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11/10/08 Brazil’s achievement more important than foreign-oil relief |
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By Peter Forman It has not done so but it has accomplished something much more important. Some background first… Beginning with the oil shocks of the early 1970s, Brazil began a concerted effort to break its dependence on oil in the transportation sector. It was a military dictatorship at the time and that made political consensus, of course, much easier to achieve. It required all new cars, over a period of time to be flex-fuel compatible. For readers not familiar, flex-fuel is a long-established method of powering cars. In fact, the Model-T was flex-fuel. Today, for the relatively modest cost of $100 per vehicle, for new cars and trucks coming out of the factory, vehicles can run on any mix of gasoline and various bio-fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, and butanol. As a practical matter, bio-fuels present the only short- to mid-term credible alternative to gasoline. It can be manufactured (grown and refined) domestically as opposed to acquired from a limited number of repressive, regressive regimes, like oil. (America consumes 7.5 billion barrels (not gallons) of oil a year of which 4.5 billion are imported.)
Over this 30 year period, Brazil has indeed become independent of foreign-oil. But it has achieved that only in part through flex-fueling. It has also drilled and discovered vast additional reserves of oil off its coast. So, the detractors who say that Brazil has not achieved its energy freedom from ethanol are technically correct. But there is a more important accomplishment--bio-fuels have helped to turn oil into a non-strategic commodity.
Others use the example of salt. Before the invention of refrigeration, salt was a key part of food preservation. Wars were fought throughout history for access to and control over it.[1] Today, it seems hard to relate to the seventeenth-century British leaders who fretted over and planned to alleviate their "dangerous national dependence" on French sea salt. So, how much salt does the US currently import? Few know or care--because it is no longer a strategic commodity.
Brazil has begun to turn oil into salt. It has made it a much less strategically important commodity. While not at the level of strategic unimportance as salt, in large part due to its flex-fuel efforts, Brazil no longer cares as much what happens to the price and availability of foreign oil. Today Brazil consumes ethanol for over 50% of its vehicle transportation fuels--and it is continuing to increase market share rapidly. And this is the opportunity for America. Oil imports represent about 60% of our total oil consumption--a decidedly risky reliance on others. With its vast unused farmlands (520 million acres out of 800 million acres not farmed, about 65%--see chart), America has substantial opportunity to grow corn-based, sugarcane-based, and cellulosic ethanol. Furthermore, other bio-fuels such as methanol can be made from wood and waste products and from algae. China is currently moving ahead with deploying methanol for commercial use and methanol has been used extensively to power race cars.
With respect to deployment of flex-fuel technology and bio-fuels, the United States is not an authoritarian government like Brazil was. As such, we have a chicken and egg problem today. People have little interest in flex-fueled cars because there is nowhere to fill-up. And gas station owners have no interest in putting it into their underground tanks because there are few cars that can consume it. There are 7 million cars on the US roads that are flex-fuel yet the owners don't know it since there are no obvious markings. Congress is considering legislation, the Open-Fuel Standard Act of 2008 (which can be found at http://movebeyondoil.org/index_files/OpenFuelStandardsAct.htm). It would require that 50% of new vehicles be able to run a flex-fuel mix of gasoline, methanol and 85% ethanol by 2012 and 80% of new cars by 2015. Experts believe that it would immediately begin to stimulate additional investment in a wide range of additional bio-fuel production and expect that gas station owners would begin the conversion when about 25% of vehicles passing through were flex-fuel. Furthermore, by declaring a path to a higher level of energy independence, it would immediately begin to shift the geo-political landscape towards the United States.
There are broad ancillary benefits to this flex-fuel transportation economy including vast new jobs in agriculture and refining, keeping dollars in the US, diminishing funding for countries that oppose our values and interests, diminishing the geo-political influence of Iran, Russia, OPEC, and Venezuela, creating new industries for otherwise impoverished nations, and strengthening the US economy overall. Support the path to economic and national security strength through a diversified, competitive world of flex fuels. Support the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2008 with your legislators Support the path to move beyond oil.
MoveBeyondOil.org |
![Text Box: [i]Winds Shift for Renewable Energy As Oil Price Sinks, Money Gets Tight.
[ii] Alternative Energy Suddenly Faces Headwinds.
[iii] Ibid ii.
[iv] Drivers Not Lured by Lower Gas Prices.
[v] Ibid ii.
[vi] Renewable Energy Policies and Markets in the United States.](image3872.gif)
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