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Sugar In The Tank
Brazil Paves Ethanol Future

By DAVID ADAMS
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SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - A group of U.S. Senators visited Brazil in August to take a look at the country's ethanol industry. "It was a real eye-opener. I was just amazed what we learned," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla).

What most impressed the delegation was the choice Brazilians have at the pump. Since the 1973 oil embargo, Brazil has battled to achieve energy independence, replacing gasoline with ethanol, an alcohol distilled from sugarcane.

Today, Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar and ethanol. Brazilian cars are also equipped with engines that can run on ethanol and gasoline, or any blend of the two. Known as "flex-fuel" cars, they have dazzled the market since their launch by Volkswagen in March 2003. Last month, they captured 66.7% of new car sales. All the major Brazilian car manufacturers now make them, including Ford Motor and General Motors.






In Brazil ethanol, or "alcool" as it is called, costs only $2 at the pump, compared to $4 for a gasoline-ethanol blend (Brazil no longer sells regular unblended gasoline). And while ethanol-powered cars consume 25% to 30% more fuel per mile than gasoline cars, the average motorist can save about $820 a year by switching to ethanol.

So why it hasn't been tried in the United States, where hybrid models and hydrogen fuel-cell technology receive the most attention? Surprisingly, flex-fuel technology has been around in the U.S. longer than Brazil. Most cars are already built to run on a 10% ethanol blend, known as E10, though few owners know it.

Some 4.5 million cars in the U.S., mostly SUVs, can handle up to 85% ethanol, or E85. But less than 150,000 were sold as alternative-fuel vehicles.

That may now be changing.

In September, Ford Motor announced it was stepping up its production of ethanol vehicles for the North American market. New models will include the F-150, Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car. "Ethanol is typically cheaper than regular gasoline, and we're going to do all that we can to support it," said President Bill Ford in a speech to employees in Dearborn, Mich. Ford has since begun a prime time TV advertising campaign for its ethanol vehicles, noting that it plans to produce 250,000 ethanol vehicles next year, way ahead of its plans to produce 250,000 hybrid cars by 2010. But major obstacles remain. Unlike Brazil, U.S. producers make ethanol from corn, which is a far less efficient source, yielding four times less energy than sugar. Ethanol prices in the U.S. are less competitive than in Brazil. U.S. producers are protected by a 54 cent per gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol.

Another big problem: the lack of a distribution infrastructure to bring ethanol to the pumps. Oil companies like ExxonMobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ), BP (nyse: BP - news - people ), Chevron (nyse: CVX - news - people ) and others have so far shown only modest interest in ethanol, which is currently blended into about 30% of U.S. fuel. Most of that is E10. Only about 600 out of the country's 176,000 stations offer E85. The U.S. currently produces about 3.8 billion gallons of ethanol, slightly less than Brazil. But U.S. ethanol production is rising dramatically, thanks to generous corn subsidies, (at least $4.5 billion according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and tax incentives for fuel distributors. There are currently 93 ethanol plants in the United States, with another 24 under construction. Production is expected to rise to 5 billion gallons by the end of next year.

That's still a drop in the bucket compared to what the U.S. would need to meet a radical market shift from regular gasoline use, estimated at around 140 billion gallons a year.

Even so, last year the use of ethanol reduced the U.S. trade deficit by $5.1 billion by eliminating the need to import 143 million barrels of oil, according the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers.

In recent years, major energy companies weren't interested, leaving the field wide open to smaller entrepreneurs. Ethanol became the salvation for Midwest corn growers struggling to make ends meet with a saturated market and slumping prices. Farmer-owned plants continue to account for about three-quarters of ethanol production. But Archer Daniels Midland Company (nyse: ADM - news - people ), the agribusiness giant, recently began to flex its muscles, announcing plans to expand its ethanol capacity to 500 million gallons through the construction of two new corn-milling plants. "Ethanol demand is growing rapidly as the world's energy requirements are being met increasingly from renewable sources such as corn," said Edward A Harjehausen, a senior vice president at ADM.

