Brazilian officials call for promotion of advanced biofuels to help support energy security

The use of advanced biofuels in Brazil will play an important role in its energy mix, as it pushes towards a low-carbon economy and promotes its energy security, according to Brazilian officials.

Speaking at the Conference on Advanced Biofuels and Bioeconomy at Canning House in London, on 2 December, 2016, Ambassador of Brazil to the UK Eduardo dos Santos said: “Today, biofuels represents one of the most promising alternatives to keep countries secure with energy and has a low impact on climate change. It is clean, effective and does not impact on food production, particularly when we talk about advanced biofuels.

“It has been used for nearly four decades in Brazil and its contribution to our economy has been extremely positive. In short, biofuels are part of the solution to the challenges we face in sustainable development.

“Important milestones we have reached include the Paris Climate Change agreement and the adoption of the agenda 2030 on sustainable developments.”

Brazil has a plan to increase its ethanol use from 28 billion litres per year in 2015 to around 50 billion litres by 2030, under its RenovaBio programme.

Dos Santos added:  “It is up to us to ensure that our common vision for our future is duly implemented. This meeting here today can be seen as a further step in the efforts to seek to implement the decisions to progress sustainable development ... and strengthen renewable sources of energy.”

Energy matrix

More than 40% of Brazil’s energy mix is composed of renewables and the country aims to increase this to 80% by 2030.

Ethanol and bioenergy produced from sugarcane already constitute 15.7% of Brazil’s energy mix, replacing more than 40% of gasoline and avoiding 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions since the beginning of the ethanol programme in the 1970s.

Brazil has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 37% by 2025 from 2005 levels by reducing deforestation and boosting the share of renewable sources in its energy mix. It also indicated an “intended reduction” of 43% by 2030.

Marcio Felix, Ministry of Mines and Energy for Brazil, said: “We are working towards a low-carbon economy using less oil and more natural gas.

“We have two commercial advanced biofuels plants that have started in the last few years. 

“We have a BioFutures platform and we believe biofuels are very important in our energy matrix. However, we need a competitive approach with other energy resources.

Super sugarcane crop

Delegates also heard from Gustavo Leite, managing director of the Centre for Sugarcane Technology (CTC). He mentioned a new energy sugarcane crop the organisation was producing for the production of ethanol. The new sugarcane is pest resistant and could help boost ethanol productivity. 

This story was written by Liz Gyekye, editor of Biofuels International.