ENVIRONMENT-ECONOMY: Sugar-Alcohol to Prevent Pollution

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 10 1998 (IPS) - Business and government officials have welcomed the results of tests that indicate air pollution in Brazilian urban areas can be reduced by adding hydrated alcohol made from sugar to diesel fuel.

Sao Paulo’s Institute for Technological Research, with help from the Ministry of Science and Technology, found a 22 percent decrease in carbon monoxide emissions when 10 percent hydrated alcohol was added to diesel fuel.

According to Alfredo Szwarc, the coordinator of the research project which is sponsored by the Union of Sugar Cane Agroindustry (UNICA), the association of sugar and alcohol producers of the state of Sao Paulo, the mixture also yields a 35 percent reduction in particles and a 10 percent reduction in hydrocarbons.

These environmental advantages, he noted, are offset by a 1.7 percent increase in the cost of fuel and a 4 percent increase in fuel consumption.

Still, industry and government are interested in Brazil using alcohol because the country currently produces a surplus of 1,800 million litre per year, a phenomenon which brings down the prices of alcohol and sugar, which is derived from the same raw material. Just to pay the storage costs for this surplus, the government recently had to approve preferential credits totaling some 400 million dollars. According to Sergio Ometto, president of UNICA, producers had been demanding these credits for five years.

For large cities like Sao Paulo, which confront massive air contamination problems, the benefits of cleaner air were obvious. During the winter season, there always is a rise in mortality as a result of respiratory problems, particularly among children and the elderly.

In an effort to avoid these problems, the city has implemented restrictions on the circulation of vehicles whereby one-fifth of all cars are taken out of circulation during weekdays. But the citys 11,000 buses, the central form of urban transport, continue to be one of the main sources of pollution due to their use of low-grade diesel fuel . This exacerbates the problem and has created the need for these specific rese arch projects on adding alcohol to fuel, according to Claudio Manesco from UNICA.

The case of Sweden, which adds 15 percent of hydrated alcohol to the diesel fuel used in buses, is not applicable to Brazil because there diesel fuel is made with a petroleum derivative that is of much higher quality, Manesco explained.

Australia, Germany, Chile, the United States and Thailand have also conducted studies which have yielded varied results. The bottom line, however, is that few have proven the practice effective when used in transport, he said.

In order to for the alcohol-diesel fuel mixture to be successful, a second study must be completed on the effects of any corrosion that hydrated alcohol will cause in the engines of buses and trucks. Manesco foresees that this study will not be completed until next year.

In spite of producers interest in a new market for their alcohol, they will not accept the mixture until its technical viability is guaranteed, said Joao Guilhereme Ometto, another UNICA fuel expert.

Brazil currently imports close to 900 million dollars worth of diesel fuel annually, which makes it the most widely consumed petroleum derivative in the country, where trucks and buses are the main form of freight and passenger transport.

Since national consumption of diesel fuel reaches some 30 billion liters each year, the mixture being considered would create a potential market for three billion litres of alcohol, close to 20 percent of the countrys yearly alcohol producti on.

Brazilian automobiles already use gasoline fuel that contains 24 percent of hydrated alcohol. The government raised the percentage from 22 percent in order to reduce pollution. Local producers are also trying to export alcohol to the United States.

The problem, however, is in the fact that almost the entire surplus of alcohol consists of hydrated alcohol, which is 6.8 percent water. This fuel is intended for use by alcohol powered cars as part of a gasoline substitution program that has been in place in 1975.

During the past few years, production alcohol-powered cars has all but disappeared as a result of the reduction of subsidies for alternative fuel. Currently there are attempts to revive the program, forcing state and federal governments to use only alcohol- powered cars.

The mixture of alcohol and diesel fuel would create a new market, thus contributing to maintain current levels of production in an industry that employs more than one million workers. (FIN-IPS- tra-mo-ag-en-if-mg-mk-98)