ETHANOL: HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.

(AS SEEN ON TV)
We Were Warned Tomorrow's Oil Crisis What if a hurricane wiped out Houston, Texas, and terrorists attacked oil production in Saudi Arabia? CNN Presents looks at a hypothetical scenario about the vulnerability of the world's oil supply, the world's remaining sources of oil and explores the potential of alternative fuels.
***
I guess America is so involved in fighting terrorism that forgets to prepare herself for a fuel crisis, something Brazil has done. In that sense we may be the first casualty of her size and stupidity, not much different from the dinosaurs...
HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.
Near the prosperous farm town of Sertãozinho, some 200 miles north of São Paulo, the fuel that will fill the tanks of nearly three million Brazilian cars in a few months is still waist-high. Lush sugar-cane fields stretch as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the towering white mills where the stalks of the plants will be turned into ethanol when the harvest begins in March.
Brazil boasts the biggest economy south of Mexico, and with annual GDP growth of 2.6%, it is a powerhouse you might expect to consume growing amounts of oil, coal, and nuclear energy. But Brazil also happens to have the perfect geography for growing sugar cane, the most energy-rich ethanol feedstock known to science. And so, for Brazil's 16.5 million drivers, there is ready access to what's known in Portuguese as álcool at nearly all of the country's 34,000 gas stations. "Everyone talks about alternative fuels, but we're doing it," says Barry Engle, president of Ford Brazil. Ethanol accounts for more than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.
While oil frequently has to be shipped halfway around the world before it's refined into gasoline, here the sugar cane grows right up to the gates of Sertãozinho's Santa Elisa mill, where it will be made into ethanol. There's very little waste--leftovers are burned to produce electricity for Santa Elisa and the local electrical grid. "The maximum distance from farm to mill is about 25 miles," says Fernando Ribeiro, secretary general of Unica, the trade association that represents Brazilian sugar-cane growers. "It's very, very efficient in terms of energy use."
Although Brazilians have driven some cars that run exclusively on ethanol since 1979, the introduction three years ago of new engines that let drivers switch between ethanol and gasoline has transformed what was once an economic niche into the planet's leading example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the first prototype of what came to be known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; soon VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps avoid problems that had plagued ethanol cars, such as balky starts on cold mornings, weak pickup, and corrosion.
Consumers loved flex-fuel because it meant not having to choose between ethanol and gas models--memories were still fresh of the 1990 sugar-cane shortage, when ethanol-car owners found themselves, well, out of gas. Today "nobody would buy an alcohol-only car, even with tax incentives," says sales manager Rogerio Beraldo of Green Automoveis, a sprawling dealership in São Paulo. "Brazilians are traumatized by our earlier experience, when supplies ran out. But with flex-fuel, there's no risk of that."
With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle.
Ethanol's rise has had far-reaching effects on the economy. Not only does Brazil no longer have to import oil but an estimated $69 billion that would have gone to the Middle East or elsewhere has stayed in the country and is revitalizing once-depressed rural areas. More than 250 mills have sprouted in southeastern Brazil, and another 50 are under construction, at a cost of about $100 million each. Driving to lunch at his local churrasco barbecue spot in Sertãozinho, the head of the local sugar-cane growers' association points to one new business after another, from farm-equipment sellers to builders of boilers and other gear for the nearby mills. "My family has been in this business for 30 years, and this is the best it's been," says Manoel Carlos Ortolan. "There's even nouveaux riches."
The key to Brazil's success is that consumers are choosing ethanol rather than being forced to buy it. Brazil's military dictators tried the latter approach in the 1970s and early 1980s, by offering tax breaks to build mills, ordering state-owned oil company Petrobras to sell ethanol at gas stations, and regulating prices at the pump. This bullying--and cheap oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the market for ethanol until flex-fuel came along. The regime wasn't good for much, says consultant Plinio Nastari, but it did create the distribution system that enables drivers to fill up on ethanol just about anywhere.
Even though the U.S. will never be a sugar-cane powerhouse like Brazil, investors now view Rio as the future of fuel. "I hate to see the U.S. ten years behind Brazil, but that's probably about where we are," says one shrewd American freethinker, Ted Turner.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/06/8367959/index.htm
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote

