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introduction: Biofuel industry Leader

If we write about biofuels and bioenergy we must dedicate a chapter to the country that pioneered it all: Brazil. After the United States, Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol fuel. In 2011 Brazil produced 21.1 billion liters (5.57 billion gallons), representing 24.9% of the world’s total ethanol used as fuel. In addition Brazil imported in 2011 395.6 million gallons from the USA, up 300% from 2010. Brazil is considered to have the world’s first sustainable biofuels economy and be the biofuel industry leader, a policy model for other countries, and its sugarcane ethanol “the most successful alternative fuel to date.” However, some authors consider that the successful Brazilian ethanol model is sustainable only in Brazil due to its advanced agri-industrial technology and its enormous amount of arable land available.

Brazil’s 30-year-old ethanol fuel program is based on the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world, uses modern equipment and cheap sugarcane as feedstock, and the residual cane waste (bagasse) is used to process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance. In 2010, the US Environmental Protection Agency designated Brazilian sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel due to its 61% reduction of total lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, including direct indirect land-use change emissions (“EPA deems sugarcane ethanol an advanced biofuel;” domesticfuel. com).

Ethanol as a gasoline really took off in Brazil when the “flex-fuel car” was invented. A flex-fuel car runs on any blend of hydrous ethanol (E100) and gasoline (E20 to E25). There are no longer any light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. Since 1976, the government has made it mandatory to blend anhydrous ethanol with gasoline. Since 1 July 2007, the mandatory blend has been 25% of anhydrous ethanol and 75% gasoline (“E25 blend”).

A key to the development of the ethanol industry in Brazil was the investment in agricultural research and development by both the public and private sector. The work of EMBRAPA (www. embrapa. com), the state-owned company in charge of applied research on agriculture, together with research developed by other state

Second Generation Biofuels and Biomass: Essential Guide for Investors, Scientists and Decision Makers, First Edition. Roland A. Jansen. r 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Published 2013 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

institutes and universities, especially in the state of Sao Paulo, have allowed Brazil to become a major innovator in the fields of biotechnology and agronomic practices, resulting in the most efficient agricultural technology for sugarcane cultivation in the world. Efforts have been concentrated on increasing the effi­ciency of inputs and processes to optimize output per hectare of feedstock, and the result was a nearly 3-fold increase of sugarcane yields in 29 years, as Brazilian average ethanol yields went from 2024 liters per hectare in 1975 to 5917 liters per hectare in 2004. Brazilian biotechnologies include the development of 600 sugarcane varieties that have a larger sugar or energy content — one of the main drivers for high yields of ethanol per unit of planted area. I am convinced the same yield increase and plant varieties will happen with Jatropha.

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