Listen to the podcast.

A Sweet Path to Energy Independence

This year, Brazil will achieve a goal that will no doubt have the U.S. government seeing green: energy independence.

Three decades ago, Brazil launched an aggressive alternative energy campaign that is now paying off in the country’s ability to wean itself from foreign oil, a goal the U.S. also set for itself during the energy crisis of the 1970s. However, the U.S. has been nowhere near as aggressive in its effort to develop and market alternative fuels.

In Brazil, for example, filling stations were outfitted 30 years ago with tanks pumping gasohol, a mix of gasoline and sugar cane-derived ethanol. Brazil has developed its sugar cane-based ethanol into a global commodity, and exports are expected to double by 2010 as it reaches out to markets in Japan and Nigeria.

Some of Brazil’s ethanol makes its way into the United States, which imported a total of 109 million gallons of ethanol last year, largely from Brazil. However, imports are limited by a U.S.-imposed trade tariff of 54 cents per gallon, meant to encourage American production of this commodity. The U.S. produced 3.9 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol in 2005, but the corn-based fuel costs more to produce and is less energy-efficient than cane-based ethanol.

Now that gas prices have topped $3 per gallon in the United States and concerns about the impact of burning fossil fuels are on the rise, the U.S. may step up its efforts to replace gasoline with alternative fuel sources. Brazil can certainly provide important lessons that should be useful to the United States as it moves forward along a path toward biofuels.

For more information on alternative energy sources, click here or visit http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/

For more information on how you can reduce your reliance on fossil fuels, go to: http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/ or visit http://www.cleartheair.org

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org