When most of the FFVs in this country are built of offset less fuel efficient vehicles in their lineup, you can see that we are not taking this seriously. Chrysler minivans have been FV since 1999 to offset the production of the Durango. But few can get E85 alternate fuel. When there are 185,000 gas stations in the US and less than 500 of them have E85 pumps, and most of those are in the midwest, then you can see that we are not taking alternative transportation fuels seriously.
"donquijote1954" wrote in message (AS SEEN ON TV)
We Were Warned Tomorrow's Oil Crisis What if a hurricane wiped out Houston, Texas, and terrorists attacked oil production in Saudi Arabia? CNN Presents looks at a hypothetical scenario about the vulnerability of the world's oil supply, the world's remaining sources of oil and explores the potential of alternative fuels.
***
I guess America is so involved in fighting terrorism that forgets to prepare herself for a fuel crisis, something Brazil has done. In that sense we may be the first casualty of her size and stupidity, not much different from the dinosaurs...
HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.
Near the prosperous farm town of Sertãozinho, some 200 miles north of São Paulo, the fuel that will fill the tanks of nearly three million Brazilian cars in a few months is still waist-high. Lush sugar-cane fields stretch as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the towering white mills where the stalks of the plants will be turned into ethanol when the harvest begins in March.
Brazil boasts the biggest economy south of Mexico, and with annual GDP growth of 2.6%, it is a powerhouse you might expect to consume growing amounts of oil, coal, and nuclear energy. But Brazil also happens to have the perfect geography for growing sugar cane, the most energy-rich ethanol feedstock known to science. And so, for Brazil's 16.5 million drivers, there is ready access to what's known in Portuguese as álcool at nearly all of the country's 34,000 gas stations. "Everyone talks about alternative fuels, but we're doing it," says Barry Engle, president of Ford Brazil. Ethanol accounts for more than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.
While oil frequently has to be shipped halfway around the world before it's refined into gasoline, here the sugar cane grows right up to the gates of Sertãozinho's Santa Elisa mill, where it will be made into ethanol. There's very little waste--leftovers are burned to produce electricity for Santa Elisa and the local electrical grid. "The maximum distance from farm to mill is about 25 miles," says Fernando Ribeiro, secretary general of Unica, the trade association that represents Brazilian sugar-cane growers. "It's very, very efficient in terms of energy use."
Although Brazilians have driven some cars that run exclusively on ethanol since 1979, the introduction three years ago of new engines that let drivers switch between ethanol and gasoline has transformed what was once an economic niche into the planet's leading example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the first prototype of what came to be known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; soon VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps avoid problems that had plagued ethanol cars, such as balky starts on cold mornings, weak pickup, and corrosion.
Consumers loved flex-fuel because it meant not having to choose between ethanol and gas models--memories were still fresh of the 1990 sugar-cane shortage, when ethanol-car owners found themselves, well, out of gas. Today "nobody would buy an alcohol-only car, even with tax incentives," says sales manager Rogerio Beraldo of Green Automoveis, a sprawling dealership in São Paulo. "Brazilians are traumatized by our earlier experience, when supplies ran out. But with flex-fuel, there's no risk of that."
With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle.
Ethanol's rise has had far-reaching effects on the economy. Not only does Brazil no longer have to import oil but an estimated $69 billion that would have gone to the Middle East or elsewhere has stayed in the country and is revitalizing once-depressed rural areas. More than 250 mills have sprouted in southeastern Brazil, and another 50 are under construction, at a cost of about $100 million each. Driving to lunch at his local churrasco barbecue spot in Sertãozinho, the head of the local sugar-cane growers' association points to one new business after another, from farm-equipment sellers to builders of boilers and other gear for the nearby mills. "My family has been in this business for 30 years, and this is the best it's been," says Manoel Carlos Ortolan. "There's even nouveaux riches."
The key to Brazil's success is that consumers are choosing ethanol rather than being forced to buy it. Brazil's military dictators tried the latter approach in the 1970s and early 1980s, by offering tax breaks to build mills, ordering state-owned oil company Petrobras to sell ethanol at gas stations, and regulating prices at the pump. This bullying--and cheap oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the market for ethanol until flex-fuel came along. The regime wasn't good for much, says consultant Plinio Nastari, but it did create the distribution system that enables drivers to fill up on ethanol just about anywhere.
Even though the U.S. will never be a sugar-cane powerhouse like Brazil, investors now view Rio as the future of fuel. "I hate to see the U.S. ten years behind Brazil, but that's probably about where we are," says one shrewd American freethinker, Ted Turner.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/06/8367959/index.htm
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote

