Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The Brazilian program is different. Brazil makes its
ethanol from sugarcane, a crop much more ef
cient than
corn at turning sunlight and CO
into material that can be
fermented into alcohol. Roughly a third of the sugarcane
plant is leaves and stems that are left behind in the
eld
after harvesting, a third is a liquid very high in sugar that
is pressed out of the remains of the plant, and a third is the
post-pressing leftovers called bagasse. The bagasse is
burned to generate power to run the ethanol factory,
which gives a big advantage to sugarcane over corn in
energy used to make ethanol since the energy comes from
the sugarcane plant itself and not from something exter-
nal. In Brazil, bagasse typically generates more power
than needed to run the ethanol factories and the excess
is sold back to Brazil
is electrical utilities.
The Brazilian program is more than
'
years old. It
started in the
first OPEC oil embargo and
the Iranian Revolution worried the Brazilian government
about national
s when the
s dependence on
imported oil. The government subsidized the develop-
ment of the ethanol industry directly and through a
requirement that all auto fuel had to be at least
security and Brazil
'
%
ethanol. At
% level, ethanol mixed into fuel
requires almost no adjustment of the auto
the
s engine. The
ethanol industry in Brazil is now mature enough to run
without any government subsidies, unlike the case in the
United States with corn. All Brazilian sugarcane mills
produce both sugar and ethanol and adjust the balance
between the two as world prices for oil and sugar change.
In
'
Brazil produced about
billion gallons of
ethanol, about
% of which was exported,
including
some exports
to the United States. Brazilian car
