Brazil launched its ethanol program in 1975. Since then, alcohol has increasingly served as a substitute for costly imported oil. Three years after the country's ethanol program was launched, physicist Prof. José Goldemberg, 80, began calculating its economic and ecological value added. His findings attracted a great deal of interest worldwide and helped to achieve a breakthrough for ethanol fuel in Brazil and other countries. Goldemberg, who has also worked with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, was recently named one of Time magazine's "Heroes of the Environment" and in 2008 he received the Blue Planet Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan.
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How did you come up with the idea of studying ethanol fuel in the 1970s, when it was still an obscure topic?
Goldemberg I was working as a professor at the Institute of Physics of the University of São Paulo at the time, and a colleague from the agricultural economics department who was studying alcohol fuels asked me to help him. Even back then everyone knew replacing gasoline with ethanol was technically feasible. The problem was that until that point no one had calculated the precise energy balance. The fact is that it takes energy to produce ethanol, because you need energy for seeds, fertilizer, harvesting, transport, and distillation. The key question therefore was whether or not it made sense to produce ethanol at all. My studies clearly showed that every unit of fossil fuel energy used to produce ethanol from sugar cane ultimately yields ten times the energy originally expended. The reason for this is simple: sugar cane captures and stores solar energy and converts it into the sugar from which ethanol can be obtained. So in a way, Brazilian fuel made from alcohol is a type of solar energy.
So people who fill up with Brazilian ethanol instead of gasoline don't produce any additional CO2 emissions?
Goldemberg Yes, that's almost the case. Producing ethanol from sugar cane needs a certain amount of energy, which in turn leads to extra CO2 emissions. However, using ethanol instead of fossil fuels can result in an overall emission reduction of up to 90 % per unit of energy.
Does this also apply to ethanol produced elsewhere, or from different plants?
Goldemberg Unfortunately it only applies to a limited extent. Most of the ethanol produced in the U.S., for example, comes from corn. The overall energy balance here is much less positive. That's because the plants themselves contain less energy than sugar cane — but it also has to do with the fact that more machines are used in the U.S. for farming and harvesting, and you need energy from fossil fuels to operate all that equipment. This affects the CO2 balance, of course. It also costs twice as much to produce ethanol in the U.S. as it does in Brazil, and production costs in Europe are actually four times as high. Here in Brazil, we have the benefit of a climate with enough rainfall and a lot of sunshine.
How big is the Brazilian ethanol fuel market today?
Goldemberg We produce around 22 billion liters of ethanol a year over a total area of approximately 9.9 million acres. Around a quarter of all cars in Brazil, including all new ones, can run on ethanol. The Brazilian market for ethanol could triple in volume by 2020. Other countries, such as India, South Africa, Colombia, and many Caribbean nations, also have the conditions needed to achieve similarly good results.
Will ethanol one day be able to completely replace gasoline made from crude oil?
Goldemberg Ethanol can help to make our oil reserves last longer, and also to slow down climate change. According to my calculations, ethanol could replace 10 % of global gasoline consumption by 2020.
Doesn't producing ethanol from sugar lead to sugar cane monoculture and deforestation?
Goldemberg Sugar cane in Brazil is grown far from the Amazonian rain forest, so the idea that sugar cane cultivation destroys a great number of trees is a myth. The monoculture aspect does pose some concerns, however. Having served as environmental minister, I am aware of these problems. Nevertheless, our active environmental protection policy is producing very good results today. Among other things, monoculture has been banned in certain corridors, which has led to increased biodiversity — and not just locally. The authorities know very well that environmentally-friendly ethanol must not be allowed to negatively impact biodiversity.
Sugar cane yields other liquids, such as cachaça, the Brazilian sugar cane spirit used to make caipirinhas. Be honest with us: as a connoisseur, doesn't it seem a terrible waste to burn ethanol made of sugar cane in cars?
Goldemberg Let me just say that one tenth of a liter of cachaça a day is more than enough for most people. Cars, on the other hand, are really "heavy drinkers." My car consumes an average of ten liters of pure alcohol daily. Still, until now demand for fuel hasn't been putting distilleries producing "cachaça" out of business. That's not going to happen either, because we Brazilians love our national drink too much.
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