Brazil has Increased Ethanol Production by 40% in Five Years - 5/13/07

Brazil boosted ethanol production 40% over the past five years, from 3 billion gallons in 2002 to 4.2 billion gallons last year. Meantime, U.S. production rose 75%, from 2.8 billion gallons to 4.9 billion gallons, most of which went to the U.S. market.

While Brazil is pledging to double production over the next decade, many experts agree American farmers can't meet the potential demand from President Bush's goal of consuming 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels every year by 2017, a fivefold increase over current requirements. That's a big reason why Bush inked a deal with Brazil in March to promote production elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Brazil has developed the model," said David Rothkopf, who recently prepared a 600-page report on ethanol and other biofuels for the Inter-American Development Bank. Brazilians "arrived at this by both innovation and accident, but they've really been leading and giving the world something to look at. Everybody is beating a path to Brazil to see what they're doing."

Brazil and Latin American nations have big advantages over the US: Ample agricultural land and warm climates conducive to massive sugar cane plantations, with distilleries on site to process cane into fuel 24 hours after harvest.

Learn More: A Competitor For Ethanol Called Biobutanol

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