So far, U.S. sugar growers have not branched out into ethanol. Under the highly controlled U.S. sugar program, prices for raw sugar are far more advantageous. But that could change as Washington pushes its global free trade agenda. Sugarcane growers in Florida recently commissioned an ethanol study. Oil industry executives testifying at Senate hearings recently urged that the solution for U.S. energy needs lies in better "access" to new exploration and streamlining refinery permits. To be sure, experts agree that gasoline still has a major role in U.S. energy supply. But with demand and future prices of fossil fuels uncertain, the day of renewable energy may have arrived.
 
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[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ethanol[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] is a popular and environmentally friendly fuel which when used as a transportation product reduces the need for foreign oil and fossil fuel. Over two million miles have already been driven on an ethanol blend of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline (E10). E85 is the term used for motor fuel blends up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. E85 is considered an alternative fuel under federal and state laws.
[/FONT]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ford, GM, Chrysler, Mazda, Isuzu and Mercedes offer approximately 20 different models of cars and trucks capable of using any mix of gas and ethanol -up to 85% ethanol- without modification. These vehicles are available from most new car dealers for no additional cost. Nearly three million of these Dual Fuel or Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) are presently on the road. Approximately 240 US gas stations now offer E85 and more are added each month. For national locations see www.e85fuel.com[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]E85 has the highest oxygen content of any fuel currently available. The Argonne National lab has concluded use of corn-derived ethanol can reduce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by 14-19 percent when compared to gasoline. E85 is a higher performance fuel with an octane rating of 105-110. E85 users will notice a mileage and range reduction of 10%-30% because a gallon of ethanol contains only 70% as much energy as a gallon of gasoline. However, since a vehicle will perform better on ethanol than on gasoline, vehicles can be ethanol-optimized (capable of running only on ethanol) to achieve superior gas mileage as compared with gasoline.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ethanol is nontoxic, renewable and biodegradable, and can be made from almost any agricultural feedstock from which starch is derived, such as sugarcane, sorghum, wheat, cheese byproducts and wood waste, municipal solid waste, animal manure and sewage sludge. New Mexico has one ethanol production facility in Portales that produces 15 million gallons of ethanol per year from Milo (sorghum). According to the American Bioenergy Association, biomass used to produce ethanol could reduce our oil imports upwards of 50%!

Although the vast majority of ethanol is currently produced from corn or corn byproducts, ethanol can be made quite economically from cellulosic sources as well. Thus ethanol could be produced from forest thinnings that must be removed from the forests of the Southwest in order to prevent catastrophic fires.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]When combusted, ethanol is carbon neutral when made except for the use of fossil fuels used during its production. That is, the carbon released when ethanol is combusted is recaptured when new plants are grown to reproduce more ethanol. Combustion of fossil fuels, on the other hand, circumvents the natural carbon cycle by releasing carbon that has been locked away by nature without providing a way to reabsorb the newly released carbon. Thus, the use of carbon-neutral ethanol helps slow down global warming.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Comparison of Energy Yield from One Btu of Fossil Energy Used[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Fuel[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]*Energy Yield [/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Net Energy (loss) or gain[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Gasoline[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0.74[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](26 percent)[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Diesel[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0.83[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](17 percent)[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ethanol[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.34 [/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]34 percent (corn ethanol)[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Biodiesel[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]3.20[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]220 percent[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]* Yield in liquid fuel BTUs per Btu of fossil fuel energy dedicated[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service Report number 721​
[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]According to studies by Argonne National Laboratory, Use of cellulosic-produced E85 would achieve a 68-102% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a 70% reduction in petroleum use and a 70-79% reduction in fossil energy use.[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ethanol Emissions as Compared with Gasoline Emissions[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

(from EPA Fact Sheet EPA420-F-00-035)​
[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Emission[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]E10[/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]E85[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Carbon Monoxide (CO)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]25-30% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]40% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Carbon Dioxide (CO2)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]10% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]14% -102% reduction[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Nitrogen Oxides[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]5% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]10% reduction[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]7% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]30% or more reduction[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Some reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Up to 80% reduction[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Particulates[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Some reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]20% reduction[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Aldehydes[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]30-50% increase but negligible due to catalytic converter[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Insufficient data[/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Aromatics (Benzene and Butadiene)[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Some reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]More than 50% reduction[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Ethanol as Hydrogen Pathway[/FONT][/FONT]​
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]


