Peter Howard Wertheim
OGJ Correspondent
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar. 14 -- During a recent visit to Brazil, US President George W. Bush announced a new energy partnership with Brazil to promote wider production of ethanol throughout the region as an alternative to oil.
The agreement was crafted to expand research, share technology, stimulate investment, and develop common international standards for biofuels. The US and Brazil, which together make 70% of the world's ethanol, will team up to encourage other nations to produce and consume alternative fuels, starting in Central America and the Caribbean.
Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said increasing alternative fuel use will lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment, and greater independence from the whims of the oil market. In Brazil, nearly eight in 10 new cars already run on fuel made from sugar cane.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed by US Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice and Brazil Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, the two nations pledged closer cooperation on researching alternative energy production, promoting alternative fuels in the region and developing industry-wide standards and codes that could lay the groundwork for a global biofuels market.
The agreement entails cooperation in research and development of next-generation biofuel technology, such as ethanol production from cellulose.
In January Bush called on Congress to require the use of 35 billion gal/year of ethanol and other alternative fuels such as biodiesel by 2017. To help meet the goal, the president also is pushing research to make ethanol from material such as wood chips and switchgrass.
