fueling their cars from ethanol produced from sugar cane. Brazil began to make changes in 2005 and other countries, including some in Africa, are jumping on the bandwagon.
According to Yale Global Online "The truth is that nobody can compete with Brazil," President Lula (Brazil's president)said recently. "Biodiesel production is a way of making Brazil less dependent on oil, a fuel that may eventually come to an end. This is a vital project for ensuring more independence for Brazil, as we may become a large biodiesel exporter," he said on opening a new biodiesel plant.
Africa hopes to benefit by changing to cleaner fuel as well, since they have plentiful land to harvest to produce the ethanol from sugar cane and certain types of shrubs. Many politicians in Africa believe this could help Africa's struggling economy while at the same time help the environment.
Although there are several positive effects by switching to ethanol, such as a reduction of carbon monoxide; there are also a few negative ones, such as lower gas per mileage and in some cases there is more energy used to produce the ethanol (especially from corn) than there is when consuming the ethanol. Sugar Cane has proven to use less energy in production, but many other countries are using corn, or other materials based on their natural resources. Hopefully the U.S. and other European countries will be able to find a way to produce ethanol more efficiently, but until then we can only work out the kinks and propose new ideas.
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