Repsol YPF to Make Biodiesel in Argentina

Reading the article published on June 14, 2005, with the title, Repsol YPF to Make Biodiesel in Argentina, I would like to say that as a Brazilian Geologist that works in the Petroleum Industry, I am very well informed about the high difficult is for the countries that have immense foreign debts to maintain their economies working with so high oil prices.
Producing ethanol in Brazil and biodiesel in Argentina or Brazil, countries which have important rural lands located in tropical areas of the world, could be a rare case these countries would have chances to reach success providing jobs in the scenery of globalization.
Fortunately weather conditions make possible to produce two or even three crops annually, and most important, with any kind of helping of the state machine as normally occurs in the richest countries.
In the article published in your site unfortunately I read very wrong information about Brazil and because this reason I became quite worried to fix the information in order to save the truth.
The production of sugar cane in Brazil is partially directed to distilleries of ethanol. The region that produces more than 90 percent, crops and industry, is located in the state of Sao Paulo. This state is located in the richest part of Brazil, the southeast region. Even more, it’s wrong to say that those crops are destroying forests just because this region is being subjected to intensive agriculture since de 18th century, first as coffee farms and now producing sugar cane.
Another wrong information wrote in the article, was about the jobs. São Paulo and other states that produce sugar cane don’t have significant number of Indian people. Indian people live mostly in the States of Amazonas and Para located some of 4000 km northward.
There is just a third information that also isn’t true in the text. The old VW bugs didn’t were the best ethanol users, because those very old cars weren’t originally produced for alcohol consumption.
Nowadays in Brazil many factories are making cars that are becaming very famous. They use a very new technology, which is being called flex fuel. This technology provides users to change fuel from gasoline to alcohol in any proportion wanted. The information about those new cars are easily found in web pages of car producers, such as Renault, GM, VW,Fiat,Ford, Peugeot and others. Of course those cars are produced in Brazil and provide hundred of thousands of jobs.
Please correct these three wrong informations in order to maintain your credibility.
Nature is very important to be saved as truth.

Commentor PAULO ERNESTO VIEIRA is thanked for bringing updated information to our attention. TreeHugger is pleased and grateful to have a Brazilian reader keep the ideas we present moving along toward a sustainable future. That a fair wage be paid for agricultural workers, we are certain, is something all can hope for. However, this post dealt with the manufacture of biodiesel fuel, which is made from vegetable oil in combination with ethanol. THe prospective additional clearing of forestland or marshland for either crop is important indeed, especially if the resulting product is exported to developed nations instead of being used to drive sustainable agriculture in Brazil and surrounding countries. We are glad to hear that at least the production of ethanol is being done in a sustainable manner.

I can´t believe you´re writing that brazilian fuel-ethanol is stagnating.

Brazil is currently planning another 20 factories to meet the world demand.

/Swedish ethanol consumer and forums admin

www.etanol.nu
===author's response====
THe referred to slow down was historic; as you say, production is now increasing.

I am surprised that Biodiesel and Ethanol production are seen as problems to be considered and not as gargantuan achievements in the process of taking more care of our world.
Countries like Argentina and Brazil are amongst the largest producers of renewable crops in the world. It is with renewable crops that these biofuels are created. Stating that the Amazon rainforest has something to do with the production of biofuels is ridiculous at best.
In order to create Biodiesel, an oil based cereal (soy, canola, corn, sunflower, etc) has to be processed and its oil content extracted; the resulting oil then processed and refined into biodiesel. The Amazonian rainforest does not contain any of these crops, since they have been introduced to the americas by europeans and are not indigenous to the Americas.
In the case of sugar canefor the production of Alcohol based fuels, not only is is a very fast growing and very renewable crop, but also it is very far from being endangered, even less in an industry that REDUCES carbon emissions.
I am very involved in the production of biodiesel in Argentina and Brazil and very involved in promoting industries that better our world. It is very important that when we promote our beliefs, we take the time to find out the truth, since nothing stops us more in changing the customs of this world than being exposed as liers.
This website is a fantastic effort that brings people that think alike together, keep it up!

Though Mr. Aloi may be involved in the production of methanol and biodiesel fuels in South America, he entirely misses the point raised by TreeHugger. The concern is not that the rainforest or other unique environs will be exploited for use in biodeisel production but that they will be DESTROYED to create more farmland to feed biodiesel production. While many of us realize that clear-cutting and slash-and-burn activities create relatively poor farmland for the most part, this process has historically been a problem particularly in Brazil and may raise its ugly head again if the demand for biodeisel crops provides a monetary incentive for economically depressed locals to destroy destroy unique environs in favor of monetary gains.