There is growing interest in bio-fuels as a means for “modernizing” biomass use while helping to address energy cost in developing countries, and as a means for providing greater access to clean liquid fuels while helping to address energy security and global warming concerns associated with petroleum fuels in developed nations.

Brazil’s leadership in this field is undisputable. Decades of public and private sector investment in agro-energy have positioned the country as the world leader in the efficient production of bio-fuels. There is no agriculturally-based fuel produced today that can compete with Brazilian sugarcane ethanol.

Ethanol use in Brazil as an automotive fuel started in the 1930s and was extensively promoted after the two major oil shocks of the 1970s; ethanol is used either as a gasoline additive or as a gasoline substitute. In addition to responding to the quadrupling of world oil prices in 1973, the ethanol program was also a means of assisting the sugar industry in times of low international sugar prices. More recently, Brazilian large-scale bio-ethanol production has soared again thanks to international oil price spikes and a new technology of flex-fuel vehicles using fairly typical gasoline engines. The Brazilian experience with ethanol as a gasoline complement and with the use flex-fuel vehicles, along with widespread improvements in automotive fuel economy, offers important lessons for the use of renewable energy in general, and bio-fuels in particular, throughout the world.

Roberto Schaeffer teaches and conducts research in the Energy Planning Program (PPE), Coordination for Postgraduate Programs in Engineering (COPPE), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, where he is currently an associate professor in Energy Economics.