Alcohol fuels: the Brazilian experience and its implications for the United States

Brazil's experience in the use of ethyl alcohol, produced from sugar cane, as a motor fuel in the pure form or in the form of a 20 percent additive to gasoline, is examined. The production of ethanol was 4.2 billion liters from 1981 to 1982 and the plan calls for the production of 5.2 billion liters between 1982 and 1983. The total number of motor vehicles in Brazil which operate on pure alcohol reached 900,000 by the end of 1983 and the expenditure of alcohol in them reached 3 billion liters. The expansion of the use of ethanol as a motor fuel must substantially reduce Brazilian expenditures on the import of oil products, improve the use of agricultural resources and increase the labor force in agriculture. An analogous experience is justified for the U.S.A., but sugar beets must serve as the raw material for the production of ethanol in their case.