History of ethanol fuel in Brazil - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of ethanol fuel in Brazil
Ethanol fuel in Brazil
Brazil is the world's second largest producer of ethanol fuel and the world's largest exporter. Together, Brazil and the United States lead the industrial production of ethanol fuel, accounting together for 87.8% of the world's production in 2010. In 2010 Brazil produced 26.2 billion litres Brazil...

dates from the 1970s and relates to Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

’s sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

based ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel is ethanol , the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline. World ethanol production for transport fuel tripled between 2000 and 2007 from 17 billion to more than 52 billion litres...

program, which allowed the country to became the world's second largest producer of ethanol

Ethanol

Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

, and the world's largest exporter. Several important political and technological developments led Brazil to became the world leader in the sustainable use of bioethanol

Sustainable biofuel

Biofuels, in the form of liquid fuels derived from plant materials, are entering the market, driven by factors such as oil price spikes and the need for increased energy security...

, and a policy model for other developing countries in the tropical zone of Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, the Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

, and Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. Government policies and technological advances also allowed the country to achieve a landmark in ethanol consumption, when ethanol retail sales surpassed 50% market share of the gasoline-powered vehicle fleet in early 2008. This level of ethanol fuel consumption had only been reached in Brazil once before, at the peak of the Pró-Álcool Program near the end of the 1980s.

Early experiences

Historical evolution of ethanol blends used in Brazil (1976–2010)
Year	Ethanol blend	Year	Ethanol blend	Year	Ethanol blend
1931	E5	1989	E18-22-13	2004	E20
1976	E11	1992	E13	2005	E22
1977	E10	1993-98	E22	2006	E20
1978	E18-20-23	1999	E24	2007	E23-25
1981	E20-12-20	2000	E20	2008	E25
1982	E15	2001	E22	2009	E25
1984-86	E20	2002	E24-25	2010	E20-25
1987-88	E22	2003	E20-25	2011	E18-E25
Source: J.A. Puerto Rica (2007), Table 3.8, pp. 81–82 Note: The 2010 reduction from E25 to E20 was temporary and took place between February and April. The minimum blend floor was reduced to E18 in April 2011.

Sugarcane

has been cultivated in Brazil since 1532, introduced in Pernambuco

Pernambuco

Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...

that year, sugar was one of the first commodities exported to Europe by the Portuguese settlers. Ethyl alcohol or ethanol is obtained as a by-product of sugar mills producing sugar, and can be processed to produce alcoholic beverage

Alcoholic beverage

An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...

s, ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel

or alcohol

Alcohol

In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

for industrial or antiseptic uses. The first use of sugarcane ethanol as fuel in Brazil dates back to the late twenties and early thirties of the 20th century, with the introduction of the automobile in the country. After World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

some experimenting took place in Brazil's Northeast Region

Northeast Region, Brazil

The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....

, and as early as 1919, the Governor of Pernambuco mandated all official vehicles to run on ethanol. The first ethanol fuel production plant went on line in 1927, the Usina Serra Grande Alagoas (USGA), located in the Northestern state of Alagoas

Alagoas

Alagoas is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco ; Sergipe ; Bahia ; and the Atlantic Ocean . It occupies an area of 27,767 km², being slightly larger than Haiti...

, producing fuel with 75% ethanol and 25% ethyl ether. As other plants began producing ethanol fuel, two years later there were 500 cars running on this fuel in the country's Northeast Region.

A decree was issued on February 20, 1931, mandating the blend of 5% hydrated ethanol to all imports of gasoline by volume. The number of distilleries producing ethanol fuel went from 1 in 1933 to 54 by 1945. Fuel-grade ethanol production increased from 100,000 liter

Litér

- External links :*...

s in 1933 to 51.5 million liters in 1937, representing 7 percent of the country's fuel consumption. Production peaked to 77 million liters during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, representing 9.4% of all ethanol production in the country. Due to German submarine attacks threatening oil supplies, the mandatory blend was as high as 50 percent in 1943. After the end of the war cheap oil caused gasoline to prevail, and ethanol blends were only used sporadically, mostly to take advantage of sugar surpluses, until the seventies, when the first oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...

resulted in gasoline shortages and awareness on the dangers of oil dependence.

