Originally published February 15 2006
U.S. energy policy responsible for lag behind Brazil in ethanol success
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The U.S. and Brazil produce the same amount of ethanol, about 4 billion gallons per year, yet the United States has in no way succeeded at integrating the fuel into mainstream use like Brazil has, and experts believe it is the absence of a strong energy policy that is responsible for the lack of ethanol use in the United States.
Tom Koehler, a marketer and builder of ethanol production plants, is more optimistic than ever about the future of the homegrown fuel as an alternative to gasoline.
The South American country is the world's leader in the production and use of ethanol.
Although Brazil and the United States produce about the same amount of ethanol each year - 4 billion gallons - Brazilians rely on sugar cane-based ethanol for 40 percent of their driving fuel.
By comparison, ethanol accounts for less than 5 percent of fuel use in the United States.
About 3 million vehicles in the United States have "flex-fuel engines" that allow them to use 85 percent ethanol, a high-octane fuel.
But to replicate Brazil's success, the United States would need an energy policy that pushes higher ethanol use and the increased manufacture of cars with engines that can run on a fuel mixture of 85 percent ethanol.
Lawmakers are looking at ethanol - especially the kind produced from crops other than corn - as one way to achieve their goal of reducing oil use in the United States by 2.5 million barrels per day by 2016.
Bills introduced in the House and the Senate call for carmakers to produce more flex-fuel cars - those that can run on either gasoline or high ethanol mixtures.
The legislation would provide for grants to build more alternative-fuel stations.
Pimentel said turning biomass materials such as corn into fuel is more costly than turning oil into gasoline when cultivation costs, the amount of energy used to produce ethanol, and environmental impacts are factored in.
Microsoft mogul Bill Gates is willing to gamble that ethanol has a future in the United States.
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