Ethanol Production in Brazil: Bridging its Economic and Environmental Aspects

Global discussions involving the enhancement of renewable energy use frequently highlight the European Union “Triple 20” deal as the main large-scale effort aimed at changing the worldwide pattern of fossil fuel consumption to power economic activities. Actually, the targets of carbon emissions reduction and increase in the use of renewable energy before 2020 symbolize an extraordinary attempt to achieve more sustainable energy production in the European Union. Fortunately, reactions like this are also being noticed in Asian, African and American countries where the development of new technologies are incrementing the competitiveness of some ventures focused on renewable energy production. In order to understand the potential of renewable energy use outside the European Union, this article will focus on Brazilian biofuel production. Moreover, a few indices derived from Emergy methodology comparing the environmental and economic performances of some biofuel and fossil fuel options observed in some case studies around the world, will also be shown.