Overview

In Brazil, sugarcane ethanol supplied, in 2009, 17.6 % of the energy for land transportation (excluding railroads)and about 55% of the total energy supplied by liquid fuel for Otto cycle engines. Besides the lower production costs ethanol produced from sugarcane in Brazil has another important advantage: in Central-South Brazil only 1 unit of fossil energy is used for each 8-9 units of energy produced by ethanol from sugarcane. Carbon emissions reduction also benefits from sugarcane ethanol: for each cubic meter of ethanol used as fuel, there is net saving of around 2 t CO2 not emitted to the atmosphere while, at the same time, no SO2 is emitted. Sugarcane was introduced in Brazil in 1532. The Brazilian model of producing concomitantly sugar and ethanol, brought important technical benefits and made possible an outstanding increase in the competitiveness in the international market for sugar and ethanol. Today about 50% of the sucrose of sugarcane produced in the country is directed to the production of sugar while another half is used to produce Ethanol. Industrial and academic R&D has helped to increase the productivity of ethanol steadily over the past 35 years, at a rate of 3.2% per year. Productivity gains implied savings of planted area by a factor of 2.6. In 2009/2010 the area planted with sugarcane for Ethanol production was 4.2 Mha, amounting to 1% of the total arable land available in Brazil. About 60% of the Ethanol produced in Brazil comes from the State of Sao Paulo, where the productivity is the highest (around 86 t/ha.year). Most of the recent expansion is happening in the center-west region of the country, in degraded pasture lands. The FAPESP Program for Research on Bioenergy, BIOEN, aims at articulating public and private R&D, using academic and industrial laboratories to advance and apply knowledge in fields related to ethanol production in Brazil. The BIOEN Program has a solid core for supporting academic exploratory research activities that will generate new knowledge and form scientists and professionals essential for advancing industry capacity in ethanol related technologies. On top of this, BIOEN includes partnerships with industry for cooperative R&D activities between industrial and academic laboratories, which are to be co-funded by FAPESP and industry.Federal agencies, such as CNPq, will also co-fund the research.

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