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New Energy for Brazil's Sugar-Cane Fuel Programme

by Patrick Knight
BRAZIL'S pioneering fuel programme, tn which four million of the country's cars are powered by alcohol distilled from sugar cane, to in the doldrums.
The fuel programme was set up with great fanfare tn the late 1970s, when the high price of oil threatened to bring the country to a standstill.
The sugar-cane fuel sold for three-quarters of the price of petrol and. a couple of years ago. nine out of 10 new cars were fitted with alcohol-barn-ing engines.
But rather than continuing to rise, as seemed likely a decade ago. the price of oil has fallen steadily While the cost of distilling a barrel of alcohol has been cut from USS70 to less than US*50, the price of oil can sometimes dip below U3«2O a barrel
The sugar-cane Industry claims ft costs more to produce alcohol from the cane than the government allows It io charge for the result, and production has stagnated
But the key to reviving the flagging Industry could lie In more efficient production of the electricity that to gener ated from leftover sugar cane waste-
Demand for the sugar-cane fuel has continued to rise and last year the Industry found It self in the embarrassing pool tton of not having enough to meet the need More than a billion liters of methanol fuel had to be Imported to keep the cars running.
To produce the 13 billion liters of alcohol fuel set as a target, as well as to refine the 7 million tonnes of sugar consumed In Brazil each year close to 30 million hectares are planted with cane each year. This Is equivalent to three-quarters of the land on which all of Brazil's soya, maize, rice, cotton and bean crops are grown
Last year s Ideal weather produce a record crop of 235 million tonnes of cane, a third of the world s total. To put that tn perspective, the second largest producer. India, grows a little more than 100 million tonnes a year
Brazil spent about US82 billton to set up the alcohol fuel programme, but the Industry has not been able to make enough profit in recent years to pay off the Industry has not been able to make enough profit In recent years to pay off Its debts
The widespread use of sugar-cane fuel has been criticised by oil companies. They say that if the money spent on setting up the programme and subsidising the fuel had been spent searching for oil, the country would now be close to self-sufficiency
Brazil Invested In an exten slve lOyeur exploration programme and now produces more than half the oil It consumes Major offshore finds of oil mean self-sufficiency could
Now. ironically, the alcohol programme produces the fuel the country least needs — a substitute for petrol. Because of the alcohol programme. Brazil finds itself exporting large quantities of petrol each year, while importing some diesel fuel to power the country's trucks.
In the process of distilling the alcohol and refining the sugar, 55 million tonnes of sugar cane waste — hognsae — to produced.
Over the years, the Industry has progressed from buying half the electricity It needs to generating more than 90 per cent of it by burning bagasse, and selling some surplus power as well. The remaining bagasse to sold to other industries. or used to feed cattle
However, electricity has also been subsidised and those who generate It privately have been paid only about a third of what II costs to produce. But subsidies are being cut.
To survive without subsl dies, the alcohol Industry will have to become more efficient While the development of new varieties of cane and Improve menu In the refining price ss have cut the cost of alcohol fuel. It still remains consider ably more expensive than oil.
It has been calculated that the cane could produce as much as 10 per cent of Brazil s electricity. some 4.000 megawatts (MW), if all the 55 million tonnes of hawser were burnt in the most efficient boilers available.
And if the industry was paid a proper price for tt. it could trore than half the tLtustry s current earnings.
At the moment, standing sugar cane Is burnt in the fields to remove Its sharp leaves and kill pests. This reduces Its weight by a quarter, with half Its calorific value going up In smoke. Burning
which employs 750,000 work ers. far safer than if unburnt cane were used.
If burnt cane was used to produce electricity. 2,000 MW could be generated, earning US9200 million. But if the cane was cut by machine before It to burnt and a gasification process used, more than twice as much power could be
Even without the possibility of generating electricity, there to already a great deal of Interest in Brazil's alcohol from sugar cane programme among the oil scarce countries around the world that possess the large areas of land on which cane could be grown.
Now. as new technology is developed, the third by-product of sugar cane — electricity — makes the crop even more attractive - PANOS