The Washington Post today compares the biofuel industry in the US and in Brazil. If on one side the American public opinion is in doubt about ethanol’s green credentials, the tecnology in Brazil has overcome all the obstacle and today produces a greener, cheap alternative to gasoline. The production of ethanol in the South American giant is the most efficient in the world and Brazilians consume more of it than gas.
According to a report released in June by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ethanol from sugar cane is the cleanest fuel in the world, with its production and consumption reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by up to 90 percent compared with gasoline. The process of transforming sugar cane into ethanol requires eight times less energy than corn.
Unlike corn, which accounts for the bulk of U.S. ethanol, sugar cane is also grown in areas where it is less likely to compete with grains such as wheat or other varieties of maize that are vital to global food supplies. Sugar-based ethanol’s negligible impact on world food supplies is one of the major reasons it has been embraced without controversy in Brazil, even as critics in the United States have assailed their domestic corn-based industry for driving up global grain prices.
Sugar ethanol is also more efficient. The cost of producing ethanol from corn is three times the cost of ethanol from sugar cane. An acre of sugar cane can also yield more than twice as much ethanol as an acre of corn.
Read the article in full here.
BIZ BRAZIL 