Brazil, US look for an ethanol alliance

Bush's visit will focus on a partnership promoting a fuel that's cleaner, cheaper, and more readily available than oil.

By Andrew Downie | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 8, 2007 edition

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CERQUILHO, BRAZIL - It is a boiling hot summer day in rural São Paulo state and all you can see for miles is sugar cane. Jose Pilon and his family have been producing cane here since 1946, and they've been turning it into ethanol for fuel since 1975.

More than 10 years ago, a host of US and Brazilian officials visited the plant and went away convinced that ethanol was the fuel of the future. The US Governors' Ethanol Commission and the Brazilian Committee of Ethanol and Sugar Producers signed an agreement then to work together "to expand production and use of ethanol worldwide."

Nothing happened. Until now.

"Finally," Mr. Pilon says of the sudden US interest. "[President] Bush is finally paying attention. Oil prices are high and there is a lot of environmental pressure. You get what you want if you persist."

Mr. Bush arrives in Brazil Thursday on the first leg of a five-nation Latin American tour. The main focus of his two-day stop here is how the US and Brazil – which together produce more than 70 percent of the world's ethanol – can work together to promote a fuel that is both cleaner, cheaper, and more readily available than oil.

In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush set a target to boost ethanol and other alternative fuel production to 35 billion gallons a year by 2017 – a fivefold increase. But production of ethanol from US corn, which is more expensive and less efficient than Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, is expected to fall far short of meeting such an increase.

Brazil's 'window of opportunity'

Thanks to the experience of people like the Pilons, Brazil is in an excellent position to take advantage of America's growing interest. Brazil has decades of experience in producing sugar cane and a pool of scientists with the research, development, and logistical expertise to turn it into ethanol.

"Brazil is considered the world leader and this is a window of opportunity for Brazil because we know that in the near future we are going to increase renewable energy sources," says Alessandro Teixeira, president of the National Agency for Industrial Development (ABID) and one of the Brazilian officials scheduled to meet with Bush. "Brazil has developed technologies, research, people, and production. The world's leading economy recognizes that we are the leader."

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