Brazil has a good research record in many
areas of science and technology. But, according to Carlos Henrique de Brito
Cruz, the Scientific Director of Fapesp, the
São Paulo Research Foundation,
their main contribution lies in the area of bioenergy.
Brazil is the world’s largest sugar
producer. It has been utilizing its large sugarcane reserves in several
non-traditional ways which includes its bioconversion/fermentation to ethanol
used as motor-fuel since 1975. It had kept its isolation from the world and had
used low-cost techniques of fermentation till recent times when it realized the
potential of bioethanol if the technology is improved. Thus, Brazil’s federal
and state government are directing huge inflow of cash aimed at improving all
stages of the bioethanol process, from sugarcane biology to engine efficiency.
And the project has become big science as well as big business.
Developed mainly as an energy security
measure, Brazil’s bioethanol program has several green credentials which the
country is now promoting. The CO2 emission from a sugar
ethanol-running automobile is just about 20% of that of a petrol-driven one.
Brazil annually produces about 20 BILLION
Liters of sugar-ethanol to fuel its 13 MILLION ‘FLEX’ cars which can run either
on pure ethanol or petro-ethanol mix. A Brazilian gas station often distributes
four kinds of fuels-petrol, ethanol, biodiesel and natural gas.
With increasing demand-forecasted to
increase to 50 Bn Liters per year by 2020-Brazil has started facing shortage
which led to its importing alcohol from USA. Now, the bioenergy program is
aiming to increase the yield without increasing
the allotted farm-area which is 2.9% of the agricultural land and
0.4% of the total land area.
The task is more difficult due to the
complexity of the genome of sugarcane, a hybrid of two grass species- Saccharum officinarum and Saccharum spontaneum. Not only the genome is five times
the size of human genome, sugarcane has 'DECAPLOID' nature meaning it has ten
different genome sets in every cell, in comparison to the diploids (most
animals) which have two. This hampers greatly the speed of gene deciphering.
Even attempts to create GM crops have so far failed as introduced genes are
quickly silenced or shut down by the plant.
Even then, Brazilian scientists are
confident of solving the genetic mysteries of sugarcane in near future.
According to the botany researchers of the University of São Paulo, the priority would then be to create
more stress-resistant varieties and to change their physiology to utilize most
of the metabolic energy into making sugar. They also calculate that by
improving the crop and the cultivation methods, the annual per hectare
sugarcane yield can be multiplied from the present yield of 84 tonnes to almost
380 tonnes (more than four times).
Let us wait and watch their dreams come
true, and learn from their initiative.
Resource:
'A Tank of Sugar: How Brazil runs on
biofuel'
By Clive Cookson from São Paulo.
FT magazine (April 28,2012)
