Orlando Volpato, Delphi - AEA – Associação Brasileira de ...

There are some studies that assess the emissions of green house gases for the
complete fuel cycle [24]; from those studies the use of 1 liter of diesel fuel emits
about 3.14 Kg of equivalent CO2 into the atmosphere. See table 3 below.
The use of 1 liter of ethanol for the propulsion of engines, emits about 0.37 Kg of
equivalent CO2, it is not zero because fossil fuels are still used in the process; like
fertilizers, agro toxics, paints, diesel, etc.
Considering energy equivalence the substitution of ethanol for diesel avoids the
emission of 2.52 Kg of equivalent CO2 per liter.
Table 3: CO2 cycle for diesel vs. ethanol
Using a substitution ratio of 60% to all diesel-burning engines avoids the emission of
about 1.7 million tons of CO2 into atmosphere, per harvest season. See figure 9
below.
Fig. 9: Considerações: 50% Diesel substituído por etanol; 100% frota
Potencial de evitação de CO2: 1.7 milhões de Toneladas
A fringe benefit of this is that CDM (clean development models) can be made and
negotiated in the terms of the Kyoto protocol in order to finance the development of
technologies to further reduce the use of fossil fuels.
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