While the developed world moves ahead at a turtle’s pace, resisting and postponing to the distant future the necessary changes to its emission portfolios, Brazil holds a significant trump card: it is the first and only country in the world that will have in excess of 50% of its vehicle fleet running on renewable fuel by the time the new climate agreement begins (in 2012, when Kyoto ends).

We know that this green role did not result from climate concerns. The "flex" engine is surely a creative and cheap solution, which allowed consolidating ethanol as feasible fuel, notwith-standing the oscillating nature of its production. To the undisputed efficiency of the Brazilian production of ethanol from sugarcane one must add a tempting argument in order to make sure we are safely installed on the winners’ podium. But will this cycle last long enough to consolidate Brazil as a green Saudi Arabia of renewable fuel?

The first is an arithmetic problem in which volumes and areas do not match. As long as it is only the Brazilian fleet, it seems we will have sufficient land, without endangering Amazonia or the cultivation of food. But in order to catapult biofuel in the fight against emissions on a world scale, it would be necessary to replace oil, a possibility that would require more land for cultivation than there is tillable land available anywhere on Earth. Due to this fact, many voices spoke out against biofuel.

However, criticism is concentrated on the production, while technologies at the consumption end are forgotten. Internal piston driven combustion engines were invented more than 100 years ago, and remain unchanged in their general concept. Notwithstanding the numerous sophisticated components in a modern engine, efficiency in the conversion is still abysmal: more than 80% of the freed energy in the combustion ends up obscenely dissipated as heat into the atmosphere.

Let us compare this efficiency with that of an electric vehicle: more than 90% of the accumulated energy in the batteries is silently transformed into kinetic movement energy. Dozens of alternative prototypes of efficient engines have been demonstrated over the years (ceramic without cooling, rotary radial piston, 6-stroke with alternated water injection, turbines, etc.).

And recently, hybrid systems appeared, which combine electric traction (battery powered) with a generator equipped with a small combustion engine, that allows for plenty autonomy (a prototype of the Mini ran 1,500 km on a tank of gasoline. Or still, the more efficient: fuel cells that can extract hydrogen directly from ethanol (or gasoline), without combustion taking place, to produce electricity to feed electric motors.

If all the chemical energy contained in biofuel were used, this would be equivalent to reducing the required cultivation land to one fourth of that needed nowadays. Biofuel will only be considered in the climate arena when cultivation no longer challenges the biomes and their environmental services or the production of food.

Perceiving this climate inevitability, every automaker in the world is in the race to build the new hybrid or pure electric vehicles that may save the climate, as well as their very businesses. What will become of biofuel in this unstable and rapidly changing technological scenario? If we continue to be attached to the old technologies, the same that happened to vinyl discs.

Like fiction that becomes reality, who will care about ethanol if there were to be a nuclear energy powered car in the garage? Another old technology whose days are counted is the production of ethanol only from saccharose, without making use of the abundant carbohydrates embedded in bigger chains, such as pulp from bagasse or corn straw.

This is the reason for another technological race in hundreds of groups in the best public and private research institutes seeking to develop the enzymatic breakdown of cellulose. A safe can be broken open in two ways: with explosives (acid digestion) or by knowing the secret (enzymatic break-down, which is what all herbivorous beings, wood eaters and decomposers know how to do skillfully and with incredible efficiency).

Whereas abroad already many patents of the second modality are being registered, Brazil is crawling along. Could it happen that the technological leader in the production of sugarcane in only a few years will be reduced to the condition of a royalty payer? And once pulp from local agriculture residues produces biofuel at competitive prices, how to stay in the world race considering transportation costs?

The message is clear: the ethanol produced from sugars (technology of the time of colonial days) for piston engines (whose technology almost did not change since the 19th century) occupies a precious space as a helper in the world’s energy transition. But, in an age when paradigms are being broken on an unprecedented scale, one should not expect that today’s ethanol will tomorrow either be the savior of the climate or of the crop.

Brazil showed that it is the best in this business, using the perfected and sophisticated technologies of yesterday. Will the country also be prepared to become a winner when the next business opportunities come along, when the ongoing climate earthquake will expedite the serial production of revolutionary technological discoveries and implementations?

On the producers’ side, ethanol from cellulose is but the beginning. New methods of chemical or biochemical conversion of biomass should result in fuel with higher energy density. The more liters per hectare and the more energy per liter, the smaller the planted area, the smaller the impact on the biomes, the larger the beneficial effect on the climate and, consequently, the more popular biofuel will be.

On the applications’ side, to produce more efficient internal combustion engines, simpler and cheaper than the current ones, is the minimum in ethical terms to get started, given the many existing technological solutions, all within the reach of the smart automakers. However, the secret of the trade will be to technologically classify biofuel to make it a viable, safe and advantageous alternative to batteries, in the several variations of electric vehicles, or even to contribute as a source of complementary energy in the new hybrid vehicles. If we know how to innovate and for as long as the cars of the Jetson family, powered with fluons, do not arrive, the future of biofuel will be a really bright one.