Ethanol, also known as ethanol, is produced from the fermentation of sugar cane juice and molasses. It has been used in various forms for thousands of years and in recent years has become a leading clean and renewable fuel for internal combustion engines.
Brazil is a pioneer in the large-scale production and use of ethanol as a motor vehicle fuel. The country began using ethanol in cars as early as the 1920s, but the industry gained significant momentum in the 1970s with the introduction of Proálcool. Proálcool was a groundbreaking federal program designed to combat the global oil crisis that led to sharp increases ethanol msds in oil prices.
In the mid-1970s, when Brazil imported most of the oil it used, the economy was in dire straits, with massive foreign debt and soaring inflation. Ethanol was a solution the country could adopt to address a challenge that had no specific name at the time but is now known around the world as "energy security." Amid severe economic difficulties, Brazil had no option to continue importing oil, so it chose to expand the production and use of its familiar indigenous fuel.
From a strictly economic perspective, Proálcool did exactly what its creators intended at the time. Brazil has saved an estimated $85.8 billion in oil imports that it did not need over the past three decades due to its expanded use of ethanol.
Proálcool makes ethanol an integral part of Brazil's energy matrix. The plan suffered numerous setbacks over the years, particularly in the late 1980s, when oil prices fell sharply and sugar prices remained high. But it boomed in the first decade of the new millennium, again due to high oil and gas prices, environmental concerns and the introduction of FFVs.
In 2010, ethanol accounted for approximately 48% of all fuel consumed by Brazilian vehicles and more than half of the country's total gasoline demand. Brazil produces two types of ethanol: "hydrous ethanol," which contains about 5.6% water; and "anhydrous," containing almost no water. Aqueous ethanol is used to power vehicles with Flex-Fuel engines, which can run on pure ethanol, gasoline, or any mixture of the two, while anhydrous ethanol is blended with gasoline by fuel distributors before being delivered to gas stations.
Brazilian ethanol production during the 2010/2011 sugarcane harvest is expected (at the time of writing) to reach 27 billion liters, roughly the same as the previous year. As in the past, the domestic market will absorb the bulk (nearly 90%), with around 2 billion liters destined for export.
Eight new sugarcane processing plants came on stream during the 2010/2011 harvest season, and investment in the industry is expected to reach $33 billion by 2012. At the start of 2011, foreign capital controlled 22% of all sugarcane processing in Brazil, up from 7%. year 2006. At the same time, more and more countries are adopting anhydrous ethanol blended with gasoline in different proportions to reduce oil use, reduce oil imports, increase octane ratings, and provide motorists with less polluting fuel blends.