Ethanol as a liquid fuel, is well suited to power the new generation of hydrogen fuel cell cars. Hydrogen can be reformed from ethanol onboard the vehicle, and existing ethanol distribution facilities can serve to provide hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Studies show that production of cellulosic ethanol can result in a net carbon reduction of up to 200%, vastly greater than any other form of hydrogen generation. Thus, ethanol is an ideal candidate to provide the foundation for the coming hydrogen economy.​
[/FONT]
[/FONT]


 
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China gets energized over ethanol
By Matt Young

SAO PAULO - Even knowing that Brazil heavily uses ethanol in transportation doesn't prepare one for the startling sight of roadside vendors selling beer to motorists during a recent rush hour traffic jam in Sao Paulo.

But the fact remains that many of the cerveja-swilling drivers had more ethanol in their tanks than in their bellies. The highway was full of vehicles required by the Brazilian government to operate on at least 20% ethanol, causing less pollution and likely less economic instability than their gasoline-fueled counterparts. Many cars were "flex-fuel" vehicles, which can be filled with either gasoline or ethanol at any one of 29,000 Brazilian fueling stations (flex-fuel engines are designed to run on arbitrary combinations of


gasoline and ethanol, provided at least 20% ethanol is present).

Now China appears to want a trade deal that would allow it to sample - and perhaps help ultimately reproduce - Brazil's success
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with alcool, as ethanol is called in Portuguese. With an economy booming at a 10% growth rate, transforming the world's most populated country from a nation of peasants into one of middle-class consumers, China's dependency on oil and gasoline is growing untenable.

With the price of oil hovering at record levels, China is looking seriously at alternative fuel sources, and Brazil's experience with ethanol is attracting serious notice in Beijing.

"I just came back from Brazil last Friday," said Dehua Liu, one of China's foremost experts on ethanol, who was appointed by the National Development and Reform Commission to investigate its potential viability as a fuel source. "I guided some people from the Ministry of Science and Technology. In July, another team including ... China ethanol producers and central government [officials] want to visit Brazil again.

"I think in the coming trip, we will travel to Brazil and maybe talk about the possibility [of buying] some ethanol from Brazil for China," said Liu, adding that it would probably be a modest amount to start with.

Until now, China's relationship with fuel-grade ethanol, particularly Brazilian ethanol, hasn't developed beyond flirtation. While China has been aware of the ethanol alternative for some time - experimentation with ethanol was under way in nine provinces by the end of last year - the country has had virtually no relationship with Brazil's ethanol industry, which has developed into an empire over the past 30 years. That has begun to change as Chinese and Brazilian ethanol experts appear to be on their way to a committed trade relationship.

"Many Chinese companies and also the central and local governments are very interested in the Brazilian experience to use ethanol and produce ethanol," said Liu, a professor in the department of chemical engineering at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Only a couple of months earlier, Alfred Szwarc, a consultant for Unica, which represents Sao Paulo's enormous sugar-cane and alcohol industries and fights to open foreign markets to them, had been concerned that China was ignoring Brazil's offers to establish trade in fuel-grade ethanol.

"I think they were more interested in developing their domestic industry than importing [refined ethanol] from Brazil," said Szwarc, one of his country's foremost authorities on the bio-fuel. "We said, okay, we don't want to compete with your farmers or ethanol companies; however, we would like to be considered preferential partners. We had people going there and people coming here just on exploratory missions ... but as far as I know we didn't make much progress in practical terms."

Actually, Liu said, the more tepid response was coming from the Brazilians. He said he tried to make trade headway by contacting Brazilian ethanol trade officials last year on behalf of Henan Tianguan Group, one of the biggest Chinese producers of the bio-fuel. He said he got nowhere.

"They were waiting for a [price] quotation," Liu said. "Then I didn't get any response."

But whichever country was ignoring the other in the past, it appears now that the two are set for a collision course resulting in a real ethanol deal. "Whenever it's needed, Brazil could become a preferential supplier of ethanol to China if China needs to import," Szwarc said.
 
