The president of USA is coming to Brazil anytime soon and one of the biggest issues in his discussions with our president will be the fuel alcohol. It is a great option in the field of reusable fuels. And Brazil is the world leader in the production of this kind of fuel. The USA are trying to produce ethanol too, but while we use sugarcane (pic above), they use corn. It is common knowledge that the production of alcohol from sugarcane is more efficient. We produced more ethanol than we need and could export, the USA are a big market for our fuel, but they put a lot of taxes in the price of our fuel, denying the consumer an option for a fuel that make a lot less
pollution than oil based fuels. But coming for a country that refuse to sign the Kyoto protocols we could expect everything. President Lula will try to talk George W. Bush out of those taxes, but all annalists say that is a lost cause. Besides the talks with USA, the Brazilian government are planning to have meetings with African and Caribbean governments to expand the technology to produce ethanol from sugarcane. They think that's an awful good way to encourage the development of poor countries and make them not too dependable of imported oil. I think that is one of the best decisions ever made by the Lula administration. This, if done the right way, has the scope to become one historic measure of help from one country to another. And let's hope that all the barriers that USA puts in the Brazilian ethanol could be extinguished after the encounter between the two presidents. 'Till next time...
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