Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Editorial: Brazil's sweet independence
It took decades, but ethanol from sugar cane ensures Brazilians produce more energy than they consume.
From the RoundTable blog
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When Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Brazil's intention to become energy independent by the end of the year, he was standing on a deep-sea oil rig in the South Atlantic.
Oil pumped from that rig, and others like it, may be what puts Brazil over the edge in its effort to produce as much energy as it consumes.
But without 30 years of constant experimentation and effort in developing renewable sources of energy, Brazil would still be millions of barrels short of true independence.
Unlike the United States, which quickly forgot about the energy crisis of the 1970s, Brazil began serious work on easing dependence not just on foreign oil, but all fossil fuels.
Currently, 40 percent of that South American nation's energy needs are met by renewable sources, mostly ethanol produced from sugar cane.
The effort didn't always go smoothly. Motorists who bought the first ethanol-burning cars were left stranded when the price of sugar spiked in the late '80s, and mill owners used all the available cane for sugar rather than ethanol.
But in recent years, flex-fuel cars have become extremely popular in Brazil. The same price as ordinary cars, these vehicles will burn ethanol or ordinary gas -- or any mixture of the two.
Brazil's drivers simply use whichever fuel is cheapest.
More than 70 percent of cars sold in Brazil today have these flex engines.
The United States is decades behind, both in efforts to maximize the energy output of ethanol and in implementing flex-fuel technology.
The oil industry executives in charge of writing the U.S. energy policy would like to drill the nation's way out of this crisis. But that's unrealistic, and even if it were possible to domestically produce every drop of oil needed, America would not be shielded from global price shocks in the oil market.
A renewable, reliable, economic oil substitute is vital to ending the nation's dependence on oil.
Brazil has blazed a path. The United States should find the dedication and will to follow.
