I think that it is Brazil whose primary energy source is sugar cane, a crop abundant in that country, which is understandably hesitant to share with other countries its sugar cane crop for their oil replacement use. What is it about sugar cane as an energy source that has enabled Brazil to become nondependent on foreign oil?
This article is a little old, but it points to the main reason for Brazil's success - decades of development. It's not about the sugar cane, it's about the investment.
'The ability of the Brazilian economy to use ethanol has been developed over the course of more than three decades. According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, the oil shock of 1973 convinced Brazilian policymakers that the country needed to invest in alternatives to petroleum. Brazil embarked on a variety of industrial policies that developed the bio-fuel industry, and then weaned it from the huge subsidies that the government had used to get it started.
Brazil derives its ethanol from sugar cane. After decades of government support, Brazil’s sugar industry is now self-sufficient. By 2010, Brazil expects to export over a billion dollars of ethanol to countries like Japan and Sweden.'www.biz-architect.com
Notice Brazil is not hesitant to share. The US has a tariff on imported ethanol.
The downside of ethanol was discussed on this thread. Ethanol made from plant waste might be a better bet than ethanol from specially grown sugar cane, in terms of ecology and efficiency.
newnickname: Thanks for informing us that it is the ethanol which is of interest.
I continued to research on my own beyond your link to the thread, and I read that cellulosic ethanol may be good for climate control, while starch ethanol (from sugar cane or corn) got someone a Nobel prize for showing that it slightly increases global warming. I read quickly; so others will have to check me on these points.
Of course, I know how a country's economy works: I have an MBA degree. What tripped me up is that although I wrote correctly in my question what the TV program said about Brazil's hesitancy to export the product, my error was in failing to realize that a year is a long time for technology, and the program may already have been a repeat. Usually, I post here about a program right after I view it, but the lesson here is to check on the age of the program both when viewing it and when posting here about it. "Facts" do change.
"...the oil shock of 1973 convinced Brazilian policymakers that the country needed to invest in alternatives to petroleum."
Gee, 1973...That was about the time that the left wing tree-hugging bed-wetting nut jobs like me started saying that we needed to develop alternative sources of energy. How young and foolish we were. After all, how could any new technology be expected to be developed and refined in just 35 years?
Posts: 17470 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
DG: I just wrote that "facts" do change, but first there has to be governmental and entrepreneurial financial waste. Yet, one may argue that regarding the challenge of new energy sources development, the end finally does justify the means so that the solution justifies the amount of money thrown (away) at it.
There were hundreds of start-up little companies devoted to developing various aspects of this problem by the mid-seventies. Most failed because of lack of capital, and some were simply trying to go down the wrong roads, but some were simply bought out and were never heard from again. (Some of them were also scams, just like in real business.) The point I was making is that there were not only people concerned about what was going to happen (and, in fact, has happened) with regard to energy but also attempts to try to find solutions. But the vast majority of people, including those in the government, scoffed at us when we said that someday, we would face gas shortages (for any number of reasons), that those who controlled energy would control economies, that even highly developed countries would face serious black-outs and brown-outs on some extremely hot days, and that, in the not-too-distant future, the biggest problems facing even the West would be energy, food supplies, and water. (If Piggins reads this, or any other Las Vegas residents, maybe they could tell us how the water supply is in Vegas. The hotels and casinos have plenty, but residents were restricted in their usage of water. Las Vegas is not the only community in the American southwest to be in this situation.)
Posts: 17470 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
