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Brazil: Embracing Alternative Fuels And LEading The Way

In the world today, Brazil is the one country that has already taken major steps to greatly reduce their dependence on foreign oil. During the 1973 oil crisis, the Brazilian Government at the time decided to implement their “National Alcohol Program”, better known in Brazil as “Proalcool”. It was a planned strategy to implement an ethanol production infrastructure for Brazil’s automobiles. Today, 8 out of 10 cars on the road in Brazil run on ethanol. Some run on 100% ethanol. This brilliant program set the stage for ethanol to fulfill the promise of energy independence and freedom from reliance on fossil fuels for the Brazilian people.

The Source

The United States is the largest producer of Ethanol producing about 35% of the world’s ethanol. Brazil is a close second producing about 32 to 33% of the world’s ethanol. In America, Ethanol is derived from the distillation of sugar that is obtained from corn. In Brazil, ethanol is derived from the sugar cane plant. Sugar cane grows all year round in Brazil. The ethanol derived from sugar cane provides 8 times the energy that was used to make it. Also, the waste material after the sugar is extracted from the cane is used as energy for power plants. Ethanol burns cleaner than regular gasoline because of the extra oxygen in its chemical makeup. Because ethanol is distilled from a plant, it emits no harmful toxic emissions such as carbon monoxide.

The CO2 that is released into the air when ethanol is burned is absorbed by the original plant or biomass (such as the sugar cane plant) that the ethanol was extracted from to begin with, making ethanol a carbon-neutral fuel. Brazil is poised to greatly surpass the United States in ethanol production worldwide. The road that led to this energy paradigm shift was not so smooth though. In the beginning, the government was subsidizing sugar cane growers. But as soon as oil prices dropped in the early 80’s, the government stopped subsidizing sugar cane growers and many of them went out of business. Demand for ethanol had dropped.

The Future

Brazil has managed to achieve a 50% replacement of petroleum by ethanol. Also, 80% of all of Brazil’s car fleet is flex-fuel capable. They can run on 100% gasoline or any combination of ethanol/gas mix such as E10, E25, or E85. Brazil is on the road to total oil replacement by ethanol, a notion that doesn’t sit well with the national oil company in Brazil; Petrobras. The present sugar cane cultivated area in Brazil dedicated to ethanol production is about 7.4 million acres. It constitutes about 1% of the total arable land. In Brazil, there has been an increase of about 3% a year in ethanol production without having to add to the arable land with more sugar cane plantations. This is due to the refining of extraction technology and the derivation of higher yielding sugar cane plants. It wouldn’t be hard for Brazil to achieve 100% replacement in the very near future.

If you want to learn more information about ethanol and ethanol production and products, please stop by http://www.allethanol.com and have a look.

Add comment October 23rd, 2008

Find Drivers License Records

As a consumer are you well informed? Do you pay attention to the receipts you get and to all the wording on your bills? I have started doing this and have found that there are many times when I am over charged, especially with grocery shopping, and that the fine print on some of the bills, especially insurance bills, has inaccurate information on them. I work hard for my money and I do not want to spend it by being over charged for goods and services.

Several months ago I was paying my semi annual installment for my car insurance. I noticed that the premium had gone up, but I did not pay a great deal of attention to this. My husband noticed the increase and questions this because our policy was supposed to decrease after six months of no claims. We had not made a claim in the six months. I started reading on the bill and noticed that it stated that our drivers license records indicated that we had one or more violations that caused the increase in our insurance. Neither my husband nor I had received a ticket or fine in the six month period. We called the insurance company and we were told that there was an outstanding parking ticket that had been issued two years ago. They said that it was indicated that there was a warrant out for my husbandís arrest due to this outstanding fine. The ticket was for parking in a handicapped space without a sticker. My husband works with disabled clients and is always very careful not to block any accessible spaces, let alone illegally park in one of them. We went to the department of motor vehicles and asked to see our drivers license records. Both records were clean. There was no mention about an outstanding fine or warrant on my husbandís record. We asked for copies of our drivers license records to send to the insurance company. The department of motor vehicles offered to fax the information directly to the company.

When we arrived home we called and explained the situation. The representative stated that they did not know what had happened, but they would readjust our premium and send out a new one. Our guess is that because we have a common last name, someone elseís record was accessed rather than my husbandís or a wrong number was entered when doing the records search. If my husband would not have reminded me about the amount of premium we would have paid three hundred dollars more for our insurance. We would have paid the increased amount rather than the discounted amount for being safe drivers. It is very important to take the time to read your bill statements and also your receipts.

Patricia Stevenson owns and operates Drivers License Records which finds many county records including adoption records.

Add comment October 23rd, 2008