Cuba quietly upgrading its ethanol plants to produce biofuels

Cuba is quietly modernizing its ethanol-producing facilities, despite Fidel Castro's repeated assertions that making more of the biofuel is a bad idea. Hypocrisy or not, the fact is simple: Cuba has the capacity to become a major ethanol producer, and it will not hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity. Earlier we reported on how the emerging biofuels market may revive the island's once thriving sugar industry (previous post), and the first concrete voices pointing in that direction can now indeed be heard in Havana.

During the Soviet Era, the Cubans systematically bartered and sold large quantities of sugar in exchange for Russian oil and fuels. This sugar-for-fuel relationship was the result of Castro's first formal deal with the Soviets, made in 1960. At the height of these exchanges, he enthusiastically launched an (infamous) plan which forced all Cubans to produce a 'Ten Million Tonne Harvest'. Even though that target wasn't reached, the campaign succeeded in turning the island state into a major exporter. Later on, Cuba did achieve an annual production of 10 million tonnes. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba suddenly lost its market and the sugar sector entirely disintegrated, with half of all mills halting their operations. In 2006, Cuba produced a meagre 1.5 million tons... With the demise of the USSR, the island also lost its access to a steady supply of cheap fuel.

Despite Castro's criticisms, Cubans now make the obvious connection: if sugar is fuel, and we don't have fuel but we do have the potential to produce massive quantities of sugar, then why don't we turn our sugar into fuel? Indeed, the new ethanol market will revive the sugar cane industry, boost Cuba's energy security and opens unprecedented export opportunities that bring in the scarcest of all goods - hard foreign currency. A first sign of the island's attempts to kickstart a biofuel industry was given earlier this year when it signed an agreement with Venezuela to jointly build 11 new ethanol plants (previous post).

And now Dr. Conrado Moreno, executive director of the Universidad Técnica de Energía Renovable de Cuba (UTER) and member of Cuba's Academy of Sciences, says the island plans to upgrade 11 of its 17 existing refineries with the aim to produce the green transport fuel. These plants currently produce up to 180 million liters (47 million gallons) of ethanol, but the alcohol is used in rum and other spirits, as well as for medical purposes and as a cooking fuel. Moreno said that the upgrading of the ethanol plants will give Cuba the capacity to produce fuel for cars "in four or five years". The scientist spoke at a conference on renewable energy organised by UTER in Havana.

In contrast to Castro, Dr. Moreno concedes ethanol produced from sugar cane could bring economic opportunity to some "isolated communities" in Cuba. A very careful statement, because quite frankly, anyone can see that the ethanol market will bring wealth to a considerable number of Cubans, 20% of whom are active in agriculture, and to urbanites alike who will enjoy less costly fuels (earlier post). But Moreno can obviously not contradict Fidel Castro too openly:
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Over the past months, Castro has vehemently criticized a U.S.-backed plan to produce ethanol from corn for cars in a series of editorials published in state-run newspapers, claiming it will cause prices of farm products of all kinds to spike and make food too expensive for poor families around the globe. He later said he didn't have any objections to Brazilian biofuels, which are made from sugar cane. Brazil is the world's leading producer of ethanol from sugar cane. In March, the country signed an agreement with the United States to promote biofuel production in Latin America and to create international quality standards to allow it to be traded as a commodity like oil.

That agreement helped spark the editorials from Castro, which have been read repeatedly on state television and radio. In them, Castro distinguishes between the cane ethanol Cuba produces and the corn-based biofuel common in the U.S.

The 80-year-old revolutionary released another signed opinion to foreign journalists Tuesday night, saying the damaging effects of producing ethanol from corn were not new. "The dangers to the environment and the human species are topics on which I have been mediating for years," Castro wrote. "What I never imagined was the immense risk."