Brazil’s 30-year-old ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugar cane as feedstock, the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used for process heat and power, which results in a very competitive price and also in a high energy balance (output energy/input energy), which varies from 8.3 for average conditions to 10.2 for best practice production.[8]The Brazilian ethanol program provided nearly 700,000 jobs in 2003, and cut 1975–2002 oil imports by a cumulative undiscounted total of US$50 billion.[9] The production of ethanol is concentrated in the Center and Southeast regions of the country, which includes the main producer, São Paulo State. These two regions were responsible for almost 90% of Brazil's ethanol production in 2004.[8]
There are no longer light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. Since 1977 the government made mandatory to blend 20% of ethanol (E20) with gasoline (gasohol), requiring just a minor adjustment on regular gasoline motors. Today the mandatory blend is allowed to vary nationwide between 20% to 25% ethanol (E25) and it is used by all regular gasoline vehicles, plus three million cars running on 100% anhydrous ethanol, and five million dual or flexible-fuel vehicles. The Brazilian car manufacturing industry developed flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on any proportion of gasoline and ethanol.[10] Introduced in the market in 2003, these vehicles became a commercial success,[11] and by March 2008, the fleet of "flex" cars and light commercial vehicles had reached 5 million new vehicles sold,[12] which represents around 10% of Brazil's motor vehicle fleet and 15.6% of all light vehicles.[13] The success of "flex" vehicles, as they are popularly known, together with the mandatory use of E25 blend of gasoline throughout the country, allowed Brazil in 2006 to achieve more than 40% of fuel consumption from sugar cane-based ethanol for the light vehicle fleet,[14][2] and represents almost 20% of total fuel consumption in the road transport sector when trucks and other diesel-powered vehicles are considered.[15]

Check Link for more Info

-- Modified on 6/8/2008 10:34:07 AM

But until then, we should call you crackhead Kerrakles.  That has a nice sound to it.

Brazil has energy independence cause they went on a crash program to drill for oil in the ocean TEN YEARS AGO and they struck BLACK GOLD.

Willie had a hard-on Willie (for you folks in Rio Linda, that means boner) cause he was talking about raising TAXES.

You must read the IBD article. It is very informative and you will learn much.

Brazil has energy independence because they don't use nearly as much oil as the USA.

I wrote a paper for a class recently from an article I had read in TIME MAGAZINE about the usage of bio fuels around the globe. From what I understand, although alternative energy programs are helping with our current oil crisis, the amount of soybeans, corn etc that are being used up in creating biofuel, actually is destroying farmlands and forests. In addition it is creating a shortage of food in developing countries and is thus harming food production and decreasing land productivity too. So, its not really a win-win situation after all.--Sitara Devi

I was pointing out that Brazil just doesn't burn as much oil as the USA.

While the USA is busy pumping ammo into sand dunes, the rest of the world is collecting IOUs for that ammo.

Wars are usually won by the #3 country which stood by and stayed out of the fight, and they're usually lost by generals who are busy fighting the last war.

Bush doesn't get it - at this rate, we are going to run out of ammo before we shoot all the terrorists - the war will be determined by economics, and that is the reason smart generals understand what they CAN'T do, and don't try to do things they will inevitably waste resources on.

You can kill people and destroy things with armies, and sometimes that is necessary or useful.  But you cannot make a person want to be like you, or leave you in peace, by shoving a bayonet in his face, or by killing his brother-in-law, no matter how richly he may have deserved it.

Calculate the lost opportunity costs of misconceived wars, and you will begin to understand why Ike meant when he said that every round is eventually taken from the mouth of some child.   I will acknowledge that wars are de facto population control, but frankly, rubbers or bukakke are much cheaper and way more fun.

It's not that Republicans don't know that.  They do.  They're just ignorant assholes.

The king of all kick-ass common sense generals, Smedley Butler, the only man to receive 3 MOHs (counting 1 brevet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Of course Brazil doesn't use as much oil as the US but ethanol is only part of the reason.  To start with there are 1/3 fewer people in Brazil and it doesn't have the industrial base that the US does. There are 80% fewer cars in Brazil and the cars that are in use in Brazil are largely smaller, more economical and fuel efficient models, not SUVs. Finally, the population centers and commuting patterns are different.  There's no sense of suburbia as there is in the US.  Workers live in the cities and commute via public transportation; bus, train and subway.

You can find articles of absurdity on any subject, for and against. Not sure what the author is smoking when he wrote the article.  Brazil does not have that much crude oil of its own per world petroleum institute.

Hey, I am not partisan who belongs to right or the left, neither do I imbibe all the crap they push down everyone's throat.

It is our Government and the Special Interest Groups in combination with corporate greed that is fucking all of us including you.

Take the big car, small car and not as big as us and shove it, Below is the evidence.

Flexible-fuel vehicles in Europe

For a long time Ford Taurus was the only flexible-fuel vehicle sold in Sweden. It was later replaced by Ford Focus. In 2005 Saab began selling its 9-5 2.0 Biopower (joined in 2006 by its 9-5 2.3 Biopower), and Volvo its S40 and V50 with flexible-fuel engines.[16] In 2007, Saab also started selling a BioPower version of its popular Saab 9-3 line. The Saab-derived Cadillac BLS will also be available with E85 compatible engines in 2008.
There are also plans of selling E85 fuel, and then some flexible-fuel vehicles, in other European countries:
- In October 2005, the Ford Focus FFV became the first flexible-fuel vehicle to be commercially sold in Ireland. E-85 is available throughout a limited number of Maxol service stations in the Republic. Redesigned Ford C-MAX FFV may be sold there in 2007.

