[lbo-talk] Brazil urges Asia to use more biofuel

[uvj at vsnl.com]

HindustanTimes.com

Monday, August 30, 2004

Brazil urges Asia to use more biofuel

Reuters
Bangkok, August 30

Brazil, the world's largest producer of sugar-based ethanol, on Monday urged
fossil-fuel dependent Asian nations to use more biofuel as a counter to high
oil prices.

Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues called on Southeast and East Asian
countries to turn their abundant sugar and palm oil into components for
blending with gasoline and diesel -- advice some of them are already taking
as their oil import bills rocket.

"In the 21st century, the most important fuel commodity in the world will be
this agro-energy, this bio, renewable fuel," Rodrigues told a news briefing
at a two-day regional conference on biofuel in Bangkok.

Ethanol is an alcohol-based fuel produced by fermenting and distilling
starch crops converted into simple sugars. It can be produced from any
biological feedstock such as sugar cane or maize. Despite surging crude oil
prices, it remains more than 50 per cent more expensive that hydrocarbon
motor fuels.

Brazil produces around half the world's ethanol, mainly from sugar, at a
rate of about 16 billion litre (3.52 billion gallons) a year and uses 14.5
billion litres at home. It expects exports of the product to quadruple to
between 1.5 and two billion litre in the year ending April 2005.

"This reduces the dependency of humankind on something that is going to
finish ... some day," said Rodrigues, who led a delegation of Brazilian
officials and sugar cane growers.

More than 60 per cent of the world's ethanol is produced from sugar, mainly
in Brazil, with most of the rest produced from maize in the United States.

LOW-LEVEL REPRESENTATION

At the conference, ministers and senior officials from Asia, Brazil and
Germany pledged to promote cooperation on investment, production and
research into biofuel raw materials "to sustain biofuel as a viable
alternative fuel source and provide a stable source of income for the
region's farmers".

Most of the participants at the conference were junior ministers or
bureaucrats. Of the 10-member Association of South East Asian nations, only
host Thailand and the Philippines sent an energy minister.

China, whose colossal oil consumption helped push oil prices to record highs
earlier this month, sent a deputy director general of the energy bureau.
Japan sent its senior vice minister for foreign affairs.
Thailand and the Philippines have both made recent moves to promote biofuel
use.

Brazil urges Asia to use more biofuel : HindustanTimes.comPhilippine Energy
Secretary Vincent Perez proposed to the conference a regional
standardization of vehicle engines using bio-fuel.

His nation decided on Friday to study the merits of producing ethanol, and
in July it decided to use a one per cent blend of methyl ester made from
coconuts in diesel for public transport.

Thailand also plans to dilute automobile gasoline with ethanol as high oil
prices force it to reduce dependence on energy imports costing $10 billion a
year. The government is replacing imported octane booster additive MTBE with
a 10 percent mix of ethanol in gasoline, called Gasohol.

Industry Minister Pinuj Jarusombat said the government would meet Japanese
automaker representatives to talk about the possibility to increase the mix
of ethanol to 20 percent.

Mathias Berninger, Germany's vice minister for agriculture, called for a
global harmonisation of bio-fuel produced from different products such as
palm and rapeseed.


© HT Media Ltd. 2004.