The Pro-Alcohol era

Ethanol-only and Flexible-fuel light vehicles manufactured in Brazil from 1979 to 2010 (Selected years)
Year	\|E20/E100 Flexible fuel vehicles Produced⁽¹⁾	Total Light Vehicles⁽¹⁾ Produced (including exports)	\|Ethanol vehicles as % Total light vehicles⁽²⁾
1979	4,614	-	1,022,083	0.5
1980	254,001	-	1,048,692	24.2
1983	590,915	-	854,761	69.1
1986	697,731	-	960,570	72.6
1988	569,189	-	978,519	58.2
1990	83,259	-	847,838	9.8
1993	264,651	-	1,324,665	20.0
1998	1,451	-	1,501,060	0.1
2000	10,106	-	1,596.882	0.6
2002	56,594	-	1,700,146	3.3
2003	34,919	49,264	1,721,841	4.9
2004	51,012	332,507	2,181,131	17.6
2005	51,476	857,899	2,377,453	38.2
2006	775	1,391,636	2,471,224	56.3
2007	3	1,936,931	2,803,919	69.1
2008	0	2,243,648	3,004,535	74.7
2009	0	2,541,153	3,024,755	84.0
2010	0	2,625,092	3,406,519	77.1
Total 1979-10	5,658,349	11,978,130	57,713,245	30.6
Source: ANFAVEA, years 1979-2009, and 2010. Notes: (1) Flex-fuel motorcycles not included. (2) Total light vehicles include autos and light trucks built with diesel, gasoline, neat ethanol, and flexfuel engines.

As a response to the 1973 oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

, the Brazilian government began promoting bioethanol as a fuel. The National Alcohol Program -Pró-Álcool- , launched in 1975, was a nation-wide program financed by the government to phase out automobile fuels derived from fossil fuels, such as gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

, in favor of ethanol produced from sugar cane. The decision to produce ethanol from sugarcane

Sugarcane

was based on the low cost of sugar at the time, the existing idle capacity for distillery at the sugar plants, and the country's ample tradition and experience with this feedstock. Other sources of fermentable carbohydrates were also explored such as manioc and other feedstocks. The first phase of the program concentrated in production of anhydrous

Anhydrous

As a general term, a substance is said to be anhydrous if it contains no water. The way of achieving the anhydrous form differs from one substance to another...

ethanol for blending with gasoline

Common ethanol fuel mixtures

There are several common ethanol fuel mixtures in use around the world. The use of pure hydrous or anhydrous ethanol in internal combustion engines is only possible if the engine is designed or modified for that purpose...

After testing in government fleets with several prototypes developed by the local subsidiaries of Fiat

Fiat

FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...

, Volkswagen

Volkswagen do Brasil

Volkswagen do Brasil Ltda. is a subsidiary arm of Volkswagen Group, established in 1953.-Brazilian developed Volkswagens:Many of its models were designed especially for Brazil:*Brasilia*SP1 & SP2*1500/Variant/Variant II*Karmann Ghia TC...

, GM

General Motors do Brasil

General Motors do Brazil is the largest subsidiary of the General Motors in South America and the second largest operation outside the United States. In 2005 it completed 80 years of operation in Brazil...

, and Ford

Ford do Brasil

Ford do Brasil is a subsidiary of American automaker Ford Motor Company, founded on April 24, 1919. The operation started out importing the Ford Model T cars and the Ford Model TT trucks in kit form from the US for assembly in Brazil...

, and compelled by the second oil crisis

1979 energy crisis

The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini soon became the new leader of Iran. Protests severely disrupted the Iranian oil...

, the first 16 gasoline stations began supplying hydrous ethanol in May 1979 for a fleet of 2,000 neat ethanol adapted vehicles, and by July, the Fiat 147

Fiat 147

The Fiat 147 was a three door hatchback compact car produced by Fiat in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais from 1976 until 1986, when it was replaced by the Fiat Uno. It was the Brazilian variant of the Fiat 127...

was launched to the market, becoming the first modern commercial neat ethanol-powered car (E100) sold in the world. Brazilian carmakers modified gasoline engines to support hydrous ethanol characteristics and changes included compression ratio

Compression ratio

The 'compression ratio' of an internal-combustion engine or external combustion engine is a value that represents the ratio of the volume of its combustion chamber from its largest capacity to its smallest capacity...

