Ethanol From Waste Straw

BTW, during the 80's three quarters of the automotive fleet in Brazil were
powered by sugar-cane ethanol, and I never heard about energy inefficiency in
the process. The only complaint that often heard then was that alcohol cars
have less power than gas ones, and the ethanol cars decayed for economical,
not technical reasons (sugar became more profitable than ethanol and so there
was a production shift with ethanol shortages as a consequence). See
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id13810 for
details.

Of course that may be a case of "comparing apples and bananas" - for we are in
a tropical zone with higher solar influx and there may be other factors
favoring biofuels here in comparison to temperate countries like the US. Even
though, I tend to be suspicious of those studies saying that biofuels are not
viable energetically; maybe they are making worse-case assumptions?

Em Seg 26 Abr 2004 13:36, Paul D. Fernhout escreveu: