Brazil's bioethanol program

Brazil's bioethanol program

Our increasing dependence on fossil fuels is causing many environmental and social problems. Indeed, not only is the burning of fossil fuels extremely polluting as it’s a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a potential source of world conflict as fossil fuel reserves are finite and are quickly dwindling away. As a result, more and more people are increasingly focusing on biomass as a form of renewable energy.

Brazil is without a doubt leading the way in the consumption and production of biofuels derived from biomass. Indeed, 1975 saw the launch of the world’s largest commercial program on biomass by the Federal government (Coelho S.T et al 2006). This program was created with hopes of reducing oil imports, which were consuming one half of Brazil’s total amount of hard currency from exports Goldemberg, J., 2007).

The main biofuel used in Brazil is bioethanol which is produced from the country’s vast sugarcane plantations. Indeed in 2007, sugarcane plantations used solely for biofuel production covered 10% of the country’s total cultivated land (equivalent to 3 million hectares shown in figure 1) and generated 16 billion litters of bioethanol (or 4.2 billion gallons) (Goldemberg, J., 2007). To produce this bioethanol, 2.16 million tons of sugarcane is processed annually. As Brazil is such a large country these sugarcane plantations have not had a significant impact on food supplies as they only consist of 1% of Brazil’s total available agricultural land (Goldemberg, J., 2007). 

Figure 1: Brazil’s sugarcane plantations

In 1980, although sugarcane reserves were plentiful, the cost of bioethanol was still around three times that of gasoline. To solve this problem, the Brazilian government put taxes on regular gasoline. The money generated from these taxes was used to pay for the price difference between the two fuels (Goldemberg, J., 2007).  Through this initiative, the price of bioethanol became economically competitive with the one of gasoline (Coelho S.T et al 2006). Over time however, these subsidies were progressively removed and by 2004 ethanol become fully competitive with gasoline thanks to technical advances in ethanol plants such as the use of high pressure boilers that allow co-generation of electricity who’s surpluses were sold to the electric power grid (Goldemberg, J., 2007).  Figure 2 clearly shows the increasing efficiency of ethanol production over time. 

Figure 2*: Evolution of ethanol yield between 1975 and 2004 (there are no good figures of that yield after 2004 but many sources state that it has continued to increase). 

* There isn't any more recent graphs demonstrating the increasing ethanol production yield per ha. However, there are many recent graphs demonstrating Brazil's increasing ethanol production but its difficult to tell if it is a result of bio refinery improvements or increasing sugar cane cultivated areas.

As of 2005, bioethanol in Brazil is used to fuel 4'000'000 cars running on pure hydrated ethanol and 700'000 flex fuel vehicles(Coelho S.T et al 2006). These flex fuel vehicles can run on blends from E0 to E100 (fuel mixes with 0% to 100% ethanol). However, Brazilian flex fuel cars typically run on a fuel mixture containing between 20 to 26% ethanol with the rest being gasoline. These flex cars are of massive importance in Brazil and represented 70% of all new sold cars in Brazil in February 2006 (Sandalow, D., 2006). The extensive use bioethanol has led to several outstanding results including substantial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and massive improvements of air quality in metropolitan areas (Goldemberg, J. 2008). In Sao Paulo for instance, Lead levels dropped from 1.4 ug/m³ in 1977 to less than 0.10 ug/m³ in 1991. Sulphur dropped from 50 ug/m³ in 1984 to 15 ug/m³ in 2003. Finally , particulate matter dropped from 90 ug/m³ in 1986 to just 50 ug/m³ in 2003 (Coelho S.T et al 2006)

Even though biofuels solve many environmental questions, they are still responsible for some environmental and social impacts. Currently, the country’s bioethanol industry is linked to atmospheric pollution from the burning of sugarcane for harvesting, to the degradation of soils and aquatic ecosystems and to the exploitation of cane cutters (Martinelli, L.A. and Filoso, S., 2008). These impacts can be seen in many regions such as in the Ipojuca River basin. There, the river's self purifying abilities were massively impacted by the sugarcane industry.  The river was unfortunately also subject to overheating, acidification, increases in turbidity, oxygen imbalance and increases in coliform bacteria levels (Gunkel, G et al 2007)

Furthermore, expanding sugarcane plantations will inevitably impede into other plantations such as soybean. This presents a grave environmental threat as this will increase deforestation pressure from dislocated soybean crops into the Amazon region (Martinelli, L.A. and Filoso, S., 2008). All of these issues need to be urgently addressed as Brazil's sugarcane industry is showing no signs of slowing down.

A few different initiatives could help assure that bioethanol production remains environmentally and economically sustainable. First of all, the expansion of sugarcane plantations into new regions would require proper planning and environmental risk assessments. There should also be an improvement of agricultural practices to reduce soil erosion and nitrogen pollution. Furthermore, streams and riparian ecosystems should become much more protected. Finally, sugarcane burning practices should be banned and there should be fairer working conditions for cane cutters (Martinelli, L.A. and Filoso, S., 2008).

In conclusion, as of 2008 Brazil’s ethanol program is replacing around 40% of the gasoline that would have been otherwise used(Goldemberg, J. 2008). The use of this biofuel has led to substantial environmental benefits and show that through governmental help it is possible to replace fossil fuels at a large scale. Globally, Brazil’s ethanol has replaced around 1.5% of all gasoline. A tenfold increase in Brazil’s ethanol program could replace up to 10% of the world’s current gasoline usage (Goldemberg, J., 2007). Encouragingly, this could feasibly be achieved as it would entail planting 30 million more hectares of sugarcane plantations which is a very small proportion of the 1 billion hectares of land currently available for primary crops in our planet. However, it is very important to realise that Brazil’s bioethanol industry still has some negative environmental impacts which urgently needs to be addressed as bioethanol production will only continue to grow.