How Brazil created the international ethanol boom
Photo by petrr. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Maybe Americans need to be pointing our fingers south at Brazil for making us spend so much money on ethanol. The William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review has just published an article that delves into how the South American country helped fuel the recent world-wide ethanol boom. Using the spring 2007 meeting of US President Bush and Brazilian President da Silva as a starting point, the article dissects how Brazil's 30+ year sugar cane ethanol project helped get the biofuel onto the international stage and how the US can now learn from that experiment. Looking toward the future, author Vanessa Cordonnier, an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Bureau of the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, examines "whether a similar program in the U.S. would be in the best interests of the nation and the environment." What do you think?
If you're interested, you can check out the 30-page report in PDF. Thanks to the magazine's editor-in-chief, David Sella-Villa, for the tip!
[Source: William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jharlan 5:55PM (1/10/2009)
The world economy needs cheap oil right now to recover from the this depression (that's right, depression). Cheap oil is the result of supply exceeding demand. That;s right, we are capable of producing more oil than we need, as we always have been. Developing ethanol moderates demand for oil. Future oil will be more expensive to produce and ethanol production technology will result in the lowering of production costs. It's a no brainer. Domestically produced ethanol is superior now to imported oil and it will only get more so over time. The same is likely true with the other even cleaner technologies of PV, geothermal and wind. The myth of peak oil has been exposed. There will always be an adequate supply of oil, because that is how the market works. The market will furnish the necessary infrastructure because the developers will get rich providing it. The best young minds in our finest universities are solving these problems as we speak.
Now we can tackle the myth of man made global warming. Some of us are arrogant enough to think we humans can control the climate, But I am very skeptical of that.
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Dirk 5:29PM (1/10/2009)
This is a really great paper. I can recommend reading it for anyone who is interested in the matter of green energy strategically. There is a great deal to learn from the history of farmers and mill owners in Brazil and their interaction with government regulations. Unfortunately, I can see parallels to the solar industry again where the government is creating similar incentives again, creating a hegemony and giving the all the power to manufacturers of solar panels.
best regards,
Dirk
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MikeW 11:05AM (1/11/2009)
I would guess it has something to do with having the equator run through your country, and two crops of sugar cane.
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