By Inae Riveras - Reuters Summit
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Biofuels have the potential to lessen the impact of human civilization on the environment, but even the greenest of renewable fuels production is not without its dirty underbelly, experts said.
Although global warming is a growing concern among policy makers, the current trend to substitute fossil fuels with renewables is in part motivated by countries' efforts to reduce their dependence on oil from politically volatile regions.
Brazil's cane ethanol distillers, with three decades experience in nationwide production and distribution, have compiled data demonstrating the fuel's advantage over fossil counterparts in the reduction of greenhouse gasses.
Ethanol accounts for 40 percent of total fuels used by non-diesel powered vehicles in Brazil and represents a 30 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, the Cane Industry Association (Unica) said.
But not even the global stars of renewable fuels are free of critics who fear that increased ethanol use worldwide will hasten deforestation in the Amazon and other tropical rain forests in order to produce sugar cane.
"In 20 years, I doubt there will be a gasoline car on the Brazilian market. They will all be powered by ethanol," Unica President Eduardo Pereira Carvalho said during the Reuters Global Biofuel Summit.
Brazil began its ethanol program 30 years ago when it was importing nearly 90 percent of oil needed for domestic use.
During its growth to maturity, the cane stalk absorbs the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as is eventually emitted during combustion of the ethanol distilled from its juices.
But this is not so for ethanol made from corn in the United States or wheat in Europe. These primary materials must first be turned into sugars before fermentation, which requires the use extra fossil fuels and adds to carbon gasses emitted in the production process.
Brazilian cane mills are also powered by leftover cane stalks that heat caldrons to generate steam and electric energy, an extra advantage that corn and wheat don't have.
Unica estimates that Brazilian cane ethanol on average yields more than 8 times more energy than is used in the production process, compared with U.S. corn ethanol production that yields between 1.1 to 1.7 times as much energy.
This advantage should improve with the use of state-of-the-art technologies in Brazilian mills.
EUROPEAN TRADE RESTRICTIONS
The European Union, which just proposed the use of 10 percent biofuels for transport by 2020, signaled it will demand proof from suppliers that the product was made in a sustainable manner, a requirements that may rule out U.S. ethanol.
Environmentalists have already begun to warn that the expansion of biofuel use currently underway will represent increased use of land for planting, which could stimulate deforestation or the use of more reserve lands. Continued...
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