Record warm summers cause extreme ice melt in Greenland: an international team of scientists, led by Dr Edward Hanna at the University of Sheffield, has found that recent warm summers have caused the most extreme Greenland ice melting in 50 years. The new research provides further evidence of a key impact of global warming and helps scientists place recent satellite observations of Greenland´s shrinking ice mass in a longer-term climatic context. Findings are published in the 15 January 2008 issue of Journal of Climate.
Brazil to open ethanol embassy in Europe
Accoring to Brazil's state news agency, the country's biofuel sector will open its own 'ethanol embassy' in Brussels, as a way to promote the highly efficient fuel.
The Sugarcane Industry Union (UNICA) will open an office in the capital of the EU, and will select a series of ambassadors to present the case of importing Brazilian ethanol into the Union. It will also work as a hub to ensure exporters can enter the market more easily.
More importantly, the embassy has as its objective to convince Europe's public opinion of the advantages of Brazilian ethanol over other forms of biofuel. The initiative comes at a time of heigthened skepticism, fueled by generalisations about biofuels that do not differentiate between the many different fuels available.
Objectively speaking, Brazilian ethanol has been found to be both sustainable, highly energy efficient (a net energy balance of 8-10 to 1), and very effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (by up to 80 percent as a substitute for gasoline). This is in conrast with many biofuels grown in temperate climates, that do not contribute much to reducing emissions, that drive up food prices, and that are not energy efficient. Moreover, Brazil's ethanol is made in combination with green electricity, from the residual biomass obtained from sugarcane processing, making its emissions and energy balance more advantageous still.
Nothwithstanding these many benefits, Brazil's biofuel industry has been put, unfairly, under the same criticism as that leveled against far less efficient biofuels, mainly grown in Europe and the US - a tactic of generalising and extrapolating scientific findings that is seen as unscientific and incorrect. For this reason, Brazil will itself launch a campaign to put environmentalists' generalisations into a more objective perspective.
The ethanol embassy will track developments on biofuels in the EU more closely, and lobby and intervene when it thinks this is necessary.
Next week, the EU will present its revised draft on renewables in which it will propose a series of sustainability criteria and emissions targets for liquid biofuels. The proposal foresees a system of tracking the origin of raw materials before they are converted into liquid fuels, and will measure the GHG emissions that occur during the entire production chain:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: mechanisation :: efficiency :: carbon emissions :: tariffs :: trade :: subsidies :: Brazil :: European Union ::
It is widely expected that the measures will not affect Brazilian producers, because sugarcane and other bioenergy crops are grown in a largely environmentally friendly manner, with a fuel that effectively reduces emissions by a very high percentage. The rules would mainly focuses on Asian palm oil producers. American corn ethanol as well as rapeseed biodiesel would also come under scrutiny and find it difficult to achieve the GHG emissions targets.
The Brazilian government however has already met with the European Commission to ensure that the sustainability criteria do not constitute non-tariff barriers to trade.
In the next months, the EU's Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, will visit Brazil to discuss the ethanol industry there as well as to analyse the production standards currently in vigor in the country.
The Brazilian initiative comes at a time when law proposals in the country are being introduced to make mechanical harvesting of sugarcane mandatory. The goal is to phase out manual labor, train the workers who would otherwise lose their jobs so as to become the new machine operators needed to harvest the crops as the sugarcane acreage expands.
Hat tip to Marcelo Coelho over at EhtanolBrasil.
References:
Agência Estado: Álcool brasileiro vai ter "embaixada" na Europa - January 17, 2008.
Investnews: Colheita mecanizada de cana pode ser obrigatória - January 18, 2007.
The Sugarcane Industry Union (UNICA) will open an office in the capital of the EU, and will select a series of ambassadors to present the case of importing Brazilian ethanol into the Union. It will also work as a hub to ensure exporters can enter the market more easily.
More importantly, the embassy has as its objective to convince Europe's public opinion of the advantages of Brazilian ethanol over other forms of biofuel. The initiative comes at a time of heigthened skepticism, fueled by generalisations about biofuels that do not differentiate between the many different fuels available.
Objectively speaking, Brazilian ethanol has been found to be both sustainable, highly energy efficient (a net energy balance of 8-10 to 1), and very effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (by up to 80 percent as a substitute for gasoline). This is in conrast with many biofuels grown in temperate climates, that do not contribute much to reducing emissions, that drive up food prices, and that are not energy efficient. Moreover, Brazil's ethanol is made in combination with green electricity, from the residual biomass obtained from sugarcane processing, making its emissions and energy balance more advantageous still.
Nothwithstanding these many benefits, Brazil's biofuel industry has been put, unfairly, under the same criticism as that leveled against far less efficient biofuels, mainly grown in Europe and the US - a tactic of generalising and extrapolating scientific findings that is seen as unscientific and incorrect. For this reason, Brazil will itself launch a campaign to put environmentalists' generalisations into a more objective perspective.
The ethanol embassy will track developments on biofuels in the EU more closely, and lobby and intervene when it thinks this is necessary.
Next week, the EU will present its revised draft on renewables in which it will propose a series of sustainability criteria and emissions targets for liquid biofuels. The proposal foresees a system of tracking the origin of raw materials before they are converted into liquid fuels, and will measure the GHG emissions that occur during the entire production chain:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: mechanisation :: efficiency :: carbon emissions :: tariffs :: trade :: subsidies :: Brazil :: European Union :: It is widely expected that the measures will not affect Brazilian producers, because sugarcane and other bioenergy crops are grown in a largely environmentally friendly manner, with a fuel that effectively reduces emissions by a very high percentage. The rules would mainly focuses on Asian palm oil producers. American corn ethanol as well as rapeseed biodiesel would also come under scrutiny and find it difficult to achieve the GHG emissions targets.
The Brazilian government however has already met with the European Commission to ensure that the sustainability criteria do not constitute non-tariff barriers to trade.
In the next months, the EU's Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, will visit Brazil to discuss the ethanol industry there as well as to analyse the production standards currently in vigor in the country.
The Brazilian initiative comes at a time when law proposals in the country are being introduced to make mechanical harvesting of sugarcane mandatory. The goal is to phase out manual labor, train the workers who would otherwise lose their jobs so as to become the new machine operators needed to harvest the crops as the sugarcane acreage expands.
Hat tip to Marcelo Coelho over at EhtanolBrasil.
References:
Agência Estado: Álcool brasileiro vai ter "embaixada" na Europa - January 17, 2008.
Investnews: Colheita mecanizada de cana pode ser obrigatória - January 18, 2007.
posted by Biopact team at 5:17 PM
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