Energy & Environment

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11 December 2007
Turning Point Reached in Developing Alternative Fuels Plan

By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer

Miami -- A plan by the United States, Brazil and other countries to develop alternative fuels from organic matter and build a market for them is said to be at a "turning point" that will help the participating nations lower their dependence on foreign oil.

The State Department’s Dan Sullivan told USINFO during the December 3-5 Miami Conference on the Caribbean Basin that part of the plan involves the United States, Brazil and “third countries” working on ways to stimulate private sector development of domestic biofuels industries.

The Miami meeting, said Sullivan, provided an opportunity to bring together with the United States and Brazil all the other “players” involved in developing the plan: El Salvador, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Dominican Republic, U.S. and Brazilian consultants, and international organizations -- the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.N. Foundation and the Organization of American States.

Sullivan, assistant secretary of state for economics, energy and business affairs, said “major diplomacy” at the Miami conference helped push forward the broader U.S.-Brazil biofuels partnership with these other countries and organizations. A second element of the plan, he said, involves the United States, Brazil, the European Union, China and India developing industrywide standards and codes that could lay the groundwork for a global biofuels market.

Sullivan also cited bilateral cooperation between the United States and Brazil in such areas as research and development.

The Miami meeting allowed the different parties to “deepen their cooperation and get a common understanding” on how to make the initiative work, Sullivan said.

Sullivan said much progress already has been made on the plan, which the United States and Brazil agreed to in March. The accord provided for closer U.S.-Brazilian cooperation on researching production of energy from biofuels, which are renewable energy products produced from organic matter. They include ethanol and methanol. (See related article.)

The plan for biofuels development, Sullivan said, now will move beyond the study and analysis phase to “being much more action-oriented in terms of policies” for alternative fuel development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sullivan said diversifying energy supplies is “critical” to the region’s energy security. Oil imports, he said, now constitute a “significant element” of the gross domestic product in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Developing biofuels will help in the growth of domestic industries and in agricultural employment in an “environmentally friendly way,” said Sullivan.

“We see the biofuels initiative in the [Western] Hemisphere as really hitting on a number of important areas and interests to the countries of the region,” Sullivan said.

CONSULTANTS' EVALUATION OF BIOFUELS PLAN

Consulting for the U.S. government in the biofuels agreement with Brazil is Arkansas-based Winrock International.

Winrock’s Jordan Shackelford told USINFO that his firm has worked in Haiti, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic to assess biofuels opportunities for public and private sector initiatives in those countries.

Shackelford said Winrock, along with its Brazilian counterpart, Fundação Getulio Vargas, which consults for Brazil's government, is looking principally at ethanol as an energy source, along with African palm oil, and a plant native to Central America called jatropha that he said grows in wastelands and does not compete with food crops. Shackelford said jatropha is “a hot topic right now that is garnering a lot of attention” as a new feed stock. The plant has been introduced in India, Central Africa and Madagascar and is becoming “global” in its utility, said Shackelford.

A fact sheet on the U.S.-Brazil partnership is available on USINFO.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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