Research May Turn Sugar Into Fuel

Katherine Ruiz / Contributing Writer

Joining world leaders' efforts to develop alternative fuel sources, FIU' s Applied Research Center has teamed with sugar producer Florida Crystals Corporation to begin a pretreatment process of converting sugarcane bagasse into ethanol, an alternative fuel.

Ethanol could be used one day to fuel the entire country, as well as parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. What this means is that hopefully one day the United States will be producing gasoline domestically.

The partnership between the University and the sugar company took place days before President Bush traveled to S�o Paulo, Brazil, where he announced a new partnership to promote the use of alternative fuels to reduce the Western hemisphere's dependence on fossil fuels.

The two largest nations in the hemisphere, Brazil and the United States, signed a memorandum March 9 to share fuel technology and promote its use by other nations in the region.

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