Brazil’s Ethanol-Enhanced History

Ethanol Producer Magazine September 2009
By Pedro G. Seraphim

Together, with the appearance of the flexible fuel vehicles in 2003, the infrastructure and culture that forms the inheritance of Brazil’s 1970s “Pró-Álcool” program is the key for the development of its local ethanol industry, with no strings attached to tax incentives or protective policies.

Energy security comes from energy diversity. This phrase sounds very fashionable, but it was the motto that, in the mid-1970s, led Brazil to create its National Alcohol Program, better known as the “Pró-Álcool” program. At that time, the world had been hit by two oil price bombs, caused by production restraints in OPEC countries, and oil prices soared from a few cents per gallon to a couple of dollars per gallon. It is almost funny to compare those prices to the ones we have become accustomed to seeing today, but many people remember how all oil importing countries were affected by that sudden change, spreading an economic and financial crisis that drove the world into recession (by the way, that also seems to be nothing now).

Read the full story