North America can be self sufficient in Fossil fuels if we just practice sensible conservation measures.

Interesting, but Mr.Bill Gates is buying alcohol plants in Brazil. Just buyed one in Navira�, Mato Grosso. And is looking for others.
escreveu na mensagem

North America can be self sufficient in Fossil fuels if we just practice sensible conservation measures.

sugna41@hotmail.com wrote:

North America can be self sufficient in Fossil fuels if we just practice sensible conservation measures.

Sure, but it requires a minimum of POLITICAL WILL, which is totally absent in the political landscape...
But who will put the dinosaur on a diet without risking his/her political survival?
"The biggest hole in our policy today is fuel taxation," he adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.
"Consumers want muscle cars, manufacturers say they make what the consumer wants, and the government panders to both constituencies," Mr. Schipper continues. "It's a vicious cycle."
It's like who will put the bell on the cat.
Gas prices too high? Try Europe.
$7 a gallon? That's what drivers in Amsterdam pay. But Europeans have long adapted to high prices.
PARIS - When Guy Colombier pulls his economy car up to a Paris pump, he allows himself just 15 Euros ($18) worth of gas - barely enough for three gallons. Since prices started rising rapidly earlier this year, says Mr. Colombier, a printing press worker, "I drive a lot more slowly .... and I'm looking for a place to live closer to where I work."
Colombier's pain is shared by drivers all over Europe, where fuel prices are the highest in the world: a gallon of gas in Amsterdam now costs $7.13, compared with just $2.61 in America. The contrast in prices and environmental policies - and the dramatically different behaviors they inspire - signals a widening transatlantic energy gap. And it raises the question: Does Europe offer America a glimpse of its future?
Indeed, while Europeans have learned to cope with expensive fuel (mostly due to taxes), there's scant evidence yet that US drivers are adopting their conservation tactics.
"Societies adjust over decades to higher fuel prices," says Jos Dings, head of Transport and Energy, a coalition of European environmental NGOs. "They find many mechanisms."
Chief among them, say experts, is the habit of driving smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. While the average light duty vehicle on US highways gets 21.6 miles per gallon (m.p.g.), according to a study by the Paris based International Energy Agency (IEA), in Paris, its European counterpart manages 32.1 m.p.g.
"European consumers are very sensitive to fuel economy and sophisticated about engine options," says Lew Fulton, a transport analyst with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). "European car magazines are full of comparisons of fuel costs over the life of a vehicle."
Europe's cars: 40 percent are diesel
That approach has given a special boost to diesel cars, which make up more than 40 percent of European car sales, compared with just 4 percent in the US.
Just ahead of Colombier in the line at the gas station Thursday was Nicole Marie, a high school teacher, who was using her husband's diesel Audi, rather than her own gasoline-powered car, to take her daughter to Normandy for a final week of vacation by the sea.
"I only use my car in town," she says. "We bought a diesel car deliberately because it is cheaper to run."
That is partly because the French government encourages the use of more- efficient diesel fuel by taxing it less heavily. Only in four European countries is diesel more expensive than gasoline, the way it is in America.
But efficiency alone does not explain the huge disparity between fuel-use figures on either side of the Atlantic: European per capita consumption of gas and diesel stood at 286 liters a year in 2001, compared to 1,624 in the US, according to IEA figures.
The nature of cities plays a role, too. "America has built its entire society around the car, which enabled suburbs," points out Mr. Dings. "European cities have denser centers where cars are often not practical."
In Paris, for example, about half the trips people make are by foot, by bicycle, or on public transport, says UNEP's Mr. Fulton. In America, that figure is more like 20 percent.
Impact of fuel tax
"The single most effective measure" that has brought down motorists' fuel use in Europe, however, is taxation, says Dings.
On average, 60 percent of the price European drivers pay at the pump goes to their governments in taxes.
In Britain, the government takes 75 percent, and raises taxes by 5 percent above inflation every year (though it has forgone this year's rise in view of rocketing oil prices, and the French government has promised tax rebates this year to taxi drivers, truckers, fishermen, and others who depend heavily on gasoline.) On August 8, for example, the price of gas in the US, without taxes, would be $2.17, instead of $2.56; in Britain, it would be $1.97, instead of $6.06.
"There is really good evidence that higher prices reduce traffic," says Stephen Glaister, a professor of transportation at London's Imperial College. "If fuel prices go up 10 percent ... fuel consumed goes down by about 7 percent, as people start to use fuel more efficiently, not accelerating so aggressively and switching to more fuel-efficient cars. It does change people's behavior."
The US authorities, however, "are unwilling to use resource price as part of their strategy" to conserve oil, says Lee Schipper, head of transportation research at the Washington-based World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank.
"The biggest hole in our policy today is fuel taxation," he adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.
"Consumers want muscle cars, manufacturers say they make what the consumer wants, and the government panders to both constituencies," Mr. Schipper continues. "It's a vicious cycle."
more...
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p01s03-woeu.html

