Biofuel Back and Forth

As you may recall, there have been quite a bit of discussion about biofuels on this here blog and in the wider world of real life. Several weeks ago, I recieved these two responses, both from the gentlemen who were previously mentioned in prior posts.

Christopher Calder had this to say:

Becky,

Addressing the poster on your site who likes Brazilian ethanol, it is a fact that Brazilians are burning down the "lungs of the world", the Amazon Basin rainforests, at an alarming rate to grow more biofuels.

the cited article from news.mongabay.com

Brazilian ethanol is currently a money maker for that nation, but it is not ecologically sustainable long term. Brazilian politicians are thinking short term profits, as do most people. Think of all the human food that could be grown on that land.

My latest essay on the issue is pasted below, and published to the web on Op-Ed News.
the cited article from www.opednews.com

Even Bill Clinton has spoken out against ethanol, even though Hillary supports ethanol to get the farm vote. I would like to hear their private conversations on the subject. This issue is exploding so fast that by election day all the candidates will have to publicly address the world food crisis and the role biofuels have played in creating it. Right now they are all using ostrich like tactics of ignoring the facts and pretending their biofuel bandwagon is not rapidly flying off a cliff.

Bill Clinton news story

Americans should not have to pay sky high food prices forever, and the cost of food will never come down until we stop the mindless biofuel bandwagon in its tracks.

Regards, Christopher Calder

The Brazilian ethanol enthusiast that Calder references is Adhemar Altieri, and he has this to say:

The basic problem with the vast majority of the criticism we see in the media now is that it's incomplete - either because people only know about efforts that are near them, or because there is the intent to confuse public opinion, and I would certainly not put that possibility aside because there are lots of interested parties out there who would like to see biofuels condemned as problems, not solutions. What is incomplete is the lack of consideration for biofuels that do work. In the US, we tend to see criticism of ethanol in broad strokes, as if all ethanols were created equal... when really, critics are thinking of corn-based ethanol, the only kind they've heard of. Similarly, in Europe, you have ethanol made from wheat and sugarbeets, and that is often the basis for criticism and sweeping condemnations. In both Europe and the US, you have heavy government subsidies backing the production of feedstocks for ethanol, and I can't really blame those who don't like heavy subsidies - they mean that, at least in their current state, these "ethanols" that need big subsidies could not survive if only market rules applied. Both Europe and the US also protect their inefficient ethanols by taxing imported biofuels. What is being omitted in the frenzy of ill-informed criticism is that there is a type of ethanol that is cost-efficient, energy-efficient, environment-friendly, mass produced, widely available, with a 33-year history behind it: sugarcane ethanol, produced and widely used in Brazil. Trouble starts when people go on tirades against ethanol from corn, wheat or beets, and automatically include ethanol from sugarcane, which is obviously wrong. When people are simply determined to make their criticism stick against all types of ethanol (even when these people KNOW FULL WELL that their criticism DOES NOT APPLY to Brazil's brand of ethanol), they resort to low blows, like saying that ethanol production in Brazil is destroying the Amazon. The Amazon is always a hot button, so if you tell people something is helping to destroy the rainforest, you have their immediate support. The vast majority of what you've been reading these days makes all of these mistakes. So here are some numbers, all of which are supported by widely recognized studies from global organizations, including the UN:

-Brazil is currently the second-largest ethanol producer in the world (the US is #1). It has produced ethanol on a commercial scale since 1975, when the first national fossil fuel replacement program was launched because of the first oil crisis (which these days doesn't seem like a crisis at all - at that time the price of a barrel "jumped" to something above $20);

-Brazil has been a major producer of sugarcane ethanol ever since, but things really picked up in 2003 with the introduction of flex-fuel cars - these are cars that can run on pure ethanol, pure gasoline or any mixture of the two. The engine is equipped with a system that automatically detects what the fuel mixture is, and adjusts the way the engine functions;

-Because Brazil has been into ethanol for so long, every one of the country's 33 thousand fueling stations has at least one dedicated 100% ethanol pump;

-You cannot buy pure gasoline in Brazil - all gasoline sold here has 25% ethanol. That's the type of commitment a country has to make if it wants this thing to work... a commitment that doesn't exist clearly and evenly in the US. So there, a person buys a flex car and then can't find E85 to fuel it up...

-Flex cars are such a success that they now account for close to 90% of all new cars sales in Brazil. Ten major automakers now offer 63 flex-fuel models (GM, Ford, Fiat, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, Renault, Peugeot and Citroen);

-In February of this year, the volume of ethanol sold in Brazil surpassed that of gasoline, which means gasoline is now the "alternative fuel" in Brazil - trends indicate the volume of ethanol is going to continue growing, while gasoline should remain steady;

-In June, a major event is being planned to celebrate the 5 millionth flex-fuel vehicle sold in Brazil in five years, plus the fact that ethanol is now outselling gasoline;

-Brazil has done this by using exactly 1 (one) percent of its arable land to produce sugarcane for ethanol. Please remember this the next time you read someplace that sugarcane fields are helping to destroy the Amazon rainforest. All sugarcane fields in Brazil cover 2.3% of the country's total arable land - the sugarcane not used for ethanol is used to produce sugar (Brazil is the world's #1 sugar exporter);

-To put sugarcane in perspective: Twice as much land in Brazil is dedicated to corn fields, three times as much land is used for soybeans, and thirty (that's 30) times more land is used for cattle farming; Please remember these numbers the next time you read extremely simplistic conclusions that "the expansion of sugarcane is pushing cattle and soybean production into the Amazon";

BOTTOM LINE - these are facts: Brazil currently replaces half its gasoline needs with ethanol, and uses 1% of its arable land to accomplish this.
Brazil's ethanol beats all other types of ethanol significantly and on key comparison fronts. For example:

-For every unit of fossil fuels burned to make ethanol from sugarcane, you get 9 units of clean renewable energy back (corn ethanol gives you 1.3 units, while sugarbeet and wheat give you 3 or 4 units);

-Considering the entire process, including harvesting sugarcane and producing ethanol from it (what they call a well-to-wheel analysis), sugarcane ethanol reeduces emissions of greenhouse gases by 90% (that's 90, ninety, nine oh) compared to gasoline - other types of ethanol simply don't come close;

-Ethanol from sugarcane is competitive WITHOUT SUBSIDIES with oil at $40 a barrel, and not much more needs to be explained about that, considering oil is up above $110;

If you're wondering why you haven't been given all this info, you should ask some of the doomsayers who keep damning ethanol... many of them simply don't know any of this and think ethanol is corn ethanol (or in Europe's case, sugarbeet ethanol or wheat ethanol). But unfortunately, many of these so-called "specialists" and "analysts" know full well what they're saying and doing. Their intention is not to inform the public, but to confuse and discredit everything related to biofuels, even if they have to take down positive experiences in the process.

Keep that in mind please, and ask lots of questions... there's a lot more going on than most people realize, including many who are being extremely quick to jump on a misguided bandwagon to condemn everything in sight. All ethanols are not created equal.

Take care, and thanks for the interest.

AA