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Delegation to travel to Brazil to learn about alternative fuel
By Shannon Burkey
With gas prices on the rise across the country, a delegation of Bay Area leaders will travel to Brazil to learn more about the Latin American country's ethanol and biodiesel production.
To understand more about Brazil's alternatives to fuel and how to expand ethanol and biodiesel production in the United States, and specifically the Bay Area, Global California and the Silicon Valley Center for International Trade will lead an alternative energy trade mission to Brazil Sept. 16-23.
Both Global California and the SVCIT are funded through the state's Economic and Workforce Development program and work through West Valley College, partnering with the college on many joint programs.
"Our primary focus of the trip is to help California and Bay Area businesses find contacts for increasing their global sales while focusing on renewable energy because it is so much of an important and current topic," said Bernie Weiss, director of the SVCIT.
While working on a grant proposal to the state to work on renewable energy resources, Weiss said he realized the importance of Brazil's ethanol production and that is why the trip came about.
"It became apparent that Brazil has been self-sufficient for a number of recent years and has done a lot of work in the renewable and ethanol fields," Weiss said. "We though that it would be interesting to take a motivated group from the Bay Area that could come back with research and ideas to develop renewable energy and biodiesel in the Bay Area."
Brazil is the world's largest producer of ethanol, a clean-burning, high-octane fuel produced from renewable sources such as corn, wheat, barley and potato, or in Brazil's case, sugarcane. Through the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel in its country, Brazil is very close to declaring independence from foreign oil. It aims to do so before the end of the year.
Currently, seven out of every 10 new cars in Brazil are "flexible fuel" cars that are powered by ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of the two. With Brazil being one of the world's largest producers of sugarcane, its resources available for making ethanol are abundant, thus alleviating the need for large quantities of foreign oil.
"The Brazilian energy sector is excited about sharing their knowledge of alternative fuels with California organizations and exploring how we can work together," said Margarise Correa, trade marketing manager for Global California and a native of Brazil.
The 15-person delegation is a very diverse group consisting of individuals and representatives from Bay Area companies with interests in the energy sector.
During the trip, participants will tour some of the largest ethanol and biodiesel plants in the world, as well as research facilities and farms. They will also learn about the plant-to-fuel process and have the opportunity to discuss joint ventures with some of Brazil's energy sector companies.
"Everyone is excited to meet such a variety of different sources," Weiss said. "We will have meetings with both producers and research people and have the opportunity to see where and how ethanol is produced."
The goal of the trip, according to Correa, is to bring knowledge back to the Bay Area with hopes of helping to boost domestic renewable energy production.
"We want to give California companies an overall review of current renewable energy projects that are taking place in Brazil," Correa said.
This comes at a time when the United States, which currently imports 60 percent of its oil, has actively begun to produce more ethanol. There are more than 100 plants across the country now producing ethanol and dozens more in the development stages.
President Bush also signed an energy bill last year that requires 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol or biodiesel to be a part of the country's energy supply by 2012.
