Brazil fuel production

There is a need for continued increases in yields not only to feed a growing world population, but also for greater fuel production (OECD-FAO, 2007). For example, US ethanol production, predominately based on corn, is expected to double between 2006 and 2016 (Figure 1.1). By 2016, ethanol is expected to represent a full one-third of corn production. Corn used for fuel in China is expected to increase from 3.5 million tons in 2006 to 9 million tons in 2016 (Figure 1.2). Ethanol production in Brazil is predominately based on sugarcane and is expected to increase by 145% between 2006 and 2016 (Figure 1.3). 

The Texaco process was first utilized for the production of ammonia synthesis gas from natural gas and oxygen. It was later (1957) appHed to the partial oxidation of heavy fuel oils. This appHcation has had the widest use because it has made possible the production of ammonia and methanol synthesis gases, as well as pure hydrogen, at locations where the lighter hydrocarbons have been unavailable or expensive such as in Maine, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Norway, and Japan. 

A more abundantiy produced substance is ethanol for use in alcohoHc beverages, and as a fuel, solvent, and feedstock for organic syntheses. Ethanol (qv) production from sucrose is carried out in Europe (eg, France and the Netherlands), India, Pakistan, China, and on a very large scale in Brazil, where it is used as a motor fuel. A valuable by-product of ethanol fermentation is industrial CO2 (see Carbon dioxide). 

World oil-shale production fell from its peak of 46 Mt in 1980 to about 16 Mt in 2000 (Brendow, 2003). At present, about 69% of world oil-shale production is used for the generation of electricity and heat, about 6% for cement production and other industrial uses, and 25% is processed into shale oil. Oil shale has been burned directly as a very low-grade, high-ash-content fuel in a few countries, such as Estonia, which is also the only country in Europe where oil shale is of any importance. With a yearly production of about 14 Mt, oil shale still generated more than 90% of the electricity in Estonia at the time of writing, and also most of Estonia s 7000 b/d oil production comes from oil shale. Other countries where surface retorting of oil shale has been used for many years to yield shale oil are Brazil and China, which produced 3100 b/d and 1500 b/d in 2002,... 

Both in the USA and the EU, the introduction of renewable fuels standards is likely to increase considerably the consumption of bioethanol. Lignocelluloses from agricultural and forest industry residues and/or the carbohydrate fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be the future source of biomass, but starch-rich sources such as corn grain (the major raw material for ethanol in USA) and sugar cane (in Brazil) are currently used. Although land devoted to fuel could reduce land available for food production, this is at present not a serious problem, but could become progressively more important with increasing use of bioethanol. For this reason, it is important to utilize other crops that could be cultivated in unused land (an important social factor to preserve rural populations) and, especially, start to use cellulose-based feedstocks and waste materials as raw material. 

The world energy crisis of the 1970s, however, spurred interest once again in ethanol as a transportation fuel source. Brazil adopted the widespread production and use of Alcool, hydrated ethanol, and Gasolina a 78 22 ratio blend of gasoline ethanol as a motor fuel. Other countries developed policies to maintain a fuel grade ethanol industry by conversion of biomass. Also, clean air and reformulated fuel policies have helped to promote the use of ethanol as a viable alternative fuel. 

Brazil s Alcohol Program. In Brazil, the enactment of legislation in 1931 made ethanol addition to gasoline compulsory at a level of 5% (86). Excess molasses and sugar were converted to alcohol in distilleries attached to sugar mills as a means to stabilize sugar prices. Production of fuel ethanol in the 1990s is mosdy from biomass. 

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