11.25.08
Relaunching biofuels
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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44848
BRAZIL: Using Science and Thinking Small to Relaunch Biofuels
By Neuza Ãrbocz*
SÃO PAULO, Nov 25 (Tierramérica) – Clean and renewable energy sources are the new “El Dorado” in these times of economic crisis and global warming. While most people, it seems, want to have a car, travel and consume endlessly, the planet is giving us signs that it can no longer withstand a production model based on fossil fuels.
Scientists around the globe have been researching viable alternative energy sources for some time now. Brazil, which stood out in 1975 with its National Fuel Alcohol Programme and in 2005 for its pioneering National Biodiesel Programme, is wielding new strategies in its global offensive for fuels based on distilled agricultural products.
Scientific progress is opening space for agro-fuels to become a new commodity to conquer the global market.
To achieve this, Brazil is investing in research that could be the answer to concerns about the negative effects of crop-based fuel production on food supplies and prices, and on the conservation of its Amazon forests.
The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) joined the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to carry out the study, “Sugarcane-Based Bioethanol: Energy for Sustainable Development.”
The study says that to produce some 50 billion litres of grain ethanol per year, 15 million hectares of crops are needed; in other words, one percent of the land area currently farmed on the entire planet, estimated at 1.5 billion hectares.
This represents an average yield of 3,300 litres of ethanol per hectare, which proves Brazil’s leadership in this sector, as the South American giant produces an average of 6,600 litres per hectare. The best Brazilian ethanol refineries even reach an output of 7,500 litres per hectare, according to the National Union of Sugarcane Industries.
The yields should rise with second-generation ethanol, made from cellulose. The process makes use of various types of organic waste, like sugarcane bagasse. In five to 10 years, output could reach 13,000 litres per hectare, which could alleviate pressure to farm new land, according to some studies.
It is not yet clear if the biofuels industry will be dominated by big investors, which could cause social breakdown in rural areas by pushing small farmers off their land, or if there will be space for an inclusive process that generates income for smaller producers and improves their living conditions.
The answer could also lie in technology that provides ways to produce fuel on a smaller scale, appropriate for family farms. This is the aim of “intelligent social fuel refineries”, or USIs, small biological refineries developed by the USI industrial director, Orci Ribeiro, who learned everything he knows from hands-on experience.
With such a refinery, a small farmer can produce ethanol from sugarcane, sweet potato, manioc or sorghum, said Ribeiro, who also developed an ethanol-fuelled electrical generator so that far-flung rural communities can produce their own electricity.
This solution awoke much interest at the First International Exposition held here Nov. 17-21, where six fuel distilleries were sold to Colombia, and a partnership agreement was signed with the Movement of Small Family Farmers of Brazil.
Another innovation presented at the expo was a mobile biodiesel distillery, which can be transported by truck. It was designed by chemist Diego Luiz Nunes, a professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
“We are in a period of transition. Solid fuels are more efficient, and little by little we should adopt them for mass transport vehicles,” Nunes told Tierramérica.
Examples include the Eletra bus, which runs with a combination of biodiesel and electric battery, and was exhibited at the expo along with the Flex motor vehicles, the Ipanema plane, and tractors, motorcycles and other vehicles adapted to run on fuel alcohol.
The advantage of ethanol and biodiesel is that they can be distributed through the existing global system, as pointed out by the president of the fuel division of Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, Alan Kardec Pinto, speaking at the International Conference on Biofuels held in conjunction with the expo.
“The energy matrix needs to be diversified. Oil is going to run out,” Kardec told the delegations from 92 countries.
Environmental and social activists, government authorities and business owners have insisted on the need to analyse the entire production cycle of crop-based fuels.
“We can work together,” said the director of the African Biofuels and Renewable Energies Fund (ABREF), Thierno Bocar Tall, expressing the optimism of representatives from African countries.
Lúcia Melo, president of Brazil’s Centre for Strategic Management and Research, said her country can and should attract more research centres, graduate courses and foreign companies to evaluate fuels that would be appropriate for resolving social, economic and environmental problems.
The Brazilian government insists that national technology is viable, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is based on renewable raw materials, without competing with food production.
Cabinet chief Dilma Rousseff assured that agro-ecological land-use zoning in the country would be carried out with citizen participation, protecting the Amazon jungle, the vast Pantanal wetlands, and other valuable ecosystems. However, it is not clear that this will be carried out in a timely manner, nor that it will be respected by the private sector.
The environmental threats arising from monoculture-based biofuels and the need to reduce consumption in general were the focuses of environmental and other non-governmental organisations at the meeting.
Critics of the current dominant production model held a parallel gathering where they released a report from the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE) that points to the risks of pollution from the use of fertilisers and the burning off of sugarcane fields, and the danger of worsening the appalling labour relations that exist on many large farms — longstanding problems in rural Brazil.
(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)