U.S. Ethanol Isn't Up to Brazilian Smackdown: Alexandre Marinis

Commentary by Alexandre Marinis
Bloomberg.com

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Sometimes two things look pretty much the same, like a Cartier diamond and a Home Shopping Network cubic zirconia.

There's a world of difference between the two.

The same is true of ethanol made in the U.S., mainly from corn, and ethanol from Brazil derived from sugar cane. They look the same, though that's where the similarities end between what I like to call ethacorn and ethacane.

Although ethacane doesn't produce a fraction of the negative economic, environmental and social problems that ethacorn does, as international food prices soar and environmental concerns mount, both are being thrown into the same pinata to get hammered. Ethacorn deserves the beating, not ethacane.

It's hard to know whether those wielding the sticks are just temporarily blindfolded or whether they have an interest in defending the fossil-fuel industry or the agricultural subsidies of rich nations.

There are four main arguments against the wide use of Brazilian ethacane:
-- Food prices are being driven out of sight as farmers grow more-profitable sugar cane instead of other crops.
-- Amazon rainforest is being destroyed to make way for cropland.
-- Ethacane pollutes as much or more than oil-based fuel.
-- Cane production uses the equivalent of slave labor and is morally unjust since it takes food from the mouths of the poor to put in the gas tanks of the rich.

Myth Busting: Each of these points is a myth.

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