ETHANOL FUEL IN BRAZIL

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ETHANOL FUEL IN BRAZIL

• By Krit Supradith

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Ethanol fuel in Brazil

• Brazils 29-year-old ethanol fuel program uses
  cheap sugar cane, mainly bagasse (cane-waste) for
  process heat and power, and modern equipment
  
• provides a 22 ethanol blend used nationwide,
  plus 100 anhydrous ethanol for four million cars

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Ethanol fuel in Brazil

• The Brazilian ethanol program provided nearly
  700,000 jobs in 2003, and cut 19752002 oil
  imports by a cumulative undiscounted total of
  US50 billion
• Today, Brazil gets more than 30 of its
  automobile fuels from sugar cane-based ethanol
  

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Ethanol fuel in Brazil

• In recent years, the Brazilian untaxed retail
  price of hydrous ethanol has been lower than that
  of gasoline per gallon
  
• Approximately US50 million has recently been
  allocated for research and projects focused on
  advancing of ethanol from sugarcane

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Ethanol fuel in Brazil

• The Pró-Álcool or Programa Nacional do Álcool
  (National Alcohol Program) was a nation-wide
  program financed by the government to phase out
  all automobile fuels derived from fossil fuels
  (such as gasoline) in favour of ethanol
• began with the anhydrous alcohol to blend with
  the gasoline
  
• 24 of alcohol and 76 gasoline (commonly known
  as gasohol)

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Ethanol fuel in Brazil

• The program successfully reduced by 10 million
  the number of cars running on gasoline in Brazil,
  thereby reducing the country's dependence on oil
  imports
• The decision to produce ethanol from fermented
  sugarcane was based on the low cost of sugar at
  the time

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Ethanol Cars Manufacturing in Brazil
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• Twelve billion gallons of ethanol were produced
  worldwide in 2005.
  
• The U.S. and Brazil are the top producers of
  ethanol,
  
• but many countries produce small amounts of
  ethanol.
  
• Brazil and the U.S. use ethanol as a vehicle
  fuel.
  
• Brazil, however, uses ethanol as a primary fuel,
  
  
• whereas the U.S. uses ethanol mainly as an
  additive to gasoline fuel.

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Electricity from Bagaço

• Sucrose accounts for little more than 30 of the
  chemical energy stored in the mature plant
  
• 35 is in the leaves and stem tips
• 35 are in the fibrous material (bagasse)
• Part of the bagasse is currently burned at the
  mill to provide heat for distillation and
  electricity to run the machinery

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Electricity from Bagaço

• ethanol plants to be energetically
  self-sufficient and even sell surplus electricity
  to utilities
  
• current production is 600 MW for self-use and 100
  MW for sale
  
• This secondary activity is expected to boom now
  that utilities have been induced to pay "fair
  price "(about US10/GJ or US0.036/kWh) for 10
  year contracts
• The energy is especially valuable to utilities
  because it is produced mainly in the dry season
  when hydroelectric dams are running low

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Electricity from Bagaço

• Estimates of potential power generation from
  bagasse range from 1,000 to 9,000 MW, depending
  on technology
  
• Higher estimates assume gasification of biomass
• replacement of current low-pressure steam boilers
  and turbines by high-pressure ones, and use of
  harvest trash currently left behind in the
  fields
• For comparison, Brazil's Angra I nuclear plant
  generates 657 MW

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Electricity from Bagaço

• Presently, it is economically viable to extract
  about 288 MJ of electricity from the residues of
  one ton of sugarcane, of which about 180 MJ are
  used in the plant itself
• a medium-size distillery processing 1 million
  tons of sugarcane per year could sell about 5 MW
  of surplus electricity
  
• At current prices, it would earn US 18 million
  from sugar and ethanol sales, and about US 1
  million from surplus electricity sales

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Electricity from Bagaço

• Bagasse burning is environmentally friendly
  compared to other fuels like oil and coal. Its
  ash content is only 2.5 (against 30-50 of
  coal), and it contains no sulfur.
• Since it burns at relatively low temperatures, it
  produces little nitrous oxides.
  
• Moreover, bagasse is being sold for use as a fuel
  (replacing heavy fuel oil) in various industries,
  including citrus juice concentrate, vegetable
  oil, ceramics, and type recycling.
• The state of São Paulo alone used 2 million tons,
  saving about US 35 million in fuel oil imports

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Program statistics
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Effect on oil consumption

• Most cars in Brazil run either on alcohol or on
  gasohol
  
• Presently the use of ethanol as fuel by Brazilian
  cars - as pure ethanol and in gasohol - replaces
  gasoline at the rate of about 27,000 cubic metres
  per day

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Effect on oil consumption

• 40 of the fuel that would be needed to run the
  fleet on gasoline alone
  
• However, the effect on the country's overall oil
  use was much smaller than that domestic oil
  consumption still far outweighs ethanol
  consumption
• in 2005, Brazil consumed 2,000,000 barrels of oil
  per day, versus 280,000 barrels of ethanol
  
• According to government statistics Brazil
  produced 17.471 billion litres of ethanol in
  2006
  

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Comparison with the United States

• Brazil's sugar cane-based industry is far more
  efficient than the U.S. corn-based industry
  
• Brazilian distillers are able to produce ethanol
  for 22 cents per liter, compared with the 30
  cents per liter for corn-based ethanol
  
• U.S. corn-derived ethanol costs 30 more because
  the corn starch must first be converted to sugar
  before being distilled into alcohol
  
• Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or
  subtropical climate, with a minimum of 600 mm (24
  in) of annual rainfall

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Environmental effects

• The improvement in air quality in big cities in
  the 1980s,
  
• following the widespread use of ethanol as car
  fuel, was widely evident
  
• In Brazil, a recent law has been created in order
  to ban the burning of sugarcane fields, and
  machines will replace human labor as the means of
  harvesting cane.
• This not only solves the problem of pollution
  from burning fields, but new machines also have a
  higher productivity than people
  

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Environmental effects

• Advancements in fertilizers and natural
  pesticides have all but eliminated the need to
  burn fields
  
• however chemical pollution from runoff may turn
  out to be just as harmful to the environment as
  the smoke

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Social implications

• Sugarcane has an important social contribution to
  the poorest people in Brazil.
  
• Although it still improves little the life
  conditions of this segment of Brazilian society,
  
  
• especially in comparison to Industrialized
  countries living standards, having a temporary
  work at Sugarcane harvest fields is, for many,
  the only option to survive

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Exports of Brazilian ethanol

• On 19 December 2005, the state-run Petrobras
  announced a contract with the Japanese Nippon
  Alcohol Hanbai for the creation of a
  joint-venture based in Japan to import ethanol
  from Brazil. The company, Brazil-Japan Ethanol,
  will have as its main object the creation of an
  ethanol market in Japan
• The exportation of Brazilian ethanol to the U.S.
  reached a total of US 1 billion in 2006, an
  increase of 1020 over 2005 (US 98 millions)
  
• Sweden also has a large import from Brazil due to
  its 5 use of ethanol in all of its fuels

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