donquijote1954 quoted someone (Christian Science Monitor) saying:

"The biggest hole in our [US] policy today is fuel taxation," he [Lee Schipper] adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.

Dangerous and stupid talk! Look at this from the point of view of an oil exporting country -- and all the beautiful people agree that the bargaining position of the oil exporters is getting progressively stronger. They sell crude oil for about $1.50 per US gallon. Shipped to Britain and refined, that yields gasoline costing $1.97/gal (per the article). The poor Brit consumer actually pays $6.06 for that gallon of gas.
To review, the OPEC government pays for all the costs of exploration, drilling, and production --- and gets $1.50 for its trouble. Brit Gov does almost nothing and gets $4.09 for allowing its drones (sorry, citizens) the privilege of buying vehicle fuel. The OPEC government's conclusion is obvious -- the price of oil needs to be a lot higher, so that the OPEC government gets a big piece of the $4.09 that BritGov is pocketing.
So why has that not happened yet? There are a number of theories, but one of them is the complication of the presence in the global market of low fuel tax regimes like the US. If the US ever decides to follow in the Euro footsteps and stick high taxes on motor fuels, that market complication will be removed, and OPEC governments will use their bargaining power to reclaim the taxes being seized by greedy EUnuchs.
Now, the true 17th Century Greenie should not care whether the price of motor fuel is high because of high oil prices or high taxes -- environmental impact is much the same. But the Watermelon Greenies will be concerned, because they really want those high taxes so they can control other people's lives.

"LongmuirG" wrote in message

To review, the OPEC government pays for all the costs of exploration, drilling, and production --- and gets $1.50 for its trouble. Brit Gov does almost nothing and gets $4.09 for allowing its drones (sorry, citizens) the privilege of buying vehicle fuel. The OPEC government's conclusion is obvious -- the price of oil needs to be a lot higher, so that the OPEC government gets a big piece of the $4.09 that BritGov is pocketing.
So why has that not happened yet? There are a number of theories, but one of them is the complication of the presence in the global market of low fuel tax regimes like the US. If the US ever decides to follow in the Euro footsteps and stick high taxes on motor fuels, that market complication will be removed, and OPEC governments will use their bargaining power to reclaim the taxes being seized by greedy EUnuchs.