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Emulating Brazil's ethanol success
Indeed, China will need to import ethanol - at least initially - if it plans on fueling its automotive needs with anything other than a trickle of the bio-fuel. From 2000-05, courtesy of about a dozen plants, China developed a million tons per year of ethanol production capacity, which it plans to double by 2010, Liu said. But China's gasoline consumption already is in the tens of millions of tons annually.

Liu estimated that by 2020, power generation by renewable energy will make up 10% of the total, with biomass fuels such as ethanol being only a portion of that.

"This is why China's government and many ethanol producers are interested in the Brazilian experience," Liu said.

And the Laotian experience. Already, Henan Tianguan Group has entered into a contract with the government of Laos to lease 15 square kilometers of land for the production of cassava-based ethanol, Liu said.

Ultimately, however, if China were to emulate Brazil's ethanol success liter-for-liter, it would have to develop self-sufficiency, which takes dedicated farming space.

"My city is a big producer of cana," or sugar cane, said Felipe Fischer, a 23-year-old Brazilian university student from Minas Gerais. "You need to have this space. It's not like oil where you drill the ground and the oil comes up. You need to plant, so you need enormous [land] areas. But China is a big country ..."

And it's a big country with a variety of crops other than sugar cane, several of which, including corn, cassava and rice, can be used to produce ethanol. In fact, 80% of China's current ethanol production is derived from these three crops, Liu said.

While China has some logistical advantages in producing ethanol - and other drawbacks (such as needing to feed the world's most populated sovereign state, first and foremost) - the country could be ripe to become another world bio-fuel leader, based on historical similarities between the two nations.

In 1975, Brazil imported about 85% of its oil needs and was hurt badly by that decade's oil shocks. At that time, a strong centralized military government was in power, and acted decisively to help develop the technology for vehicles to run on 100% ethanol or gasoline-ethanol blends.

"China has a central government that defines policies in a similar way [to what] we had back in 1975 in Brazil," Szwarc said. "It centralized decisions in terms of energy. China already has started an ethanol program and is benefiting from it. The situation is not exactly like Brazil, but to some extent I think [Brazil's experience] could be replicated in China."

The saying "be careful what you wish for" may apply here. With oil prices remaining sky-high, China's leadership may well decide to grow its own ethanol supply or just import the alternative fuel extensively. And while Brazil's ethanol experience has largely been a pleasant one, surprisingly, that isn't particularly the case at the moment.

"Today, the price of alcool is higher than when the flex system started," said Renato Astur, a salesman with Caoa Ford, a car dealership in Sao Paulo. "Now, the people who buy [flex-fuel cars] don't see a big advantage."

Partly, this is because ethanol has a lower energy content per liter than gasoline does. Drivers can travel about 10 kilometers per liter of gasoline in Brazil, compared with only 7 per liter of ethanol, Astur said. So the price of alcool has to be 70% of the price of gasoline, or less, for consumers to see a financial advantage; of late, it has been greater than this.

And while for the most part the environmental benefits of ethanol are clear, including the fact that it is a minimally toxic fuel, improves air quality where it is widely used, and biodegrades rapidly, Fischer notes that large-scale ethanol production can harm soil because of the need to plant the same crops again and again, depleting ground nutrients.

Fischer acknowledged, though, that ultimately people aren't motivated by the environment to invest in ethanol. It's money that makes the world's wheels go around, and convenience.

Astur said: "If tomorrow we don't have gas, we can put in alcohol. If we don't have alcohol, we can put in gas." For a man who struggled to speak English, Astur flawlessly described why Brazil's success with ethanol has become the envy of nations worldwide. China's envy, at least, is now morphing into action.
 
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Ethanol, is far less efficient than petrol/diesel. I don't think that it can be used on a mass scale.
It does have a few advantages, it can be manufactured industrially, for one.
 
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Ethanol also depletes worlds limited freshwater supplies. (Sugarcane is water-intensive crop) it also leads to the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of pristine Amazonian Forest for Sugar cane growth.

A lot of reduction in Green house gases can come about by the U.S. simply signing the Kyoto Protocol and imposing higher tax on Gasoline. (U.S. is the worlds largest producer of Green house gases by far)

Unfortunately this is politically unfeasible and what we have left is diversionary debates created by U.S. politicians to make themselves appear to be useful.
 
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