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Biofuel Per Acre–Brazil Cleans Our Clock
By Mr Ethanol | June 22, 2007
Facts About Ethanol:
In “Brazil enjoys sugar power’s sweet success” (Financial Times, June 20, 2007), Jonathan Wheatley observes that whereas Brazil will produce about 4.6 billion gallons of ethanol this year “using about half the 16 million hectares of land planted with sugar cane,” the U.S. will produce “4.9 billion gallons from 78 million hectares” of corn.
By my back of the envelope, those numbers mean that, per unit of land, Brazilian ethanol is about eight times more productive than U.S. ethanol.
The economics of ethanol production may increasingly favor Brazil as output increases, because whereas “land in the US is scarce, Brazil has enormous scope for expansion.”
So why aren’t Americans putting greener, cheaper Brazilian ethanol in their tanks? Because “a US ethanol tariff set at 54 cents a gallon means that Brazil’s biggest potential export market is all but out of reach.”
Topics: Biofuel, Brazil, Ethanol, Gas, Prices, Real Estate |
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June 28th, 2007 at 10:51 am
That’s not really a fair comparison. Given the ultimate driving force behind biofuel production (solar energy), it’s logical that a tropical country is going to have higher energy output/area cultivated.
But just imagine where those numbers would go with the same area dedicated to biodiesel production. Sugars and starches just aren’t going to cut it in the long-term. While I welcome anything that cuts into the petroleum-based energy market, ultimately the energy production of a lipid-oriented approach will beat the sugar/starch model.