How Brazil created the international ethanol boom
Filed under: Ethanol, Legislation and Policy, Green Daily, South/Latin America

Maybe Americans need to be pointing our fingers south at Brazil for making us spend so much money on ethanol. The William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review has just published an article that delves into how the South American country helped fuel the recent world-wide ethanol boom. Using the spring 2007 meeting of US President Bush and Brazilian President da Silva as a starting point, the article dissects how Brazil's 30+ year sugar cane ethanol project helped get the biofuel onto the international stage and how the US can now learn from that experiment. Looking toward the future, author Vanessa Cordonnier, an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Bureau of the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, examines "whether a similar program in the U.S. would be in the best interests of the nation and the environment." What do you think?
If you're interested, you can check out the 30-page report in PDF. Thanks to the magazine's editor-in-chief, David Sella-Villa, for the tip!
[Source: William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review]


According to an article in
Some countries believe that their development expectations can be improved if they switch from oil-based fuels to biofuels. Such is the case of Colombia, a country that has just received the support of the United States to produce biofuel to satisfy some of the country's energy needs. Gregory Manuel, from the U. S. State Department, stated that part of the $1 billion program the U.S. is investing in biofuels includes estabilishing partnerships with nations such as Brazil and Colombia. Speaking to the recent flare-up of criticism against biofuels, Manuel said that the reason for high food prices is not biofuels but bad logistics. According to his figures, only four percent of the world's grain production goes to biofuels.



