Ethanol: Washington’s biological weapon against Chavez (Jan-Uwe Ronneburger)
Deutsche Presse-Agentur March 9, 2007
Sao Paulo/Buenos Aires - Until now there seemed to be no way to stem the growing influence across Latin America of left-wing populist Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of the United States.
But ethanol could hold the key to stopping the Venezuelan president and his efforts towards a leftist subcontinent.
This is at least, according to political analysts, one of the intentions of US President George W Bush, who on Friday moved his country closer to a deal with Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to cooperate in marketing and producing the biofuel ethanol.
The product made from sugar cane in Brazil and from corn in the United States appears almost like a ‘biological weapon’ against the oil money of populist Chavez.
Bush picked his words carefully in Sao Paulo. In an apparent but not explicit reference to Venezuela, he said it is in the interest of the United States that the countries in the region, and in Central America in particular, ‘become energy producers, not remain dependent on others for their energy sources.’
The US president - who has been condemned internationally for his refusal to support the Kyoto accord on reducing carbon emissions - called himself a steward of the environment and said that biofuels are good to combat climate change.
For Brazil, in turn, ethanol production has an enormous economic potential. Billions of dollars of investment are already planned for the coming years, and the country hopes to attract additional US investment. Brazil and the US jointly produce over 70 per cent of the world’s ethanol, although the South American country’s is made out of sugar cane and the northern giant’s out of the less energy-efficient corn.
Brazil currently produces 16 billion litres of ethanol per year, a majority of which is used as fuel for motor vehicles. Even petrol sold in the country includes an obligatory 23 per cent ethanol.
The biofuel, which in tropical climates is relatively cheap to produce, can compete with fossil fuels, and Brazil’s decades-old project is starting to bear fruit. The country has been able to considerably reduce its dependence on expensive oil imports. Further, since ethanol production from sugar cane requires substantially less energy than its European or US variants, the emissions of carbon dioxide are being reduced to the benefit of the environment.
However, the success story also has its drawbacks. The amount of land needed to produce ever more sugar cane is huge. Environmental activists warn of the negative consequences that monoculture is likely to have on the fertility of the land, and there is the added danger that increasing areas of rainforest are cut down for sugar cane production.
The use of pesticides, the contamination of ground water and the displacement of small farmers to the benefit of large agro-industrial companies are further negative elements in ethanol’s environmental balance.
In Brazil, the fact that foreign capital is increasingly being drawn to the sector is another cause for worry, with the hope for annual yields of up to 20 per cent luring funds.
Countries like Brazil, with around 30 per cent of the population living in poverty, face a latent conflict in the choice between plant cultivation for fuel or food. As the demand for land for biofuels grows, prices for foodstuffs could increase.
Indeed, Mexico - the last nation on Bush’s current Latin American tour that will also take him to Uruguay, Colombia and Guatemala - has had a taste of a taste of the downside in recent weeks.
The surging price of the corn tortilla, a staple in the Mexican diet, provoked massive protests and forced the government to provide some protection from the rising prices.
One of the factors mentioned for the increase was the use of corn for the production of biofuels in the United States, the world’s largest exporter of corn.