, amount of fuel injected, replacement of materials that would get corroded by the contact with ethanol, use of colder spark plugs suitable for dissipating heat due to higher flame temperatures, and an auxiliary cold-start system that injects gasoline from a small tank in the engine compartment to help starting when cold. Six years later around three quarters of Brazilian passenger cars were manufactured with ethanol engines.

The Brazilian government also made mandatory the blend of ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel

with gasoline, fluctuating from 1976 until 1992 between 10% and 22%. Due to this mandatory minimum gasoline blend, pure gasoline (E0

Common ethanol fuel mixtures

) is no longer sold in the country. A federal law was passed in October 1993 establishing a mandatory blend of 22% anhydrous

Anhydrous

As a general term, a substance is said to be anhydrous if it contains no water. The way of achieving the anhydrous form differs from one substance to another...

ethanol (E22) in the entire country. This law also authorized the Executive to set different percentages of ethanol within pre-established boundaries, and since 2003 these limits were fixed at a maximum of 25% (E25) and a minimum of 20% (E20) by volume. Since then, the government has set the percentage on the ethanol blend according to the results of the sugarcane

Sugarcane

harvest and the levels of ethanol production from sugarcane, resulting in blend variations even within the same year.

Since July 2007 the mandatory blend is 25% of anhydrous

Anhydrous

As a general term, a substance is said to be anhydrous if it contains no water. The way of achieving the anhydrous form differs from one substance to another...

ethanol and 75% gasoline or E25 blend. As a result of supply shortages and high ethanol fuel prices, in 2010 the government mandated a temporary 90-day blend reduction from E25 to E20 beginning February 1, 2010. As supply shortages took place again between the 2010-2011 harvest seasons, some ethanol was imported from the United States and in April 2011 the government reduced the minimum mandatory blend to 18 percent, leaving the mandatory blend range between E18 to E25.

The Brazilian government provided three important initial drivers for the ethanol industry: guaranteed purchases by the state-owned oil company Petrobras

Petrobras

Petróleo Brasileiro or Petrobras is a semi-public Brazilian multinational energy corporation headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the largest company in Latin America by market capitalization and revenue, and the largest company headquartered in the Southern Hemisphere by market...

, low-interest loans for agro-industrial ethanol firms, and fixed gasoline and ethanol prices where hydrous ethanol sold for 59% of the government-set gasoline price at the pump. These incentives made ethanol production competitive.

After reaching more than 4 million cars and light trucks running on pure ethanol by the late 1980s, representing one third of the country's motor vehicle fleet, ethanol production and sales of neat ethanol cars tumbled due to several factors. First, gasoline prices fell sharply as a result of the 1980s oil glut

1980s oil glut

The 1980s oil glut was a serious surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s Energy Crisis. The world price of oil, which had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel , fell in 1986 from $27 to below $10...

. The inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

adjusted real 2004 dollar value of oil fell from an average of US$78.2 in 1981 to an average of US$26.8 per barrel in 1986. Also, by mid 1989 a shortage of ethanol fuel supply in the local market left thousands of vehicles in line at gas stations or out of fuel in their garages. At the time ethanol production was tightly regulated by the government, as well as pricing of both gasoline and ethanol fuel, the latter subject to fixed producer prices. As a complement, the government provided subsidies to guarantee a lower ethanol price at the pump as compared to gasoline, as consumers were promised that ethanol prices would never be higher than 65% the price of gasoline. As sugar prices sharply increased in the international market by the end of 1988 and the government did not set the sugar export quotas, production shifted heavily towards sugar production causing an ethanol supply shortage, as the real cost of ethanol was around per barrel. As ethanol production stagnated at 12 billion liters and could not keep pace with the increasing demand required by the now significant ethanol-only fleet, the Brazilian government began importing ethanol from Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and Africa

Africa

in 1991. Simultaneously, the government began reducing ethanol subsidies, thus marking the beginning of the industry's deregulation and the slow extinction of the Pró-Álcool Program. In 1990, production of neat ethanol vehicles fell to 10.9% of the total car production as consumers lost confidence in the reliability of ethanol fuel supply, and began selling or converting their cars back to gasoline fuel.

