The U.S. has a really stupid policy on sugar ethanol

[ema1970]

The U.S. has a really stupid policy on sugar ethanol
By Thomas Friedman

The New York Times

I asked Dr. Jose Goldemberg, secretary for the environment for São Paulo state and a pioneer of Brazil's ethanol industry, the obvious question: Is the fact that the U.S. has imposed a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to prevent Americans from importing sugar ethanol from Brazil "just stupid or really stupid?"

Thanks to pressure from Midwest farmers and agribusinesses, who want to protect the U.S. corn ethanol industry from competition from Brazilian sugar ethanol, we have imposed a stiff tariff to keep it out. We do this even though Brazilian sugar ethanol provides eight times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it, while American corn ethanol provides only 1.3 times the energy of the fossil fuel used to make it. We do this even though sugar ethanol reduces greenhouses gases more than corn ethanol. And we do this even though sugar cane ethanol can easily be grown in poor tropical countries in Africa or the Caribbean, and could actually help alleviate their poverty.

Yes, you read all this right. We tax imported sugar ethanol, which could finance our poor friends, but we don't tax imported crude oil, which definitely finances our rich enemies. We'd rather power anti-Americans with our energy purchases than promote anti-poverty.

"It's really stupid," answered Goldemberg.

If I seem upset about this, I am. Development and environmental experts have long searched for environmentally sustainable ways to alleviate rural poverty — especially for people who live in places like Brazil, where there is a constant temptation to log the Amazon. Sure, ecotourism and rain forest soap are nice, but they never really scale. As a result, rural people in Brazil are always tempted go back to logging or farming sensitive areas.

Ethanol from sugar cane could be a scalable, sustainable alternative — if we are smart and get rid of silly tariffs, and if Brazil is smart and starts thinking right now about how to expand its sugar cane biofuel industry without harming the environment.

The good news is that sugar cane doesn't require irrigation and can't grow in much of the Amazon, because it is too wet. So if the Brazilian sugar industry does realize its plan to grow from 15 million to 25 million acres over the next few years, it need not threaten the Amazon.

However, sugar cane farms are mostly in south-central Brazil, around São Paulo, and along the northeast coast, on land that was carved out of drier areas of the Atlantic rain forest, which has more different species of plants and animals per acre than the Amazon. Less than 7 percent of the total Atlantic rain forest remains — thanks to sugar, coffee, orange plantations and cattle grazing.

I flew in a helicopter over the region near São Paulo, and what I saw was not pretty: mansions being carved from forested hillsides near the city, rivers that have silted because of logging right down to the banks, and wide swaths of forest that have been cleared and will never return.

"It makes you weep," said Gustavo Fonseca, my traveling companion, a Brazilian and the executive vice president of Conservation International. "What I see here is a totally human-dominated system in which most of the biodiversity is gone."

As demand for sugar ethanol rises, and that is a good thing for Brazil and the developing world, said Fonseca, "we have to make sure that the expansion is done in a planned way."

Over the past five years, the Amazon has lost 7,700 square miles a year, most of it for cattle grazing, soybean farming and palm oil. A similar expansion for sugar ethanol could destroy the cerrado, the Brazilian savannah, another incredibly species-rich area, and the best place in Brazil to grow more sugar.

A proposal is floating around the Brazilian government for a major expansion of the sugar industry, far beyond even the industry's plans. No wonder environmental activists are holding a conference in Germany this fall about the impact of biofuels. I could see some groups one day calling for an ethanol boycott — a la genetically modified foods — if they feel biofuels are raping the environment.

We have the tools to resolve these conflicts. We can map the lands that need protection for their biodiversity or the environmental benefits they provide rural communities. But sugar farmers, governments and environmentalists need to sit down early — like now — to identify those lands and commit the money needed to protect them. Otherwise, we will have a fight over every acre, and sugar ethanol will never realize its potential. That would be really, really stupid.

Thomas Friedman is a New York Times columnist.

source : http://www.thinkfn.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8038


PS : i have a non profitable chat room http://chatshack.net/ema666 if you are alone go there.

[rffrydr]

At long last, importing from Brazil to meet quota.

