Brazil’s ethanol producers take a big bet on biofuels

Brazil’s sugar cane industry has recently been trumpeting that five of its processing mills have been approved by the US government to sell their ethanol in the US. The fact that the mills are bothering to go through the registration process, which includes filling out forms and allowing an engineering review, is significant, and shows renewables are no longer the pet project of many Americans. With the US perhaps distracted by its pressing economic difficulties, producers in other countries have started to get in on the act.

Doug Haugh, executive vice president of Mansfield Oil Company, a major supplier of alternative fuels in the US,  notes that the growth in Brazil’s domestic demand has been more than sufficient to consume all the ethanol the country can produce and at higher values than US ethanol prices.

Read more : http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/09/27/brazils-ethanol-producers-look-past-the-us-downbeat-mood-on-renewables-amid-economic-difficulties-to-its-future-as-a-big-market/