To work, all the OPEC members would need to toe the line voluntarily and/or there'd need to be a way to penalize ones that didn't. Experience shows there's little danger of that.
Even today, members violate production quotas when prices rise even marginally since they can't bear to turn down the enormous profits from doing so. If prices rise significantly, it will be because OPEC can't produce enough oil to meet the elastic demand or doing so simply costs a lot more than it does now. They're not cohesive enough to act together for any extended period of time.
They also understand that if oil prices rise too fast, it will cause buyers to switch to other fuel sources, and once that happens they're unlikely to switch back to oil. Nobody wants to kill the goose happily laying golden eggs. The strategy, then, is to raise them slowly and consistently enough that nobody is shocked into switching, even if at some point it would be economically beneficial to do so. I think the analogy is boiling a frog -- do it slowly enough and they won't notice.
S
-- Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin
*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com *** *** Encrypt your Internet usage with a free VPN account from http://www.SecureIX.com ***

"LongmuirG" wrote in message

donquijote1954 quoted someone (Christian Science Monitor) saying: "The biggest hole in our [US] policy today is fuel taxation," he [Lee Schipper] adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.

The problem is that the U.S. does NOT pay the actual price of the fuel, due to tax SUBSIDIES, not taxes on the gas.
http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm "The true price of gasoline is as high as $15.14 a gallon, according to a new report released by the International Centre for Technology Assessment. "
Actually, other, even mor authoritative reports puts it at about $19/gallon, so MOST of what you pump into your gas hog is taxes that someone ELSE paid for.
To remove enough subsidies to push the price to $6/gallon would be the FIRST step in the right direction.

"NobodyYouKnow" wrote in message

"LongmuirG" wrote in message donquijote1954 quoted someone (Christian Science Monitor) saying: "The biggest hole in our [US] policy today is fuel taxation," he [Lee Schipper] adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.
The problem is that the U.S. does NOT pay the actual price of the fuel, due to tax SUBSIDIES, not taxes on the gas.
http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm "The true price of gasoline is as high as $15.14 a gallon, according to a new report released by the International Centre for Technology Assessment. "
Actually, other, even mor authoritative reports puts it at about $19/gallon, so MOST of what you pump into your gas hog is taxes that someone ELSE paid for.
To remove enough subsidies to push the price to $6/gallon would be the FIRST step in the right direction.

Yup. Great report! Now there is a social cost added to driving. All that "free parking" that we don't pay for. All those parking spaces in the cities that are unproductive. And, yes, the cost of guarding our national reserves. You liberals are just too funny! Just when I think you coudn't come up with something new, WHAMMO. You spit out this crap. At least your not dull.
Oh, by the way, the author is a scientist and a stink... thinker!
Clifford

Stephen Sprunk wistfully wrote:

To work, all the OPEC members would need to toe the line voluntarily and/or there'd need to be a way to penalize ones that didn't. Experience shows there's little danger of that.

Analysis of past oil markets shows that most OPEC members have been pumping all the oil they could all the time -- they could not produce much more if they wanted to. Market discipline has come almost entirely from Saudi Arabia, with some help from Kuwait. For most of the past 30 years "experience", the Saudis had surplus installed production capacity -- they were producing over10 Million Bbl/d in the early 1970s; that dropped all the way back to less than 4 Million Bbl/d in the 1980s; and is only now getting back to the 1970s level. Bottom line, past "experience" may not be a good guide to future behavior.
There is discussion already in Middle East publications that it does not make sense for Gulf countries to invest too much in additional oil production capacity -- they have so many other social needs for the money, due to their rapidly growing population. Why invest money in surplus oil production capacity just to hold the price down?
What EUtopia has demonstrated to the Gulf oil producers is that the end-use consumer is already paying a very high price for oil-derived vehicle fuels, without triggering meaningful competition from new fuels. The only problem is that much of that economic rent on oil is going to greedy EUnuch governments, not to the deserving Gulf oil producers (as they see it). Don't assume that OPEC producers have not noticed, or don't care; don't assume that the future will be the same as the past.

NobodyYouKnow wrote:

"LongmuirG" wrote in message donquijote1954 quoted someone (Christian Science Monitor) saying: "The biggest hole in our [US] policy today is fuel taxation," he [Lee Schipper] adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.
The problem is that the U.S. does NOT pay the actual price of the fuel, due to tax SUBSIDIES, not taxes on the gas.
http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm "The true price of gasoline is as high as $15.14 a gallon, according to a new report released by the International Centre for Technology Assessment. "
Actually, other, even mor authoritative reports ...