Meanwhile:

[rffrydr]

Don't know what this says about GM's new foray into waste recovery based ethanol production but says alot about the separation of money and deed:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aIDZ.W2jAOOw&refer=home

[These guys not so worried: http://ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=3607 ]
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

A little less stupid:

http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/01/14/sen-charles-schumer-introduces-bill-to-repeal-ethanol-tariff-says-38-percent-milk-price-increases-are-intolerable-for-consumers/
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Cellulosic ethanol production to start ramping up next year, but still very much in the beginning stages. Costs will need to be slashed at least 50% before it becomes viable in the long-run (assuming $80 oil):
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Range says will make wood cellulosic fuel in 2008

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private company Range Fuels broke ground on Tuesday on a biorefinery that will be the first plant to make commercial levels of cellulosic ethanol starting next year, its CEO said.

Range Fuels is one of six companies that will receive a total of about $385 million in grants from the Department of Energy for making cellulosic fuel.

The biorefinery is being built in Georgia, home to large swaths of private forest land. It will initially make 20 million gallons per year of ethanol from sawdust, pine trees and wood bits left over from cutting down lumber. It is slated to eventually grow to 100 million gpy of production.

Mitch Manditch, the CEO of Range Fuels, said ideally the plant would use mostly wood waste as a feedstock.

"That's our preference, just to keep costs down, because no one else wants that wood," he said in a telephone interview.

Making cellulosic ethanol currently costs about twice as much as U.S. traditional ethanol made mostly from corn. But industry experts estimate that costs will fall enough to let cellulosic become a commercial fuel in several years, one that will emit less greenhouse gases and won't use up prime farm land like corn-based ethanol does.

ETHANOL GLUT

U.S. ethanol refining capacity has shot up 30 percent since Jan 1. to 7 billion gpy as the Bush administration offers companies incentives to make a domestic source of fuel. Record oil prices near $100 a barrel and concerns about greenhouse gases have also fueled a rise to cellulosic ethanol.

But the boom has helped lead to low ethanol prices and high corn prices that have crushed margins for making the fuel. Since wood waste is far cheaper as a feedstock, Range hopes the plant would eventually be more profitable than corn biorefineries.

Cellulosic ethanol is made from breaking down the woody bits of plants. A whole new range of crops that grow on marginal lands, such as switchgrass, can be used.

When the final Range plant is completed, it will cost several hundred million dollars, Manditch said. The plant will receive up to $76 million from the DOE.

Range is funded in part by venture capitalists including Vinod Khosla, a top Silicon Valley investor who is also helping to fund U.S. biofuels company Cilion and other alternative energy companies.

Manditch said Range will use a thermal conversion process to make the fuel, unlike most other companies that are planning to make it with enzymes to break down the tough feedstocks. He said Range Fuel ethanol will emit about 75 to 80 percent less greenhouse gas than ethanol made from corn. Part of the emissions are saved because the plant will not ferment the feedstock, a process used in corn ethanol, he said.

The thermal process can also break down other feedstocks, such as switchgrass, Manditch said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Editing by Marguerita Choy)

[rffrydr]

From panacea to pariah.

Overview:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119621238761706021.html
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

And the headline: "Trapped between two commodities"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/business/30ethanol.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

At $80 Crude! The irony tells you it's for real.
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

margins:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/20/ethanol-alternative-energy-markets-equity-cx_cg_0920markets33.html?partner=yahootix
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey, on gasoline prices, the economics of ethanol, and global warming:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/07/10/fa.lundberg.qa/index.html

[rffrydr]

Brazil's cheap sugar-based ethanol may have hidden costs. File under, Nothing is Obvious:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c0c95512-2b32-11dc-85f9-000b5df10621.html
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

In all the excitement about corn they forgot to plant soybeans:

http://www.futuresource.com/quotes/quotes.jsp?s=S


http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=402837287&play=1
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[rffrydr]

Hedge Funds and Index Funds long 20% of (world) record crop on last month's "drought." With Ethanol flows at, or past, blending capacity this could get ugly if crop comes in.

http://economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9378875
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday!

[HenryTo]

Scientists turning to gene-sequencing in order to make more energy-efficient biofuels, including ethanol:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18958/

[nodoodahs]

[HenryTo]

Another must-read.

[HenryTo]

A more efficient way to produce ethanol - genetically engineering corn that can turn their leaves and stems into sugar by breaking down cellulose. Courtesy of Technology Review:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18741/