Billionaire Sir Richard Branson made headlines recently when he knocked the way Americans produce ethanol. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Branson fleshed out his ideas on ways America can improve the way it produces the alcohol fuel. Thirty minutes in, he says sugar produces seven times more ethanol than corn per acre and would not emit CO₂. Branson also said sugar would not mean cutting down the rain forest because there is plenty of it and the price is at an all-time low.

The best argument Branson gave is that "sugar-based ethanol would be cheaper than conventional fuels imported from the Middle East." Of course, if we lived in Branson's world, we may not have to worry about making fuel from plants at all. He explained that his plans for going into space with Virgin Galactic could one day help fuel the world: just "two space ships full of helium 3 [from the moon] will power America's electricity for a year," he said. Space mining sounds interesting, but what if that space ship crashes?

Related:

• Richard Branson, Mayor Bloomberg slam biofuels
• Soon at a pump near you: Virgin Fuels
• Branson looks towards Virgin territory: biofuel
• Richard Branson promotes alternative fuel movement by driving a Saab 9-5 BioPower

[Source: Google Video]

Sugar is full of energy. I'm sure that you already know that by now, especially if you've been around kids with candy any time recently. Some of that energy is extracted when different crops are turned into biofuels, for example when corn is converted to ethanol. It is also possible to made a sugar-based rocket fuel. But, what about using sugar in batteries? Sony has recently shown some "bio-batteries" which use enzymes to break down carbohydrates in glucose. At this point, not enough energy (50 mW per cell) is being extracted to make these batteries practical, as you can probably tell from the pictures. But, Sony is already daisy-chaining these batteries together to get more juice from them, and you can see that they are able to get them to power an MP3 player. So, although I wouldn't expect to see any cars being powered by these sugar-based batteries any time soon, it is an interesting project.

See a video after the break!

[Source: Tokyo Mango via Engadget]

The Midwest is the new Middle East. We have talked about farming before and even mentioned how the farm bill helped ethanol to the tune of billions. In 2008, sugar farmers become players in ethanol. Here is the long, complicated story. First, sugar as an ethanol feedstock in America. You might have heard countries like Brazil use it but it does not make economic sense here. The price comes to about 2.15 compared with 1.50 for corn.

Why? The sugar program controls the price of sugar in part by keeping out imports. That changes January 1st 2008. Thanks to... NAFTA! The North American Free Trade Agreement means cane sugar, sugar beets and all that sweet stuff is coming across the Mexican border. So, free market prevails and the sugar program is dead? Yeah, right. The 2007 farm bill includes a sugar to ethanol program.

Uncle Sam will buy the extra sugar expected to flood the market. Then sell it to companies making ethanol from sugars. So if you have an ethanol-making machine that runs on sugar in the garage, dust it off. Estimates of $300 M a year is coming your way. American sugar farmers are now players in ethanol.

If there are no changes to the Farm Bill anyway. It goes to the Senate after the August recess. We will keep you updated on the debate.

[Source: Washington Post]

I'll admit that I was mildly surprised to read that Toyota was going to start offering flexible fuel vehicles for sale in Brazil soon. Well, let me clarify that: I was surprised to hear the Toyota was not already offering flexible fuel vehicles for sale in Brazil. There, that's better. As the article mentions, ethanol is much cheaper in Brazil than petroleum, and most consumers would not want to purchase a car that they would be forced to use gasoline in. As you are probably aware, Brazil has been pushing forward for a while now to do away with gasoline in general, replacing it with ethanol derived from locally grown sugar cane. Most vehicle manufacturers have been selling vehicles which are capable of running on the alcohol fuel, again as the article mentions, including Honda - arguably Toyota's chief rival from Japan. With 80 percent of all vehicles sold in Brazil flex-fuel compatible, this news should not be surprising to anyone, unless, like me, they assumed that Toyota had already been offering them!

Note the flag above. It says "Order and Progress" (translated into English). Any thoughts on whether the conversion to ethanol from petroleum is progress? I'll say "Yes", but qualify that by saying that it could progress even further if they were able to use a cellulosic process to get the alcohol. At least they're not using corn!

[Source: Detroit News]

The ranks of non-hydrogen fuel cells continues, with a new design from Dr. Shelley Minteer of Saint Louis University. Dr. Minteer has developed a fuel cell that develops electricity from sugar. The cell can use almost any sugar source such as sap, soft drinks or juices. This isn't the first sugar-powered fuel cell, but this one is apparently more efficient and runs longer than previous designs.

Dr. Minteer recently demonstrated a glucose-fueled cell the size of a postage stamp that ran a calculator. The fuel cell contains enzymes that process the sugars into electricity and produce water. The cell is completely biodegradable after it's used up but there is no indication of what happens to the carbon in the glucose or whether it could be scaled up enough to power anything larger than consumer electronics devices. Dr. Minteer expects the cell to be commercialized in about three to five years.

[Source: Saint Louis University]

According to Bloomberg, C. Czarnikow Sugar Ltd. says that Brazil may find it difficult to meet its own ethanol demands for the crop season ending in March. The problem isn't an issue of production capacity. It's because global demand is on the rise and higher prices outside the country are encouraging exports.

If Brazil is indeed in danger of falling short of meeting its domestic ethanol demand, it's likely that more of the country's sugar crop will be diverted into ethanol production. As a result, Brazil may raise the percentage of harvested sugar that is diverted towards fuel from 48 to 49 percent this year.

Unless you're a sugar trader, these facts or figures won't send you into any sort of scare. What does make the article interesting to us, though, is that Brazil is now at a near 50/50 food/fuel balance which is often a sort of mental tipping point. If the trend of ethanol demand continues to rise, the balance will for the first time be shifted towards fuel. Just some food for thought.

[Source: Bloomberg]

As Autoblog Green has previously reported, U.S. tariffs on sugar has effectively barred Brazil and other nations with their less expensive and more efficient sugar-based ethanol from competing in the U.S., giving American corn and soy growers the lion's share of the market. But according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, the rising demand for corn in the U.S. may prove ultimately beneficial to Mexico, Central, and South American nations in the long run. The increased demand for corn to create ethanol has culled shipments to such countries. Domestic corn growers, who once couldn't compete against the cheap U.S. corn imports, now find their home-grown products priced competitively. Even better, other nations who normally purchase U.S. corn may soon be turning to such farmers as U.S. prices continue to rise.

Related:
Poor could lose out in world ethanol market
World to suffer corn shortage as ethanol demand increases

[Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs via Brazzil Magazine]

After closing 70 of the island's 156 sugar mills as part of a restructuring plan in 2002, Cuba recently changed course and plans to triple sugar production to 3 million tons in order to produce alcohol from sugar cane. The plan means a huge increase over the 1.2 million tons of sugar to be harvested this year, and is brought on by the surge in sugar and ethanol prices, and expectations of further increases. Half of the land that was occupied by sugar cane before the 2002 restructuring has since been changed to other crops and ranching, a move which will have to be reversed to implement the ambitious plan.

[Source: MercoPress]