The Flex-fuel era

Confidence in ethanol-powered vehicles was restored with the introduction in the Brazilian market of flexible-fuel vehicle

Flexible-fuel vehicle

A flexible-fuel vehicle or dual-fuel vehicle is an alternative fuel vehicle with an internal combustion engine designed to run on more than one fuel, usually gasoline blended with either ethanol or methanol fuel, and both fuels are stored in the same common tank...

s starting in 2003. A key innovation in the Brazilian flex technology was avoiding the need for an additional dedicated sensor to monitor the ethanol-gasoline mix, which made the first American M85

M85

M85 or M-85 may refer to:* Messier 85, a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices* Zastava M85, an assault rifle developed and manufactured by Zastava Arms* M85 machine gun, a machine gun used in the M60 Patton series of tanks...

flex fuel vehicles too expensive. This was accomplished through the lambda probe

Oxygen sensor

An oxygen sensor, or lambda sensor, is an electronic device that measures the proportion of oxygen in the gas or liquid being analyzed. It was developed by the Robert Bosch GmbH company during the late 1960s under the supervision of Dr. Günter Bauman...

, used to measure the quality of combustion in conventional engines, is also required to tell the engine control unit

Engine control unit

An engine control unit is a type of electronic control unit that determines the amount of fuel, ignition timing and other parameters an internal combustion engine needs to keep running...

(ECU) which blend of gasoline and alcohol is being burned. This task is accomplished automatically through software developed by Brazilian engineers, called "Software Fuel Sensor" (SFS), fed with data from the standard sensors already built-in the vehicle. The technology was developed by the Brazilian subsidiary of Bosch

Robert Bosch GmbH

Robert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...

in 1994, but was further improved and commercially implemented in 2003 by the Italian subsidiary of Magneti Marelli. A similar fuel injection technology was developed by the Brazilian subsidiary of Delphi Automotive Systems

Delphi (auto parts)

Delphi Automotive PLC is an automotive parts company headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA. Delphi is one of the world's largest automotive parts manufacturers and has approximately 146,600 employees ....

, and it is called "Multifuel." This technology allows the controller to regulate the amount of fuel injected and spark time, as fuel flow needs to be decreased and also self-combustion needs to be avoided when gasoline is used because ethanol engines have compression ratio around 12:1, too high for gasoline.

In March 2003, Volkswagen

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...

launched in the Brazilian market the Gol

Volkswagen Gol

The Volkswagen Gol is a subcompact car manufactured by Volkswagen do Brasil since 1980 as Volkswagen's entry-level car in the South American market—where it succeeded the South American VW Beetle ...

1.6 Total Flex, the first commercial flexible fuel vehicle capable of running on any blend of gasoline and ethanol. Chevrolet

Chevrolet

Chevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...

followed two months later with the Corsa 1.8 Flexpower, using an engine developed by a joint-venture with Fiat

Fiat

called PowerTrain. That year production of full flex-fuel reached 39.853 automobiles and 9.411 light commercial vehicles. By 2008, popular manufacturers that build flexible fuel vehicles are Chevrolet

Chevrolet

, Fiat

Fiat

, Ford

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

, Peugeot

Peugeot

Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...

, Renault

Renault

Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...

, Volkswagen

Volkswagen

, Honda

Honda

is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

, Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...

, Toyota and Citröen

Citroën

Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...

. Nissan launched its first flex fuel in the Brazilian market in 2009 and Kia Motors

Kia Motors

Kia Motors , headquartered in Seoul, is South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, following the Hyundai Motor Company, with sales of over 1.4 million vehicles in 2010...

in 2010.
Flexible-fuel vehicles were 22% of the car sales in 2004, 73% in 2005, 87.6% in July 2008, and reached a record 94% in August 2009. The production of flex-fuel cars and light commercial vehicles reached the milestone of 10 million vehicles in March 2010. This rapid adoption of the flex technology was facilitated by the fuel distribution infrastructure already in place, as around 27,000 filling stations countrywide were available by 1997 with at least one ethanol pump, a heritage of the Pró-Álcool program, and by October 2008 have reached 35,000 fueling stations.

The flexibility of Brazilian FFVs empowered the consumers to choose the fuel depending on current market prices. The rapid adoption and commercial success of "flex" vehicles, as they are popularly known, together with the mandatory blend of alcohol with gasoline as E25 fuel, have increased ethanol consumption up to the point that during the first two months of 2008 ethanol consumption increased by 56% when compared to the same period in 2007, and achieving a landmark in ethanol consumption in February 2008, when ethanol retail sales surpassed the 50% market share of the gasoline-powered fleet. This level of ethanol fuel consumption had not been reached since the end of the 80s, at the peak of the Pró-Álcool Program. According to two separate research studies conducted in 2009, at the national level 65% of the flex-fuel registered vehicles regularly use ethanol fuel, and all-year-long by 93% of flex car owners in São Paulo

São Paulo (state)

São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...

