Brazil is still sweet on biofuels

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Despite the recent biofuel backlash, there is one place still singing the praises of ethanol. It’s estimated that Brazil has cut fuel costs by 30 percent since switching to fuels based on sugarcane — an agricultural commodity that the country produces in droves. And the country hasn’t just saved money from its biofuel habit: it has been turning some profit too, exporting several million tons of its crop to the United States, Europe, and even Japan this year and last.

Brazil’s happiness with the ethanol boom underlies an important point about biofuel production: namely, that a regional or country-tailored approach works best. For a nation with a high production of sugarcane — which packs more than five times the energy of corn and hasn’t resulted in major environmental degradation — it’s understandable why biofuel is so popular and promising.

The sugarcane situation in Brazil isn’t without its shortcomings: some sugarcane workers face slave-labor conditions, while some worry that their jobs will be replaced by more mechanized cane-cutting. But sugarcane production is an overwhelming boon for Brazil, and other countries would do well to learn from it’s success — and to benefit from it themselves.

The U.S. could step up its imports of cheaper, greener Brazilian fuel rather than continuing to subsidize domestically produced corn-based ethanol. The anti-biofuel crusaders could also stop lumping together Brazil’s sugarcane with other “bad” ethanols so that countries like the U.S. will continue to lower trade barriers. That’ll be a sweet deal for everyone.