ENVIRONMENT: Sugar Cane Alcohol against the Greenhouse Effect

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 22 1997 (IPS) - Sugar cane alcohol could become an important weapon against the greenhouse effect, providing opportunities for economic success and environmental cooperation in the sugar cane producing nations.

This alcohol can be used as vehicle fuel without contributing to the greenhouse effect, an element which has led Brazilian producers to hold a meeting parallel to the Rio plus Five forum where scientists are discussing the question of climate change.

The Rio plus Five forum, running from Thursday Mar. 13 to Wednesday Mar.19 in Rio de Janeiro, planned to evaluate the progress achieved since the 1992 Earth Summit, and strategies to promote environmental action in the world.

This meeting led to plans for North-South cooperation to strengthen the fight against climate change in the developing countries.

Brazil will offer fuel alcohol and technology to India, which is interested in containing the increasing atmospheric contamination of its cities. The operation will be funded by European countries, possibly Switzerland and Sweden, said Cristiano Richers, an energy expert from the Swiss consultancy Dasag.

This is “a joint execution activity,” a new cooperation concept whereby the rich countries fund projects in the developing nations to fulfill the commitments imposed by the Climate Change Convention, signed in 1992.

Sugar cane alcohol reduces vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most dangerous of the greenhouse gases, to virtually zero, by completely substituting petrol, said Richers, a Swiss- Brazilian engineer promoting the new triangular operation.

The healthy effect was proven in Brazilian cities, the first country to use sugar cane alcohol as fuel for motor vehicles. However, the Brazilian programme to use alcohol as a petrol replacement is receding just when world interest in this alternative is really taking off.

Northern countries have tried experiments with ethanol and methanol produced from beet, maize, wheat and wood, but with poor results in reducing poisonous emissions, said the Dasag company.

The best results were seen with the beet product, with emissions of 110 to 210 grammes of CO2 per km – petrol emits around 250 grammes per km.

Whether the aim is to combat the greenhouse effect, the greatest world environmental problem for humanity, or simply to reduce air pollution, the amount of initiatives to substitute fossil fuels is multiplying.

The United States is developing an ethanol aggregate for petrol, especially in cities like Los Angeles, choked by pollution, and Stockholm, where there are already 180 alcohol fuelled buses, said Richers.

The transport sector is a priority objective, as this consumes a quarter of the primary energy used in the world and is the source of 22 percent of the CO2, he added.

Also, this is a rapid growth sector, increasing 50 percent between 1973 and 1990, with especially marked growth in the developing world.

In India there was an explosive increase in the quantity of vehicles in use, at a rate of 18 percent per year. Air contamination in New Delhi and another five cities already exceeds the maximum allowed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Hence the great interest in using the Brazilian sugar cane alcohol technology. A Brazil-India working group will negotiate the funding of the programme with Northern countries, said Richers.

Ruy de Souza Queiroz, owner of a sugar cane alcohol plant and union leader for the sector in Sao Paulo, said his industry would also be contributing to this project.

Brazil can supply the budding market and offers the lowest costs for alcohol production, said Queiroz, adding that he was sorry the Brazilian government was abandonning the petrol substitution programme.

For without the incentives they had received, the Brazilian car production lines “no longer build alcohol fuelled vehicles” – in the eighties, 90 percent of all the units made were alcohol powered.

The alcohol programme was brought in 21 years ago to face the oil crisis, when prices shot up. Brazil tried to reduce crude oil imports, but had not considered the environmental advantages which justify the renovation of the programme today.

The dismantling of Brazil’s alcohol programme was questioned by many of the non governmental organisations (NGOs) attending the Rio plus Five forum, along with representatives of the United Nations agencies and even Brazilian Vice-Minister of Environment Aspasia Camargo.

Ethanol costs more than petrol, and thus needs subsidies the world should handle as an environmental tax, said Richers. Brazil had invested large amounts of money over many years, marking the way forward, and it was only right that it should now reap the benefits, he added.

If the rich countries can be convinced of the advantages of sugar cane, a vast market will be opened for this raw material. And even adding five percent of ethanol to petrol in order to reduce CO2 emissions in Europe would represent a demand for 7.5 billion litres per year, more than half the total Brazilian production.

CO2 and the other greenhouse gases form a sort of blanket in the upper atmosphere, preventing the heat of the sun’s rays from escaping, causing the temperature of the Earth to increase.

If this process continues, the increase in temperature could melt the polar icecaps and lead to higher sea levels – a direct threat to low lying islands and coastal zones.