- Ford offers the Focus (all three models) since August 2005 in Germany. Ford is about to offer also the Mondeo and other models as FFV versions between 2007 and 2010. - Renault and PSA (Citroen & Peugeot) announced to start selling FFV cars from summer 2007.

The Koenigsegg CCXR is currently the fastest and most powerful flexible fuel vehicle with its twin-supercharged V8 producing 1018hp when running on biofuel (compared to 806hp on 91 octane (US) unleaded gasoline).[citations needed

By the way, there is no reason to use any food grain to produce Biofuel and that is another hand out of tax payer money to big farm companies like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).  

It looks like you are the one smoking crack, not I.


-- Modified on 6/9/2008 3:35:05 AM

The USA must drill for oil in the oceans, build refineries and reduce the number of gasoline formulas.

And as for all those cars you mentioned, compression engines are going to beat out out flexible fuel engines.

Osama is an Arab in Afghanistan, so we have to invade Iraq!

the primary reason they are "independent" is that their levels of usage are closer to 3rd world than the US.

We doubt that bio-fuels are much of an answer.   We suspect that the "answer" will be in combinations of  (a) increased economies and plain lower usage; (b) new energy sources, to include solar, wind, nuclear, coal and new oil.   You can't get around the competition for resources - it's just a matter of how you manage it.

You can't do something - like tool around in an Abrams SUV - and think that there won't be consequences.  It's entirely a matter of dealing with the consequences, and of course the best plan is always to blame somebody else, especially when you can actually make people believe it.

What seems most likely is actual cultural changes, like e-mail instead of physical transport.   One of these days the Republiscum will figure out that fucking is more fun than fighting, and one of these days the Democrats will figure out that nobody wants to fuck Andrea Dworkin.  Even more now that she's a corpse!  Well, unless of course you're a Republiscum.  I'm sure they could get into that.

OTOH, I think a nice bukakke session with Catherine MacKinnon would be good clean fun.  You really gotta feel sorry for anybody who thinks all sex is rape - maybe we could cheer her up.

eco-weenies inspired by The Inventor of The Internet but these people are too stooopid to admit it.

So----pretty soon--the world's gonna be using 170 million barrels of oil per day instead of 85 million!!!

The world is gonna run out of oil!!?!!!  aaaah!! aaaaah!!!!!

We need more nuke power plants.  McCain should promise a chicken in every pot---er no--- a nuke power plant for every state.

and they don't discriminate!  They strave their own people, too!

Eco-weenies inspired by The Inventor?  You think nobody else could think of this on their own, and it never happened before Gore?  Kind of like Fascists inspired by TER Republiscum?

which are (1) don't ask questions or worry about facts, (2) Pray to jesus and pay your money to the RNC agents.

McCain is going to have to do more than promise.  He could start by distancing himself from Bush's failed policies of ideological ignorance over 10 minutes of level headed thought.    A good plan would be for him to start an Assassination PAC, and assassinate everybody working in the White House within the past year, making over $50K a year.

Except that new press secretary.  Can't be wasting perfectly good talent.

That Brazil, thanks mainly to their millions upon millions of acres of sugar cane had made ethanol a limited success in their country. It is and will continue to be a dismal failure in this country.

Using food(corn) in a hugely inefficient attempt to replace petroleum at taxpayer expense is one of the worst ideas in a generation. Virtually everyone knows it's a bad idea, but we keep pouring billions into it. Even the most rabid of lefties don't try to claim that it has the slightes postive impact here in the US.

Bio-fuel is a dead end here in the US.  The only reason why we continue to pour more money into it is because of Idiot Bush's lackeys & friends in the bio-fuel biz.

I am not in favor of using food grains to produce any Biofuels. It is a very bad idea.

Brazil's energy input to output ratio is one of the best in the world. India and China are building nuclear power plants to reduce dependence fossil fuel. At the current levels of known domestic reserve, the estimate is that, it is enough for 70 years at the current consumption levels.

India is far ahead on Thorium reactors for producing energy and has built two reactors fed Thorium instead of uranium. Now the question is what is the benefit of thorium vs. uranium. For starters, thorium does not produce nuclear waste, nothing to store for thousands of years, second, the spent fuel cannot be enriched for weapon grade plutonium so one doesn't have to worry about protecting it from terrorists and the like. Thorium is plentiful mineral on earth, mining it is safer than for reasons 1 and 2, all in combination reduces the price of generation.

The point is India and China seem to realize and address the problem so, one cannot keep on blaming others.

By the way GAG, Brazil is the largest ethanol exporter in the world but you cannot import ethanol from Brazil to US in the name promoting domestic corn based ethanol production.

What is a third world country? Who are they? Is India and China considered 3rd world countries?

that the Internal Combustion Engine is like Abacus to computers don't you?

ICE's had good run. Time for something better. Electric Cars first, once we figure out how to generate and store. Hydrogen next, same issue, how to store.

Honda's Hydrogen car in California seems like a good start though.

REIDandPIGLOSI do in the last energy bill to the tax breaks?

Thay passed them, you idiot.

Brazil has the only successful ethanol program in the world. I would suggest that if the US and other countries are to pursue ethanol programs of their own it would behoove them to study Brazil's program rather than continue to pour billions of tax payer dollars into a proven failure.

China and India will do what is best for themselves respectfully, we should do the same.

One thing I think we can agree on, our current path of subsidizing corn bases ethanol in this country may not just be an expensive boodoggle, but it could just be the ruin of us. At best it will put us decades behind much of the rest of the world, at worst it could cause hyper inflation and totally ruin our economy.

but on the subject of bio fuels, there are many idiots from the left than idiots from the right, but the left certainly doesn't have a monopoly on morons, just a majority.

meanwhile, we have lives to live.

The man is a f"ing Idiot!!

Many right here on this board.