Abstract—Brazil has established a bioethanol program with
a target for replacing conventional gasoline. This paper assesses
the impacts of achieving the target on greenhouse gases (GHG)
emissions with carbon dioxide (CO2) abatement. Carbon
dioxide is the most important of the GHG whose emissions
increase by human action. The transport sector has been at the
centre of discussions about policies aiming at reducing CO2
emissions. Road traffic is by far the largest source of gas
pollution in urban areas, not only for CO2, but also for carbon
monoxide, nitrogen and sulphur oxides, and volatile organic
compounds. Furthermore, vehicles fleets go on growing. The
substitution of bioethanol for gasoline, consumed pure or
blended with gasoline, in urban transport vehicles has
favourable air pollution impacts. The evaluation of the
contribution of vehicles exhaust pollution to the greenhouse
effect cannot be restricted to fuels consumed by vehicles, but it
is necessary to assess the whole fuel cycle emissions including
sugarcane production, the transport to the processing plant, the
conversion of sugarcane to bioethanol, the distribution to the
filling stations and, finally, the bioethanol consumption by
vehicles. This paper shows to what extent the bioethanol burnt
in vehicles’ engines in Brazil can contribute to improve the
GHG effect.
Index Terms—Bioethanol production and utilization,
bioethanoluse, pollution control, sugarcane culture, transport
sector.
The authors are with the Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning,
State University of Campinas –UNICAMP, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil
(e-mail: mberni@unicamp.br).
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Cite:Mauro D. Berni and Paulo C. Manduca, "Bioethanol Program in Brazil: Production and Utilization of Trade-offs for CO2 Abatement," Journal of Clean Energy Technologies vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 57-60, 2014.
