Competitive Analysis of Ethanol Production in Brazil vs. the United States

Nice chart on the cost structure showing how ethanol production in Brazil is incredibly more efficient than in the United States. No question our ethanol programs have added to food inflation and corn based ethanol is many magnitudes of efficiency behind sugar based which is grown in Brazil. During a time when it's economy was a lot less stellar Brazil bit the bullet and converted all of it's auto consumption to sugar based ethanol.

So does this table make our own efforts on corn based ethanol look excessively costly and inefficient. Yep. But at the same time this problem is not going to be solved by any one solution. More than likely, it will be solved by the FDR approach. Try everything and anything that might solve the problem until the mountain moves. This probably means a lot of fuel solutions need to be tried, several mediocre solutions like ethanol combined with dozens in efforts on multiple fronts will be needed to make a dent in the problem.

Characteristic	Brazil	U.S.	Units/comments
Feedstock	Sugar cane	Maize	Main cash crop for ethanol production, the US has less than 2% from other crops.
Total ethanol production (2007) [32]	5,019.2	6,498.6	Million U.S. liquid gallons
Total arable land [45]	355	270(1)	Million hectares.
Total area used for ethanol crop [45][51]	3.6 (1%)	10 (3.7%)	Million hectares (% total arable)
Productivity per hectare [45][35][51]	7,500	3,000	Liters of ethanol per hectare. Brazil is 727 to 870 gal/acre (2006), US is 321 gal/acre (2005/06)
Energy balance (input energy productivity) [37][51][73]	8.3 to 10.2 times	1.3 to 1.6 times	Ratio of the energy obtained from ethanol to the energy expended in its production
Estimated greenhouse gas emission reduction [44][51][74]	86-90%(2)	10-30%(2)	% GHGs avoided by using ethanol instead of gasoline, using existing crop land.
Ethanol fueling stations in the country[35][36]	33,000 (100%)	873 (0,5%)	As % of total fueling gas stations in the country. U.S. has 170,000 (see Inslee, op cit pp. 161)
Fuel ethanol used by the road transport sector [39][38]	20%(3)	3.6%	As % of the sector's total on a volumetric basis for 2006.
Cost of production (USD/gallon) [35]	0.83	1.14	2006/2007 for Brazil (22¢/liter), 2004 for U.S. (35¢/liter)
Government subsidy (in USD) [45][36]		0.51/gallon	U.S. as of 2008-04-30. Brazilian ethanol production is no longer subsidized.
Import tariffs (in USD) [37][35]		0.54/gallon	As of April 2008, Brazil does not import ethanol, the U.S. does
Notes: (1) Only contiguous U.S., excludes Alaska. (2) Assuming no land use change. [74] (3) Excluding diesel-powered vehicles, ethanol consumption in the road sector is more than 40% [35][36]