Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply - Embrapa

Alcohol is used mixed with gasoline in the following countries: Brazil,
the USA, the EU, Mexico, India, Argentina, Colombia, and more recently Japan.
Only in Brazil is alcohol used as a fuel. In Brazil, in the 1980s and 1990s,
technological innovations, modern business practices and scale gains - made
possible by the Pro-alcohol Program (Proálcool) combined to draw a learning
curve that resulted in reduced alcohol production costs and prices compatible
with those of gasoline (Figure 10).
Alcohol can be obtained from several biomass sources. To date,
however, the most viable has proven to be sugarcane. Large investments are
being made to enable alcohol production from cellulose, and it is estimated
that the USA could obtain close to 30-billion liters of alcohol from this source
by 2020. It will be necessary to invest heavily in RD&I, especially in the
hydrolysis of cellulose. To avoid a competitiveness shock, Brazil must invest
in the same line of research, whose potential is extremely promising.
Enormous environmental benefits are associated with the use of alcohol:
CO 2 emissions would be reduced by almost 2.3 tons per ton of fuel alcohol
used instead of fossil fuels, not counting other emissions, such as SO 2 .
Figure 10. Learning curve of the sugarcane ethanol price.
Source: Goldemberg, J. Seminário BNDES sobre Competitividade do etanol brasileiro, 2003.
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