Ethanol use has environmental downsides

By Inae Riveras - Reuters Summit

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Biofuels have the potential to lessen the impact of human civilization on the environment, but even the greenest of renewable fuels production is not without its dirty underbelly, experts said.

Although global warming is a growing concern among policy makers, the current trend to substitute fossil fuels with renewables is in part motivated by countries' efforts to reduce their dependence on oil from politically volatile regions.

Brazil's cane ethanol distillers, with three decades experience in nationwide production and distribution, have compiled data demonstrating the fuel's advantage over fossil counterparts in the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Ethanol accounts for 40 percent of total fuels used by non-diesel powered vehicles in Brazil and represents a 30 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, the Cane Industry Association (Unica) said.

But not even the global stars of renewable fuels are free of critics who fear that increased ethanol use worldwide will hasten deforestation in the Amazon and other tropical rain forests in order to produce sugar cane.

"In 20 years, I doubt there will be a gasoline car on the Brazilian market. They will all be powered by ethanol," Unica President Eduardo Pereira Carvalho said during the Reuters Global Biofuel Summit.

Brazil began its ethanol program 30 years ago when it was importing nearly 90 percent of oil needed for domestic use.

During its growth to maturity, the cane stalk absorbs the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as is eventually emitted during combustion of the ethanol distilled from its juices.  Continued...