Embrapa runs to become reference in biofuels
Valor Econômico - 06/05/2008
Created two years ago, the center of the Brazilian Company of Agricultural Research (Embrapa) dedicated to the study of new renewable energy sources still does not have its own headquarters, and has a reduced team and needs to fight to guarantee its participation in the greatly-coveted funds of the state-owned company's budget. So many limitations, however, do not prevent Embrapa Agroenergia - the youngest unit of the network of 38 - from consolidating its strategic and scientific bets with the objective of mastering the technology of new raw materials of the next-generation biofuels in Brazil. Amid the intense international political dispute around biofuels, Embrapa intends, with its researches, to elevate the reference bar in agriculture to become an industrial model. Due to that, it has been investing in new first-generation materials for the production of a cheaper and more productive ethanol. The state-owned company is also raising its bet in a second-generation Brazilian biofuel, made from cellulose and using new knowledge and strategic partnerships. As it is done by Embrapa Internacional, whose work is global, the plan of the company is to accelerate researches to leverage abroad the genuinely Brazilian industrial, equipment, process and service businesses. In the area of development of new raw materials, Embrapa Agroenergia's main ace is the technological mastery of the saccharin sorghum. A grassy plant of high capacity of energy reception - comparable to the sugarcane - this type of sorghum can adapt itself to several areas, tolerates drought and has high potential to be cultivated in marginal areas to sugarcane crops. "Sorghum produces 85 tons per hectare [a productivity similar to sugarcane's], but it takes only 140 days for it to be harvested, while sugarcane's cycle is between 12 and 18 months for the first cut", says Embrapa Agroenergia's General Manager, agronomist Frederico Durães, from the state of Minas Gerais. The new product shortens the cellulose's path to ethanol, something that is in the top of the agenda of great consumers, such as the United States and Europe. Embrapa's plans include researches to improve sugarcane through biological fixation of nitrogen. That would eliminate the demand of 70% of the oil by-products and would mean more profits, because there is already a reduction of 30% in the production costs in the first year.