They could hardly be less so.
Seen any speeders on the highway lately?
--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan Boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet http://tinyurl.com/4xt8g

"Clifford" wrote in message

"NobodyYouKnow" wrote in message
"LongmuirG" wrote in message donquijote1954 quoted someone (Christian Science Monitor) saying: "The biggest hole in our [US] policy today is fuel taxation," he [Lee Schipper] adds. "Tax increases are something Americans should do but don't know how to do, and I wonder if they will ever be able to.
The problem is that the U.S. does NOT pay the actual price of the fuel, due to tax SUBSIDIES, not taxes on the gas.
http://www.progress.org/gasoline.htm "The true price of gasoline is as high as $15.14 a gallon, according to a new report released by the International Centre for Technology Assessment. "
Actually, other, even mor authoritative reports puts it at about $19/gallon, so MOST of what you pump into your gas hog is taxes that someone ELSE paid for.
To remove enough subsidies to push the price to $6/gallon would be the FIRST step in the right direction.

Yup. Great report! Now there is a social cost added to driving. All that "free parking" that we don't pay for. All those parking spaces in the cities that are unproductive. And, yes, the cost of guarding our national reserves. You liberals are just too funny! Just when I think you coudn't come up with something new, WHAMMO. You spit out this crap. At least your not dull.

You could add the $250B for 3 years in Iraq to the cost of oil.

Oh, by the way, the author is a scientist and a stink... thinker!
Clifford

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/energy/article/0,2777,DRMN_23914_4551690,00.html
donquijote1954 wrote:

