Publication also highlights corn as the preferred raw material for the product and proposes expanding the current cultivation area
The war in Ukraine, while highlighting the need to accelerate the energy transition globally, confirms Brazil's privileged condition in relation to the rest of the world when it comes to dependence on fossil fuels, says the collaborator at the Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning (Nipe) from Unicamp Luís Augusto Barbosa Cortez. This is one of the questions addressed by the researcher in the book The Future Role of Biofuels in the Energy Transition (publisher Blucher), which was written with Spanish researcher Frank Rosillo-Calle, from the British university Imperial College London, and will be launched this Friday (2), at Nipe.
The work, financed by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), rescues and analyzes the Brazilian experience with biofuels to discuss the potential that its expansion represents, mainly for the transport sector and the environment. It also highlights corn as the preferred raw material for the production of biofuel in the country — an option that, the authors believe, would make it possible to free up pasture areas and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
The objective is to reach an international audience, showing that Brazilian biofuel crops do not compete for space with food cultivation — a view, Cortez points out, that is quite common in Europe. “Currently, less than 5% of the agricultural area in Brazil is reserved for planting sugarcane for biofuel. This represents less than 0,5% of the country's area”, says the retired professor from the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering (Feagri) at Unicamp. It is, he explains, an area of 5 million hectares, from which the raw material used to manufacture enough ethanol comes from to supply 43% of the Brazilian fleet of light vehicles. “We are the only country in the world where, if the oil runs out today, cars will continue to run tomorrow.”
More than presenting data that corroborates the viability of biofuel production in the country without putting other sectors of agriculture at risk, the researchers argue that this is the most suitable alternative for fueling light vehicles in Brazil. The justification, they write, would be a combination of availability of natural resources, technical and technological knowledge, accumulated experience, infrastructure and market acceptance.
Cortez knows that his thesis goes against the movement of the European and Chinese automobile markets, which have already chosen the electric car as a replacement for the gasoline version. To justify this, he recalls that, although Brazil's current situation is comfortable, there is no space to build new hydroelectric plants — it would be necessary to accelerate the construction of wind and solar plants and parks, while biofuel production plants already in operation spend part of the idle year.
The researcher also cites logistical, financial and even cultural issues to clarify the preference for biofuel. “In addition to being more expensive, electric cars need many hours to recharge. Today, it takes ten minutes to fill your car's tank at the gas station. It is possible to leave the vehicle stationary and start driving again without the battery running out. Not to mention that the tanks offer a range of 400 km, 500 km, depending on the car.”
To enable the expansion of biofuel production in the country, the authors are inspired by the success of the recent experience in the states of Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Goiás with the manufacture of corn bioethanol. The advantages compared to sugarcane are several, says Cortez. “Corn can be grown in practically all Brazilian regions, at least twice a year, and in alternation with soybeans and sugarcane itself. Furthermore, you can store the grain and process it throughout the year. To top it off, it has protein, making it a better food for animals [cattle, poultry, pigs]”, he argues.
Finally, the book proposes expanding the current corn cultivation area by taking advantage of land already reserved for livestock farming. According to the researcher, of the total area of Brazil — 855 million hectares — currently 200 million have been transformed into pastures. “Some of this land has very few cattle on pasture,” he says. The proposal is to use, in the first phase, 50 million hectares of these pastures to divide between agriculture, bioethanol production and reforestation. “Agriculture needs to grow, and the only way for that to happen is to reduce pasture. Corn, in addition to producing ethanol, serves as food for livestock, freeing up land for other things”, he ponders. A more ambitious version, also presented in the book, would be to produce enough bioethanol to replace 10% of the world's gasoline. “To do this, it would be necessary to multiply our current production by seven, reaching around 200 billion liters of bioethanol per year”, he calculates.
Service
Launch of the book “The Future Role of Biofuels in the Energy Transition”
Writers: Luís Augusto Barbosa Cortez and Frank Rosillo-Calle
Publishing house: Blucher
Data: June 2nd (Friday), at 10 am
Location: Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning (NIPE), at Unicamp
