Q1. Brazil started changing its farming techniques in order to produce more sugarcane, for the production of bioethanol. What could you say about such a change?
Brazil wanted to find an alternative to petroleum’s importations. The country succeeded in this challenge thanks to its production of bioethanol, which became massive these last years. However, Brazil’s situation is special, distinctive, and could not be imported in Europe.
Q2. Bioethanol production is controversial among the scientific community. According to you, what you think could be the main issue(s) of the Brazilian bioethanol production?
Bioethanol production gets controversial because of food riots that occurred in 2008. Since then, agricultural raw material’s prices have increased. The debate came from a simple question: how to accept transforming food into fuels when more than one billion people starve to death?
Another element to be noted is the strong criticism of agricultural lands’ monopolizing (see article here). Many countries rent their lands to foreigner investors who will then reimport the productions in their countries. A quarter of these productions are devoted to biofuels. The three quarters left are used for the needs of the foreign investor-countries’ populations. Lands are often rent thanks to governmental agreements. Since farmers generally don’t have any ownership on the lands they farm, they are asked to move away and then have no more means of livelihood.
In Brazil, the problem is different: salaried farmers are working for peanuts (it’s the same in every plantation, apart from fair trade). The problem comes from the fact that all the plantations are grouped together. Which generates huge industrial single-crop farming. Soils are being over exploited; fertilizers and pesticides contaminate air, soils and waters. Fertilizers emit nitrogen protoxide, which has a “global warming effect” 296 times stronger than carbon!
Then, if deforestation is not directly observed, meadows disappear and, with them, their benefits for biodiversity, carbon stocking, and water infiltration.
Finally, more than 50% of sugarcane residues are burned outside, generating air contamination with green house gas emissions, the release of coal particles and, also, generating health risks for workers.
Q3. Given all the issues and risks about bioethanol production you mentioned, do you think that this fuel is a realistic and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels?
Brazil is a really special case. Sugarcane production answers to a strong demand from the local population who uses bioethanol. Brazilian dams produce the majority of the country’s electricity.
Biofuels can be really useful and “green” when being used in the local scale. On the contrary, if a country imports or exports biofuels thousands miles away, then the benefit from it gets worthless.
In 2009, the European Union imported 25% of the Brazilian biofuels’ exportations. According to Jean-Marc JANCOVICI (who manages the website Manicore), if French cars used 100% biofuels, it would require 1,18 time the country’s surface in sunflowers, 1,04 time in rapeseed and 1,2 time in beetroot. Moreover, it has never been thought that biofuels would totally replace fossil fuels. By 2020, biofuels will be blend into gasoline at a maximum of 20%.
However, all these questions will be studied again with the new generations of biofuels (third generation).