Country leaves Arabs dumbfound with efficient alcohol
Gazeta Mercantil 01/21/2009
It is a world consensus that the renewable sources of energies are the obligatory destination of the energy sector. "While everybody is still discussing the future of their energy matrices to make them cleaner, Brazil continues calm with more than 60% of its matrix originated in renewable sources", affirms Carlos Cavalcanti, energy director of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp) who is representing the entity in the largest energy event of the world, the World Future Energy Summit, held in Abu Dhabi, capital of the Arab Emirates. "This way, Brazil is bringing forward the energy of the future", affirmed the executive. The Arab Emirates, for example, intends to get to 2020 with 7% of its matrix from renewable sources, as informed yesterday by Sultan Al Jaber, President of the Abu Dhabi Energy Company, a wholly-owned state company. Besides the intention of expanding the participation of clean sources in its matrix that is currently based on thermal plants run on oil (the country has plenty of oil), the Arab Emirates wants to be exporters of clean technologies for the generation of energy, whereupon it is hosting this event for the second consecutive year. "Brazil is many steps ahead of the other countries", observes Cavalcanti. The director of the Federation also criticizes the forecasts of very long term for the implementation of projects of clean energy generation in the world. "It is very beautiful to say that in 30 years we will have electric cars, cheap wind energy and efficient sun sources, but we need it now, immediately, and Brazil is an example it is possible", he said. According to Carlos Cavalcanti, "the Brazilian technology to produce ethanol is fantastic, no other country in the world has the conditions we have, after all, we can produce alcohol and electricity from the sugar cane without damaging our food production", he said. And that is not all. According to a survey made by the energy department of the Fiesp and presented during the World Future Energy Summit, Brazil is capable of producing much more. "We put the 25 countries that most consume gasoline together and we calculated how much sugarcane Brazil has to plant in order to add 10% of ethanol in the fossil fuels required by these nations", he details. The document shows that even with the expansion of the crops, the volume is still harmless since Brazil has continental dimensions. "There would be additional 15 million hectares in crops and", he stressed, "we may still transform bagasse into energy", he said.