By LINDA McGURK
Indiana Correspondent

URBANA, Ill. — In the U.S., the idea of achieving energy independence started to gain popularity a few years ago and many hurdles remain to be cleared before that vision will become reality. But one country is already there.

During the first Biofuels Law and Regulation Conference at the University of Illinois in Urbana, attendees representing a broad spectrum of the bioenergy sector learned more about what’s often referred to as the “Brazilian success story.”

“In Brazil, 46 percent of the energy comes from renewable sources. That’s a number no other country comes close to,” Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of the São Paulo State Research Foundation in Brazil, told the crowd.

Sugarcane is relatively easy to grow, produces high yields and is simpler and less expensive to convert to ethanol than corn. In addition, energy is generated by burning the bagasse – the fibrous material that remains after sugar is pressed from the sugarcane.
“The (ethanol) plants are self-contained units,” de Brito Cruz said. “When you burn the canes, heat is generated to run the plant. And if you do it well you can sell electricity back to the grid.”

The Brazilian government jumpstarted its quest for energy independence in response to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) 1973 oil embargo, which caused the country’s cost for oil to rise abruptly from $750 million to $4 billion per year. Already the number-one sugar producer in the world, Brazil launched its sugarcane-based ethanol program ProAlcool in 1975.

Aside from mandating a 20 percent blend of ethanol in gasoline, the government subsidized the construction of new sugar mills and the establishment of new plantations.

“It wasn’t a decision about (curbing) greenhouse gases or saving nature. It was a question of whether Brazilians would be able to drive a car next year. We had to make a quick and bold decision – and sometimes that’s better,” de Brito Cruz said.

If government intervention built the foundation for sugarcane ethanol in Brazil, deregulation in the 1990s triggered a complete makeover of the industry.

“(The deregulation) created a big turmoil, but those who thought it would mean the end of ethanol in Brazil were wrong,” de Brito Cruz said. Instead, it spurred technological advances and increased efficiency; poorly managed sugar mills closed while well-run mills flourished.

Today, the energy derived from sugarcane accounts for 15 percent of the total energy consumption in Brazil, and the country is the second biggest ethanol producer after the United States.

Gasoline is blended with a minimum of 25 percent ethanol and 90 percent of all new cars are flex-fuel vehicles, meaning that they can run on zero to 100 percent ethanol. Drivers can select their desired blend at the pump, and de Brito Cruz pointed out that gasoline, not ethanol, is considered the alternative fuel in Brazil.

Initially, getting cars to start on pure ethanol can be complicated, even in a warm climate like Brazil’s, and de Brito Cruz recalled it wasn’t uncommon to see drivers using newspaper to start a small fire under the engine of their car on a cold morning.

“It was something you just learned to live with, because the alternative was much worse,” de Brito Cruz said, adding it didn’t take car manufacturers long to solve the problem by adding a small gasoline tank that could be used for cold morning start-ups.
Although Brazil’s ethanol program originated as a result of the oil crisis, concerns about global warming has become another powerful reason for its continued popularity. According to de Brito Cruz, the cost per ton of reduced greenhouse gas emissions is considerably lower for sugarcane than other ethanol feedstocks, such as grain, corn, canola and cellulose.

Land-use changes are not accounted for when calculating the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from using sugarcane ethanol, but de Brito Cruz assured that the plantations are not a threat to the Amazon rainforest.

“If you plant the cane where there used to be forest, you lose carbon because you’re cutting down trees that have stored carbon for hundreds of years. But this is not what’s happening. The plantations are put in degraded pastures, where they’re adding carbon to the soil,” he said.

That doesn’t mean it’s a perfect system. Leaves and stalks are still burned on the field, causing pollution, although de Brito Cruz believes the refuse may one day be used as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. He also believes in more research.

“We need to do more research on sustainability issues. So far, most of the research has focused on increasing production and lowering costs,” he said.