, the main ethanol producer state where local taxes are lower, and prices at the pump are more competitive than gasoline.

Between 1979 and 2010, Brazil has successfully substituted more than 18 million pure gasoline-powered vehicles with 5.7 million neat ethanol, 12 million flex-fuel vehicles and 515,726 thousand flex motorcycles. The number of neat ethanol vehicles still in use is estimated between 2 to 3 million vehicles.

The early technology in flex fuel engines had a fuel economy

Fuel economy in automobiles

Fuel usage in automobiles refers to the fuel efficiency relationship between distance traveled by an automobile and the amount of fuel consumed....

with hydrated ethanol (E100) that was 25 to 35% lower than gasoline, but flex engines are now being designed with higher compression ratio

Compression ratio

s, taking advantage of the higher ethanol blends and maximizing the benefits of the higher oxygen content of ethanol, resulting in lower emissions and improving fuel efficiency, allowing flex engines in 2008 models to reduce the fuel economy gap to 20 to 25% that of gasoline.

Ethanol-powered diesel engine

Under the auspices of the BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport (BEST)

BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport

BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport was a four-year project financially supported by the European Union for promoting the introduction and market penetration of bioethanol as a vehicle fuel, and the introduction and wider use of flexible-fuel vehicles and ethanol-powered vehicles on the world...

project, the first ethanol-powered (E95 or ED95) bus began operations in São Paulo city on December 2007 as a one-year trial project. The bus is a Scania model with a modified diesel engine capable of running with 95% hydrous ethanol blended with a 5% ignition improver, with a Marcopolo

Marcopolo S.A.

Marcopolo S.A. is a bus manufacturer founded on August 6, 1949, in the southern Brazilian city of Caxias do Sul, state of Rio Grande do Sul. The company manufactures the bodies for a whole range of coaches, e.g. microbus, intercity and touring coach...

body. Scania adjusted the compression ratio

Compression ratio

from 18:1 to 28:1, added larger fuel injection

Fuel injection

Fuel injection is a system for admitting fuel into an internal combustion engine. It has become the primary fuel delivery system used in automotive petrol engines, having almost completely replaced carburetors in the late 1980s....

nozzles, and altered the injection timing.

During the trial period performance and emissions were monitored by the National Reference Center on Biomass (CENBIO - ) at the Universidade de São Paulo, and compared with similar diesel models, with special attention to carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...

and particulate matter emissions. Performance is also important as previous tests have shown a reduction in fuel economy of around 60% when E95 is compared to regular diesel.

In November 2009, a second ED95 bus began operating in São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

city. The bus was a Swedish Scania with a Brazilian CAIO body. The second bus was scheduled to operate between Lapa and Vila Mariana

Vila Mariana

Vila Mariana is a borough of the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Placed in the south of Sé, east of Pinheiros and west of Ipiranga, it's a dynamic area of the city. It comprises the districts of Vila Mariana, Moema and Saúde...

, passing through Avenida Paulista

Avenida Paulista

Paulista Avenue is one of the most important avenues in São Paulo, Brazil...

, one of the main business centers of São Paulo

São Paulo

city. The two test buses operated regularly for 3 years.

In November 2010 the municipal government of São Paulo

São Paulo

city signed an agreement with UNICA

UNICA, Brazil

UNICA , the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, is a lobbying organization of producers of sugarcane and ethanol fuel. UNICA members are responsible for more than 50% of all ethanol produced in Brazil and 60% of overall sugar production....

, Cosan

Cosan

Cosan is a public company, a Brazilian conglomerate producer of bioethanol, sugar and energy.-Biography:Cosan began in 1936 in Piracicaba city in State of São Paulo, with the founding of its first factory for milling of sugar cane...

