40% of Brazil's cars are running on Ethanol!

A few facts (which I just saw on CNN):

By law, all gasoline in Brazil contains 25% Ethanol.

40% of cars in Brazil run on pure Ethanol

By 2007, 100% of cars sold in Brazil will be running on pure Ethanol.

Brazil is well on the way to becoming the first country to be independant on oil when it comes to mobility.

And another one.

All Taxi's in Freiburg run on fuel created from flowers.

What the heck is the rest of the world waiting for???

Some links here:

yaleglobal.yale.edu...

en.wikipedia.org...

Great topic! This is what we really need to fear from Brazil--making us look foolish. Did we export our great American drive for innovation and have none left? Why was their Energy Policy years ahead of ous? BTW they still will use oil, just not so much of it.

Brazil get's most of it's ethanol from growing sugar cane (much higher sugar content then corn for example) and you can't grow that anywhere.

The other problem... they cut down rainsforest for land to grow sugarcane.

After a few years of intensive farming the land it depleted and you are back to square one with the need for oil based fertilisers etc.

Sorry but this method is not scalable for the rest of the world. Eventually we will be faced with the choice between growing crops to feed 6.5 billion people or as a feedstock for fuel. Which would you choose?
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That's not true. The Amazon land was cut in a project for populating the area with farmers and building a highway connecting Northern Brazil to Venezuela,Colombia,etc. (bad project, didn't work).Also some amazon land was cut down for cattle ranchers. The Sugar cane is not grown in the Amazon region, it is grown in the Northeast rugged northern coastline areas. It's profitable also (no money put in by the goverment). So it's still a good idea. Also you don't need to get ethanol just from corn, you can get it from nearly anything- potatoes, hay, garbage, even cactus! So something could be cooked up which generates a high ethanol content, the corn ethanol could be a precursor.

Ford planned to use ethanol as the primary fuel for his Model T.

I believe that using modern genetic techniques we can produce a plants growable in northern climes that will make biodeisel and/or ethanol a viable energy source.

The fact is that the answer to the engery crisis is going to be a local one. Unlike oil, which works fine for anyone, anywhere, individual communities are gonna have to find amalgams of energy sources that work best for them in their area. Quite right, sugar beet isnt really feasible for places such as alaska or scotland. Were gonna have to use what evers available, but that dosnt necessarily mean a toss up between growing food or fuel.

here in the uk we have around 644,000 hecatares of set aside land. UK and EU farmers must by law set aside land each year as a reserve in a sense. How much depends on word food stock levels and national crop production. In 2001 it was around 10 percent. i belive many other countries have similar initiatives.
Here comes the science bit. say we used wheat as our feedstock. Current yields are around seven tons per hectare.
Approximatley 0.33 M3 (metres cubed, cant type it on this!) can be produced per tonne of wheat.
If we used just half the set aside land, say 322,000 hectares, we can produce about 2,254,000 tons of wheat grain. Ferment that efficiently and we get about 750,000 metres cubed of ethanol. Ok cant work that out in litres. But basically we could produce enough to fuel a more organised and far reaching public transport system, either on ethanol alone of mixed with methane from rubbish and such like. I imagine similar stats would apply for temperate, fertile countires, eg great plains ameirca, britiain, new zealand etc.

That's true. Here, there are 3 types of fuel: Gasoline, Ethanol and Natural Gas.
All cars (well, almost) now are being producted with total-flex tech, that means you can use Gasoline or Ethanol as fuel. And, if you want to go a little bit far (), you can convert your car to burn Natural Gas, which is a VERY GOOD alternative if you use your car to work or something like that, it's not expensive (a lot cheaper than Gasoline or Ethanol) and it's very "productive".

And, cut forests to plant sugar-cane? That's not true my friend, in fact most of the sugar are located in Brazil's Southeast, far away from amazon (lol).

Fuel alternatives exist a lot, too bad that people are used to gasoline.

Here is a semi-related story. We CAN grow sugar cane anywhere with hydroponic technology. Check this link out and tell me what you guys think.

www.wired.com...

Imagine using this technology to grow sugar cane in the desert or near a coast, powered almost completely by Solar, Wind, and Tidal power. It could put a huge dent in Gasoline demand in the long run. People just need to know of this possibility.

The fact is that the answer to the engery crisis is going to be a local one. Unlike oil, which works fine for anyone, anywhere, individual communities are gonna have to find amalgams of energy sources that work best for them in their area. Quite right, sugar beet isnt really feasible for places such as alaska or scotland. Were gonna have to use what evers available, but that dosnt necessarily mean a toss up between growing food or fuel.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this.

[edit on 23-4-2006 by sardion2000]

Ok so I was wrong on where they grow the sugarcane. Thanks for setting me straight.

