ABSTRACT
The ethanol program in Brazil started in 1975 and is evolving continuously. Initially triggered by the high price of oil and the difficulty to conciliate it with the limited amount of hard currency, it became a significant source of liquid fuel for transportation, an important driver for the country leadership of the world sugar market, an stimulus for large amount of renewable electricity generation and provide technology development for the industrial and transport sectors. The chapter tries to describe the evolution of all these sugarcane-based actions, as well as to speculate about the future, trying to infer potential results which may be achieved, The forecast is strongly tied to the 38 years of history, where sequences of huge success and serious barriers were observed, but whose average consequences was the capacity of supplying almost half of the liquid fuels consumed by 38 million cars, generation of 6% of the more than 500 TWh/yr of electricity consumed in the country. In parallel with such technical outcomes, the program has contributed significantly for GHG emission reduction, as demonstrated by being classified
as advanced ethanol by the US EPA. On the basis of such long-term success, in the large amount of renewable energy produced, and in the continuous capacity of expansion due to technology advances and availability of soil, water, and manpower, the text speculates about the ethanol program to become more economically attractive than offshore oil expansion over deep water, another much bigger liquid and gas fuel program under execution in Brazil.