, Scania

Scania

Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...

and Viação Metropolitana", the local bus operator, to introduce a fleet of 50 ethanol-powered ED95 buses by May 2011. The city's government objective is to reduce the carbon footprint

Carbon footprint

A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person.". However, calculating a carbon footprint which conforms to this definition is often impracticable due to the large amount of data required, which is...

of the city's bus fleet which is made of 15,000 diesel-powered buses, and the final goal is for the entire bus fleet to use only renewable fuels by 2018 . Scania will manufacture the buses in its plant located in São Bernardo do Campo

São Bernardo do Campo

São Bernardo do Campo is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, in southern Metropolitan São Paulo and São Paulo microregion. The municipality's total area is 408.45 km ² and a population estimated at 1 July 2009, according to the IBGE, was 810,979 inhabitants, which results in a population...

, São Paulo. These buses use the same technology and fuel as the 700 buses manufactured by Scania and already operating in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

.

The first ethanol-powered buses were delivered in May 2011, and the 50 buses will start regular service in June 2011. The fleet of 50 ethanol-powered ED95 buses had a cost of R$

Brazilian real

The real is the present-day currency of Brazil. Its sign is R$ and its ISO code is BRL. It is subdivided into 100 centavos ....

20 million and due to the higher cost of the ED95 fuel, one of the firms participating in the cooperation agreement, Raísen (a joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

between Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

and Cosan

Cosan

), will supply the fuel to the municipality at 70% the market price of regular diesel.

Flex-fuel motorcycles

The latest innovation within the Brazilian flexible-fuel technology is the development of flex-fuel motorcycles. In 2007 Magneti Marelli presented the first motorcycle with flex technology. Delphi Automotive Systems also presented in 2007 its own injection technology for motorcycles. Besides the flexibility in the choice of fuels, a main objective of the fuel-flex motorcycles is to reduce CO₂ emissions by 20 percent, and savings in fuel consumption in the order of 5% to 10% are expected.

Ethanol flex-fuel motorcycle manufacturing in Brazil
2009-2011⁽¹⁾
Year	\|Total motor- cycles produced		2009	188,494	1,539,473	12.2
2010	332,351	1,830,614	18.1
2011 ^(CYTD)	486,697	845,495	45.1
Total 2009-11	1,007,542	4,215,582	23.9
Note 1: CYTD: calendar year to day as of June 2011.

The first flex fuel motorcycle was launched to the Brazilian market by Honda

Honda

in March 2009. Produced by its local subsidiary Moto Honda da Amazônia, the CG 150 Titan Mix is sold for around US$2,700. Because the motorcycle does not have a secondary gas tank for a cold start like the Brazilian flex cars do, the fuel tank must have at least 20% of gasoline to avoid start up problems at temperatures below 15 °C (59 °F). The motorcycle’s panel includes a gauge to warn the driver about the actual ethanol-gasoline mix in the storage tank. During the first eight months after its market launch the CG 150 Titan Mix has sold 139,059 motorcycles, capturing a 10.6% market share

Market share

Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...

, and ranking second in sales of new motorcycles in the Brazilian market in 2009.

In September 2009, Honda launched a second flexible-fuel motorcycle, the on-off road NXR 150 Bros Mix. By December 2010 both Honda flexible-fuel motorcycles had reached cumulative production of 515,726 units, representing a 18.1% market share of the Brazilian new motorcycle sales in that year. As of January 2011 there were four flex-fuel motorcycle models available in the market, and through June 2011 more than one million flexible-fuel motorcycles had been produced in the country since their inception in2009.

New generation of flex engines

The Brazilian subsidiaries of Magneti Marelli, Delphi and Bosch have developed and announced the introduction in 2009 of a new flex engine generation that eliminates the need for the secondary gasoline tank by warming the ethanol fuel during starting, and allowing flex vehicles to do a normal cold start at temperatures as low as -5 °C, the lowest temperature expected anywhere in the Brazilian territory. Another improvement is the reduction of fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions, between 10% to 15% as compared to flex motors sold in 2008. In March 2009 Volkswagen do Brasil

Volkswagen do Brasil

launched the Polo E-Flex

Volkswagen Polo

The Volkswagen Polo is a supermini car manufactured by Volkswagen. It is sold in Europe and other markets worldwide in hatchback, saloon, coupé and estate variants....

, the first flex fuel model without an auxiliary tank for cold start. The Flex Start system used by the Polo was developed by Bosch.

Early experiences

The Pro-Alcohol era

The Flex-fuel era

Ethanol-powered diesel engine

Flex-fuel motorcycles

New generation of flex engines

See also