Brazil At Center Of Worldwide Ethanol BoomBy Todd J. Gillman
The Dallas Morning News
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PIRACICABA, Brazil - As far as Luciano Almeida can see, the future is sweet. His office is a hundred miles or so up the "sugar highway" from São Paulo, past endless fields of cane almost ready to cut. When the harvest comes in, machinery that his family sells will help turn it into sugar for cooking, and ethanol for driving. Refineries owned by his family will get a piece of the booming world demand, growing so fast he doesn't worry a bit about the $150 million he's investing to build another one.
"We already have markets," he shrugged. "It's going like a rocket to the moon. Everybody's buying ethanol. Europe, Japan, the United States. The volume you need is so much, you can't produce it yourself."
President Bush arrived in Brazil on Thursday night, and his first stop Friday morning will be at an ethanol facility owned by PetroBras, the country's energy conglomerate. Bush, on a five-country tour of Latin America, is encouraging the biofuel industry at home and around Latin America.
"The alternative fuel issue is a huge issue for the United States. We're too dependent on oil," Bush said before leaving home. "Brazil has been very successful, so it gives us common ground to talk."
He and his Brazilian counterpart, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, want to expand sugarcane-based ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean, both to promote development and to foster a global market. Bush has called for a 20 percent cut in U.S. gasoline use over the next decade, which translates into a 35-billion-gallon demand for ethanol and other biofuels - far beyond the current capacity of the U.S. and Brazil, which account for 70 percent of world production.
Brazil has long been a leader in alternative fuels. Most cars here are flex-fuel, so they can run on any combination of gasoline and ethanol, and filling stations are required to offer both. The country became energy self-sufficient last year, and it's building new refineries and expanding sugarcane production. Output is expected to grow 50 percent in three years and tenfold in the next decade.
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Link:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/world/16864078.htmIt is SO WONDERFUL, that our President is going there to learn from, and to show support of, our foreign brothers and sisters in energy renewal and independence.
WOW... Who'd a thunk it???
NOT ME!!!
:puke:
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