Pandemic hits biofuels industry

Twelve months after reporting that 2020 was set to be a massive year for biofuels in Brazil, it is clear that the current challenge for the country, and South America in general, is to address how much the industry’s status and potential has been blunted by the human and economic impact of COVID-19.
A year ago, the Brazilian Government was just a couple of months into the life of its RenovaBio carbon credit programme, an initiative designed to help drive the country’s renewable energy growth towards a set of extremely ambitious 2030 targets.
This included delivering a 70% expansion of biofuel production and consumption in Brazil by the end of the current decade.
Today, however, the economic shadow cast by the pandemic remains a major concern across the whole of South America, having destroyed normal life and business for many last year, with every prospect that 2021 will feature a painfully slow period of recovery.
To assess the damage already done to the region’s biofuels industry by the impact of the pandemic, Biofuels International spoke to USbased RenovaBio specialist Gabriel Miranda, a regulatory consultant with EcoEngineers, located in...