Corn-based ethanol is feasible in Brazil

03/08/2012 - 08h49

The production of ethanol from corn, whose production is widely spread in the U.S., is also feasible in Brazil, the land of sugar cane.

But why produce ethanol from corn if new technologies in the field and in the sugar cane industrial process have made the Brazilian model more competitive than the others?

Consultants from Consultoria Céleres of Uberlândia (MG) analyzed the scenario and concluded that producing corn-based ethanol is efficient in several regions of Brazil, especially in the agricultural frontiers.

Corn specialist Ricardo Giannini, who has years of experience in the area, says there are many reasons.

Although it is not the ideal place to produce this kind of ethanol, Brazil's continental dimensions allow the corn produced in some areas to be more competitive than sugar cane.

Among such regions Giannini includes the Mid-West -- for logistic reasons, the fuel produced should be used in the same area.

The director of Céleres says that, on the production side, the offer of corn has increased every year. The need to rotate the soy production, the area's main agricultural product, and the producers' search for income in the low harvest period, has made the Mid-West the second largest corn producer in the country.

The use of new technologies has already allowed certain regions to produce between 180 and 200 bags per hectare - close to Argentina's production capacity and on the way to reach the U.S.'s.

From the logistic point of view, building ethanol power plants in those regions is important. That is because the excess corn on the borders has to be shipped to distant places, like the Northeast.

TRANSPORTATION

Power plants that produce corn-based ethanol could be a solution for those areas. Besides generating income, they would avoid the 1,500 to 2,000 kilometer "trip" of millions of trucks leaving the Southeast loaded with fuel for the Mid-West.

The industrialization of corn in the Mid-West will also reduce the transport of corn to ports, which are also 2,000 kilometers away from where it is produced.

With a stronger real, the cost to produce ethanol from corn is lower than that made from sugar cane. The liter of corn-based ethanol in Iowa costs between US$ 0.42 and US$ 0.56. The cost of sugar cane ethanol in Brazil is between US$ 0.58 and US$% 0.66.

Giannini says the corn can be stored and industrialized throughout the year - sugar cane, on the other hand, has to be processed soon after the harvest.

Another of sugar cane's disadvantages is that the production of ethanol drops if the sugar market offers better conditions, as happened in recent years.

Giannini says, however, that one of corn's greatest advantages is its cost and availability - sometimes in excess - in some regions of Brazil.

"The production is growing and there is a clear supply boom."

'FLEX' POWER PLANTS

Glauber Silveira says that even Aprosoja has looked into the viability of producing ethanol from corn in Mato Grosso. The costs to build the plants are high, but he says producing ethanol in "flex" plants - which can process corn and sugar cane - can be competitive.

The investments per liter of annual capacity of ethanol production are between R$ 0.98 and R$ 1.23 for corn power plants and between R$ 1.58 and R$ 2.11 for those of sugar cane.

Alysson Paolinelli, president of Abramilho (producers' association) says a new use for Brazilian corn is important.

"Brazil must take corn production seriously and we have room to advance."

Giannini defends corn-based ethanol and says that "if anyone had talked a few years ago about commercially producing ethanol from corn in Brazil, I would have thought he was crazy."

Tranlated by THOMAS MUELLO