and links.
Bright Neighbor is working on getting people in America to grow ethanol crops in what is otherwise unused lawns, and Still Energy Solutions provides the machine to make the crops into locally made fuel for vehicles.
Yee haw! The revolution is sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
And i bought the car for $3,500. And...I'm driving a very nice Mercedes.
Gasohol (from corn) offers no such benefit.
Note that the biggest roadblock is the ethenol industry, which already wastes ungodly amounts of resources as it. They still have other tools to block the import of Brazalian sugarcane ethanol.
We should be doing more anyway, battery technology is not happening fast enough and most people including myself want the choice of internal combustion or fuel cell/electric/battery power.
Ethanol production in California is tiny and availability even smaller...
Total b.s.
1. Since the freezing temperature of Ethanal is around minus 100 degrees just what part of Brazil did you live in? If you lived on the Dark side of the Moon I could see your gas freezing, but anybody who has ever put a bottle of Vodka in the freezer knows, alcohol doesn't freeze unless the temperature is at deadly temps.