(AS SEEN ON TV)
We Were Warned Tomorrow's Oil Crisis What if a hurricane wiped out Houston, Texas, and terrorists attacked oil production in Saudi Arabia? CNN Presents looks at a hypothetical scenario about the vulnerability of the world's oil supply, the world's remaining sources of oil and explores the potential of alternative fuels.
***
I guess America is so involved in fighting terrorism that forgets to prepare herself for a fuel crisis, something Brazil has done. In that sense we may be the first casualty of her size and stupidity, not much different from the dinosaurs...
HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.
Near the prosperous farm town of Sertãozinho, some 200 miles north of São Paulo, the fuel that will fill the tanks of nearly three million Brazilian cars in a few months is still waist-high. Lush sugar-cane fields stretch as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the towering white mills where the stalks of the plants will be turned into ethanol when the harvest begins in March.
Brazil boasts the biggest economy south of Mexico, and with annual GDP growth of 2.6%, it is a powerhouse you might expect to consume growing amounts of oil, coal, and nuclear energy. But Brazil also happens to have the perfect geography for growing sugar cane, the most energy-rich ethanol feedstock known to science. And so, for Brazil's 16.5 million drivers, there is ready access to what's known in Portuguese as álcool at nearly all of the country's 34,000 gas stations. "Everyone talks about alternative fuels, but we're doing it," says Barry Engle, president of Ford Brazil. Ethanol accounts for more than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.
While oil frequently has to be shipped halfway around the world before it's refined into gasoline, here the sugar cane grows right up to the gates of Sertãozinho's Santa Elisa mill, where it will be made into ethanol. There's very little waste--leftovers are burned to produce electricity for Santa Elisa and the local electrical grid. "The maximum distance from farm to mill is about 25 miles," says Fernando Ribeiro, secretary general of Unica, the trade association that represents Brazilian sugar-cane growers. "It's very, very efficient in terms of energy use."
Although Brazilians have driven some cars that run exclusively on ethanol since 1979, the introduction three years ago of new engines that let drivers switch between ethanol and gasoline has transformed what was once an economic niche into the planet's leading example of renewable fuels. Ford exhibited the first prototype of what came to be known as a flex-fuel engine in 2002; soon VW marketed a flex-fuel car. Ford's Engle says flex-fuel technology helps avoid problems that had plagued ethanol cars, such as balky starts on cold mornings, weak pickup, and corrosion.
Consumers loved flex-fuel because it meant not having to choose between ethanol and gas models--memories were still fresh of the 1990 sugar-cane shortage, when ethanol-car owners found themselves, well, out of gas. Today "nobody would buy an alcohol-only car, even with tax incentives," says sales manager Rogerio Beraldo of Green Automoveis, a sprawling dealership in São Paulo. "Brazilians are traumatized by our earlier experience, when supplies ran out. But with flex-fuel, there's no risk of that."
With Brazilian ethanol selling for 45% less per liter than gasoline in 2003 and 2004, flex-fuel cars caught on like iPods. In 2003, flex-fuel had 6% of the market for Brazilian-made cars, and automakers were expecting the technology's share to zoom to 30% in 2005. That proved wildly conservative: As of last December, 73% of cars sold in Brazil came with flex-fuel engines. There are now 1.3 million flex-fuel cars on the road. "I have never seen an automotive technology with that fast an adoption rate," says Engle.
Ethanol's rise has had far-reaching effects on the economy. Not only does Brazil no longer have to import oil but an estimated $69 billion that would have gone to the Middle East or elsewhere has stayed in the country and is revitalizing once-depressed rural areas. More than 250 mills have sprouted in southeastern Brazil, and another 50 are under construction, at a cost of about $100 million each. Driving to lunch at his local churrasco barbecue spot in Sertãozinho, the head of the local sugar-cane growers' association points to one new business after another, from farm-equipment sellers to builders of boilers and other gear for the nearby mills. "My family has been in this business for 30 years, and this is the best it's been," says Manoel Carlos Ortolan. "There's even nouveaux riches."
The key to Brazil's success is that consumers are choosing ethanol rather than being forced to buy it. Brazil's military dictators tried the latter approach in the 1970s and early 1980s, by offering tax breaks to build mills, ordering state-owned oil company Petrobras to sell ethanol at gas stations, and regulating prices at the pump. This bullying--and cheap oil in the 1990s--nearly killed the market for ethanol until flex-fuel came along. The regime wasn't good for much, says consultant Plinio Nastari, but it did create the distribution system that enables drivers to fill up on ethanol just about anywhere.
Even though the U.S. will never be a sugar-cane powerhouse like Brazil, investors now view Rio as the future of fuel. "I hate to see the U.S. ten years behind Brazil, but that's probably about where we are," says one shrewd American freethinker, Ted Turner.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/06/8367959/index.htm
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE http://webspawner.com/users/donquijote

Tony wrote:

Hey dave, if a corporation owns land with a river passing through it, do you also "think" the corporation has the right to dump toxic waste into "their" part of the river? Do you really "think" that destroying the Planet's rain forests won't affect just about every living organism on the planet? Please tell us that you were trolling, and that you really aren't that stupid.
A billion years from now, it won't make any difference either way. We (human beings) are a tiny blip on nature's radar, and are totally insignificant in the long term. Nature is far more powerful and relentless than ANYTHING we can ever do. And in the end, NATURE will win.

It's not so much that Nature wins, but that HUMANS LOSE. Humans are the
only species outside of viruses to destroy their own home, as the humanoids said in the movie 'The Matrix.'
But it's not ALL humans, it's rather THE PREDATORS among us.

donquijote1954 wrote:

I guess America is so involved in fighting terrorism that forgets to prepare herself for a fuel crisis, something Brazil has done...
HOW BRAZIL BEATS THE U.S.
Ethanol accounts for more than 40% of the fuel Brazilians use in their cars.

You are kidding?
Ethanol _gross_ production 2005 16billion liters/year. equivalent to 150,000 bbl/d
Oil - Production (bbl/day): 1,788,000 According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2173rank.html
Oil - Consumption (bbl/day): 2,199,000 According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html
It doesn't even fill their import deficit. How much of that oil is used to produce ethanol?
When someone says 'we can grow our way out of the oil problem', they haven't done the math.
-- "We need an energy policy that encourages consumption" George W. Bush.
"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Vice President Dick Cheney