MIAMI, July 11 Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took umbrage with remarks this week that increasing the country's ethanol production would further harm the Amazon rainforest.
The economy-conscious Lula was responding to remarks made last week during his visit to Brussels for a biodiesel conference that increased global demand for alternatives to fossil fuels would prompt Brazil to cut down large swaths of the rainforest to clear more soil for sugarcane, the main ingredient in Brazilian ethanol.
The Brazilian leader was obviously offended by those questioning Brazil's intent when it comes to the environment, particularly since the South American nation has been a leader in biofuels such as ethanol for more than 30 years.
"We have adversaries that will make up any kind of slander against the quality of ethanol and biodiesel," Lula said earlier this week during his weekly radio address in Brazil.
The president said that as far back as the early Portuguese settlers, Brazilians knew that the Amazon was not a suitable environment for growing ethanol and that increasing production to meet regional and worldwide demand for ethanol would not hasten the deforestation of the Amazon.
Brazil can triple its production in the coming years "without knocking down a single tree," Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Luis Carlos Guedes Pinto said in December.
This isn't the first time that Brazil's growing ethanol industry has come under fire.
Earlier this year, when Washington and Brasilia inked a deal to expand ethanol production in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro complained that the deal would in essence reduce the amount of land used for food crops and rob the region's hungry of vital food supplies.
Lula rejected the comments, saying food production would not be affected by the effort to produce alternatives to petroleum, of which Venezuela is the largest producer in the region and counts the United States as its best customer.
"All South American countries and Africa can easily produce oil seeds for biodiesel, sugarcane for ethanol and food at the same time," he said, referring to Brazil's ambition to work with European nations to increase sugar production in Africa to promote ethanol production on that continent as well.
Brazil has been a world leader in alternative fuels since the 1970s, when Brazil's Pro-Ethanol Program subsidized sugar mills to produce extra product specifically for the production of the biofuel in the wake of the oil price spike experienced worldwide.
Now, Brazil is producing enough ethanol to meet its growing domestic needs and with the help of some foreign investment could one day make the leap to becoming a major international vendor of alternative fuels, a bandwagon the Bush administration would like to join considering the president's recent pledge to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Brazil's ethanol industry and success with combining biofuels and fossil fuel for vehicles has already caught the attention of European nations, which in 2006 expressed interest in promoting the production of ethanol in Africa using Brazilian technology.
So far, Britain and the Netherlands are among the countries looking to partner with Brazil to grow sugarcane for ethanol in South Africa and Mozambique.
While the prospect for partnership resonates well in both Brazil and the United States, the greater integration of their respective ethanol industries will not be without its share of hiccups.
Analysts also warn of the potential political fallout from the U.S.-Brazil energy alliance.
Cuba is interested in reviving its own sugar sector, once a world leader with the help of Soviet subsidies.
Coupled with the growing role oil-rich Venezuela plays in world energy, forging an alliance could prove politically troublesome for both Bush and Lula.
"Lula (da Silva) is walking a very tricky road here because his reputation comes from being a populist leader who distinctively distrusts multinational corporations, at least before he became president," Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, told UPI. "There can be constraints with becoming too chummy with the United States."
(e-mail: energy@upi.com)
MIAMI, July 11 --
