I don't know if you've seen this recent article. Its frustrating that Brazil is nearly energy independent and we continue to struggle with an serious reliance on imported oil, causing us to make big mistakes in our foreign policy.
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Brazil's ethanol effort helping lead to oil self-sufficiency
By Marla Dickerson
Los Angeles Times
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of cool at the pump.
Like tens of thousands of her fellow citizens, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer.
"You save money and you don't pollute as much," said Rossini, who paid about $18 to fill her nearly empty tank. "And it's a good thing that the product is made here."
Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil. More vulnerable than even the United States when the 1973 Middle East oil embargo sent gas prices soaring, Brazil vowed to kick its import habit. Now the country that once relied on outsiders to supply 80 percent of its crude is projected to be self-sufficient within a few years.
Developing its own oil reserves was crucial to Brazil's long-term strategy. Its domestic petroleum production has increased sevenfold since 1980. But the Western Hemisphere's second-largest economy also has embraced renewable energy with a vengeance.
Today about 40 percent of all the fuel that Brazilians pump into their vehicles is ethanol, known in Brazil as alcohol, compared with about 3 percent in the United States. No other nation is using ethanol on such a scale. The change wasn't easy or cheap. But 30 years later, Brazil is reaping the return on its investment in energy security while the United States writes checks for $50-a-barrel foreign oil.
Much of Brazil's ethanol usage stems from a government mandate requiring all gasoline to contain 25 percent alcohol. Vehicles that ran solely on ethanol fell out of favor in Brazil in the 1990s because of an alcohol shortage that pushed drivers back to gas-powered cars. But thanks to a new generation of vehicles that can run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of those two fuels, more motorists such as Rossini are filling up with 100 percent alcohol again to beat high gas prices.
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