A Sweeter Way to Go Green

Tumbleweed · Black Ops Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 3687 votes: 3

This is an article on sugar cane as a source of ethanol .

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How Brazil is transforming sugar cane into ethanol that it claims is a cleaner, cheaper and more sustainable source of fuel.

Ometto and Cosan can thank the weather for its successful debut. Now that climate change is the worry du jour, the search for clean, renewable energy has sent scientists and companies to the far corners of the map. In France, beets are being turned into ethanol. In the United States, it's corn that's king. Sweet potatoes, compost and swtichgrass (a weed-like variety of grass found in prairies) are all being transformed into biofuels for the future.

But it's Brazil's sugar cane-derived ethanol that really has researchers, investors and the markets excited. "The world is searching for efficiency," says Sérgio Thompson Flores, head of Infinity Bioenergy, a U.K.-based renewable-energy company. "In terms of technology, genetic engineering, climate and soil, Brazil has a monumental comparative advantage in ethanol." That may explain why in addition to Cosan, some 350 Brazilian companies are currently brewing ethanol from sugar cane with the number of producers set to rise to 412 by 2012.

According to its advocates, sugar cane ethanol is the next best thing to hotwiring the sun. Relatively speaking, they say, it's also easy on the atmosphere, releasing a fraction of the carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that add to the world's steamy greenhouse. Also, because plant waste can be used as fertilizer or as fuel to fire the distillery furnaces, making sugar ethanol requires only a fifth of the gasoline and diesel it typically takes to make fuel from crops like corn.

And Brazil's sweet brand of ethanol is efficient, brewed without the official price props or government handouts that are common in Europe and the United States. At least that's the pitch Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made on his tour in early August of Central America and the Caribbean, chatting up clients about sugar cane ethanol from Tegucigalpa to Kingston. Biofuels like "ethanol and biodiesel offer a genuine energy option for sustainable development," Lula said

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CHUQ · Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:25 am Post subject:

Brazil is using the by-product of the crop, not the crop itself. The US is using the crop of corn and that is leading to higher prices across the board.
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Tumbleweed · Black Ops Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 3687 votes: 3

Quote:

And Brazil's sweet brand of ethanol is efficient, brewed without the official price props or government handouts that are common in Europe and the United States.

That's why I keep mentioning price supports. There is a cheaper way to produce it. Our corn based ethnol has a by-product we haven't got a market for so cane is a plus there also.
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To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
Thomas Paine

It's impossible to be an effective leader of a country when everyone thinks you are stupid.

CHUQ · Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:24 am Post subject:

Brazil did the inteeligent thing in '75, they sesarched for a way to rid themselves of dependency on oil. The US could have done the same thing, but it is not in the grand plan of the government and the corporations.

Controls? That is a dorty word to Repubs, who want govt to be on the side lines, except when collected intel or such.
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Tumbleweed · Black Ops Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 3687 votes: 3

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The standard U.S. import tariff on ethanol is otherwise a 2.5 percent duty, plus 54 cents per gallon.

That amounts to price supports. We chose to subsidize corn based ethanol while we could import it cheaper and save the energy it cost to produce it. If we are going to continue to import oil, why not import ethanol also?

There is no incentive to lower the cost of production here with tariffs in place to protect the industry.

Technologically, the process of producing ethanol from sugar is simpler than converting corn into ethanol. Converting corn into ethanol requires additional cooking and the application of enzymes, whereas the conversion of sugar requires only a yeast fermentation process. The energy requirement for converting sugar into ethanol is about half that for corn.

So why to hell is our government promoting corn when sugar is more cost effective? Hell ,sugar beets can be grown in any area of the US so why this smoke and mirrors over corn? It's a scam.
_________________
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
Thomas Paine

It's impossible to be an effective leader of a country when everyone thinks you are stupid.