Photo by Marxchivist. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

It's been so long (like six months) since there was a nice dispute about the impacts of Brazil's ethanol industry. In the past we've seen questions raised about the workers' conditions and the environmental standards of the sugarcane operation. To tell its side of the story, Brazil began a concerted pro-ethanol diplomatic offensive earlier this year. The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) is on the defensive this week because of a report issued by the Friends of the Earth called "Fuelling Destruction in Latin America," which says that the mono-sugarcane-culture used by the Brazilian ethanol industry is detrimental to the workers and the environment. You can download the report here.

Faced with these accusations, UNICA sent out a release (pasted after the jump) that basically calls the Friends of the Earth a bunch of liars, and released a PDF of the "partial list of specific errors, unsubstantiated claims and conclusions in the Friends of the Earth report." Ahh, it's good to be back.

[Source: Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association - UNICA]

The Dominican Republic has decided to start working on its plans to develop a biofuel industry. The Dominican government has decided to promote sugarcane crops so as the country can reach a target of 150 million gallons of ethanol per year, 60 million of those for export.

The plan also aims for investing in technology which can re-use byproducts such as bagasses even if only as biomass (burned) for producing electricity. The country's plans, as with all biofuel projects, is to reduce its external dependence on oil, recover the economy in rural communities and improve exports.

Biodiesel plans are also quite ambitious: 140 million gallons per year, which would be 40 percent of the country's diesel needs.

[Source: Cesefor via Econoticias]