Agência Brasil*
Rio de Janeiro – Brazil may double or triple alcohol production over the next 15 years. However, this expansion is not infinite and needs to be executed in a planned and careful manner, in the evaluation of professor José Goldemberg, of the Electro-technique and Energy Institute at the University of São Paulo (USP) and former secretary of environment of the state of São Paulo.
Goldemberg supplied various figures about the matter. Brazil produces around 17 billion litres of fuel alcohol per year. According to him, this production reflects an economy of around 40% of the petrol that would be used in the country if ethanol did not exist.
The specialist made these evaluations in a radio interview in Rio de Janeiro yesterday (7). He recalls that, apart from being an important product on the domestic market, ethanol has a very competitive price. "The industry is entirely in the hands of the private initiative, and there is practically no subsidy to production of fuel alcohol, as there was in the past, making the product very competitor," he said.
In the evaluation of Goldemberg, the United States and Europe are following a route that Brazil has been on for over 20 years on introducing alcohol to petrol, as an additive. The difference is that, in the case of the United States, ethanol is produced from maize, and in Europe the product is made from beetroots.
*Translated by Mark Ament