However, the EROEI for any type of biomass based fuel does not make it the panacea that most people woud like to believe. In fact in the case of ethanol from corn (especially inthe US) the Energy Return On Energy Invested is close to 1 (if not less than one): Hard Look at Gov. Pataki Ethanol Proposal

If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States. (Pimentel)
...
"Ethanol increases ozone formation, which is obviously harmful for people with lung disease, and biodiesel increases emissions of nitrogen oxide," he said.(NY Times)
...
Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 Btu are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 Btu. "Put another way," Pimentel said, "about 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in ethanol. Every time you make 1 gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 Btu."(Pimentel)

An interesting discussion at the link provided on whether or not the Pimetel research is credible. It has been debunked by the ethanol industry but not by peer reviewed science.

Here is another discussion with respet to switchgrass as opposed to corn as the source of ethanol: Life in a Grass House

Scouring the web with an eye toward understanding a bit more about the use of biomass-based ethanol as a replacement for gasoline, it has become apparent to me that there are a substantial number of "urban legends" emerging regarding the use of switchgrass as a feedstock for ethanol. More properly, these misconceptions are "rural legends," because at least from this former farm kid's perspective they arise from the fact that most people have very little connection to the land, and as such, are simply blowing a lot of wishful smoke about the details of a biomass-based fuel system. Hopefully the analysis below will shed a bit of light on the subject.

A good discussion follows analysing the "urban legends".

Considering that most agriculture has very high fossil fuel inputs (especially in G8 countries) I stand by my assertion that in a post peak oil production world we will be left with a choice between using available fossil fuels for feeding ourselves or maintaining our current "way of life".
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The problem with any of these soloutions is although they respectivley will work, is there really the infrastructure (and the will) to implement any of these solutions?
Wether it be methane extraction from landfill, building hydroponic skyscraper factories, or installing bio-ethanol distilleries, it gonna require a vast investment at every level, in terms of money, time, labour, organization etc. As said before, were soon going to have to get our energy from a mryiad of different sources, as soon as oils monarchy ends.
The choice is, either we act now to begin to ween ourselves off oil and start to develop these solotuions (will will take effort precisely because theyre so diverse and complictated). This i think will be unlikley as the elimination of oil, however slowly, will so shake up the western lifestyle that it wont have much support.
Western free market economies only produces things if there is a market to sell them. We produce things to make a profit, not for need, and at the moment, a massive shake up of an oil based, industrialized society (and all its trappings) isnt gonna make u much money.

Maybe not for much longer, but for the time being, there IS profitable oil, meaning we will see alternative energy as little more than a token gesture.

the other scenario it seems is waiting till its too late, the economy collapses due to recession and were forced to build from the ground up once again.

soz , tired and ranting this evening.
*yelps as soapbox splinters underneath him and falls on his arse*

As for ethanol emissions though, wouldnt most of it be canclled out (in an all ethanol economy) due to the fact youd be growing replacment crops so absorb the Co2 respectivley, as opposed to oil where theres no "sink" tio absorb the excess Co2.?

Why sugar cane? genetically engineer something better and suitable for the enviroment to be used.

You know, TheSilentProtagonist, at one time America did have the will and vast investment for great projects. (Oh, wait, Iraq now, yes '' ) What do we do now--make elective war and invest in OTHER countries, put on Super Bowls, etc. Maybe I'm getting tired now, too, but I'm leaning to recession. Oh, rue the day Ronald Reagan removed the solar panels from the White House!
The minimum we must do is cut back a % of oil by using less--conservation, alternative sources, etc

It’s interesting that when ever there is discussion about the use of ethanol, the statement
“97% of the land will have to go to growing enough corn to power our vehicles
Load of ****. People should do their homework. Hemp contains 30-50% more cellulose (Cellulose is used to produce ethanol; more cellulose more ethanol) than corn or sugar cane and doesn’t require large amount of acreage in order to produce or the large overhead to process it. But then again we can’t tell people about the benefits of the evil plant hemp.

Another problem with ethanol is that it gets less miles per gallon than gasoline.


The biggest problem with alternative fuels is that gasoline is a really great fuel.

True about gas giving more bang for your buck, literally. But what is/are our alternatives to the growing vast sucking sound of energy usage, worlwide and locally? This is where America should show leadership, but we seem not to be in the vanguard. A trillion in Iraq--someone was playing war games instead of problem solving.

When I filled up this weekend I noticed that the gas pump had a big sticker on it.

Fuel containts up to 10% ethanol

I've filled up at that station several times before and I know that this was a new addition. I wonder how exactly that's going to effect gas mileage and such. I almost felt like it was a legal way to water down the gas. The car still runs fine so I suppose it's not a big deal.

Originally posted by desert
Great topic! This is what we really need to fear from Brazil--making us look foolish. Did we export our great American drive for innovation and have none left? Why was their Energy Policy years ahead of ous? BTW they still will use oil, just not so much of it.

Because the US couldnt give a damm for the worlds future?

That is impressive about Brazil if only more countries could do the same

Dbates, the gas used to have MTBE in it, which provides no mileage per gallon (it was added to make the emissions cleaner, ethanol is now added for that purpose). Don't know how all of this effects mileage one way or another though, nor how much more ethanol has to be added to get the emissions as clean as the MTBE they used to add is either.

I think the main point of increased dependancy on Biofuels is that it's a secure fuel. If it's grown in say Hydroponic setting, then it's pretty much immune to weather variations and political instability.