甘蔗推动巴西发展

At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too. But Brazil is already there.

This country expects to become energy self-sufficient this year, meeting its growing demand for fuel by increasing production from petroleum and ethanol. Already the use of ethanol, derived in Brazil from sugar cane, is so widespread that some gas stations have two sets of pumps, marked A for alcohol and G for gas.

In his State of the Union address in January, Mr. Bush backed financing for "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but wood chips and stalks or switch grass" with the goal of making ethanol competitive in six years.

But Brazil's path has taken 30 years of effort, required several billion dollars in incentives and involved many missteps. While not always easy, it provides clues to the real challenges facing the United States' ambitions.

Brazilian officials and scientists say that, in their country at least, the main barriers to the broader use of ethanol today come from outside. Brazil's ethanol yields nearly eight times as much energy as corn-based options, according to scientific data. Yet heavy import duties on the Brazilian product have limited its entry into the United States and Europe.

Brazilian officials and scientists say sugar cane yields are likely to increase because of recent research.

"Renewable fuel has been a fantastic solution for us," Brazil's minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, said in a recent interview in Sao Paulo, the capital of Sao Paulo State, which accounts for 60 percent of sugar production in Brazil. "And it offers a way out of the fossil fuel trap for others as well."

Here, where Brazil has cultivated sugar cane since the 16th century, green fields of cane, stalks rippling gently in the tropical breeze, stretch to the horizon, producing a crop that is destined to be consumed not just as candy and soft drinks but also in the tanks of millions of cars.

The use of ethanol in Brazil was greatly accelerated in the last three years with the introduction of "flex fuel" engines, designed to run on ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the two. (The gasoline sold in Brazil contains about 25 percent alcohol, a practice that has accelerated Brazil's shift from imported oil.)

But Brazilian officials and business executives say the ethanol industry would develop even faster if the United States did not levy a tax of 54 cents a gallon on all imports of Brazilian cane-based ethanol.

With demand for ethanol soaring in Brazil, sugar producers recognize that it is unrealistic to think of exports to the United States now. But Brazilian leaders complain that Washington's restrictions have inhibited foreign investment, particularly by Americans.

As a result, ethanol development has been led by Brazilian companies with limited capital. But with oil prices soaring, the four international giants that control much of the world's agribusiness - Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfuss - have recently begun showing interest.

Brazil says those and other outsiders are welcome. Aware that the United States and other industrialized countries are reluctant to trade their longstanding dependence on oil for a new dependence on renewable fuels, government and industry officials say they are willing to share technology with those interested in following Brazil's example.

"We are not interested in becoming the Saudi Arabia of ethanol," said Eduardo Carvalho, director of the National Sugarcane Agro-Industry Union, a producer's group. "It's not our strategy because it doesn't produce results. As a large producer and user, I need to have other big buyers and sellers in the international market if ethanol is to become a commodity, which is our real goal."

The ethanol boom in Brazil, which took off at the start of the decade after a long slump, is not the first. The government introduced its original "Pro-Alcohol" program in 1975, after the first global energy crisis, and by the mid-1980's, more than three quarters of the 800,000 cars made in Brazil each year could run on cane-based ethanol.

Ethanol can be made through the fermentation of many natural substances, but sugar cane offers advantages over others, like corn. For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn, according to scientists at the Center for Sugarcane Technology and other Brazilian research institutes.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to improve that ratio to 10 to 1," said Suani Teixeira Coelho, director of the National Center for Biomass at the University of Sao Paulo. "It's no miracle. Our energy balance is so favorable not just because we have high yields, but also because we don't use any fossil fuels to process the cane, which is not the case with corn."

Brazilian producers estimate that they have an edge over gasoline as long as oil prices do not drop below $30 a barrel. But they have already embarked on technical improvements that promise to lift yields and cut costs even more.

Some mills are now producing so much electricity from sugar by-products that they sell their excess to the national grid. In addition, Brazilian scientists, with money from Sao Paulo State, have mapped the sugar cane genome. That opens the prospect of planting genetically modified sugar, if the government allows, that could be made into ethanol even more efficiently.

From The New York Times

在汽车时代伊始，亨利・福特就曾经预言说：“乙醇是未来的燃料。”随着石油价格达到了每桶约65美元的水平，布什总统现在也已认同了那一观点。但巴西却已先行一步。

该国预计将在今年实现能源自给，通过增加石油和乙醇产量的方式来满足其日益增长的燃料需求。在巴西，用甘蔗制造的乙醇已经应用得十分广泛，以至于一些加油站设有双泵，乙醇的标“A”，汽油的标“G”。

在一月的国情咨文致辞中，布什先生表示支持将资金投入到“尖端的乙醇制造工艺中去，不仅要用玉米来制造，还要用木屑、茎干或柳枝稷来制造”，以期在6年之内使乙醇具有竞争力。

但巴西模式耗费了30年的努力，动用了数十亿美元的奖励资金，并屡次出现失误。尽管其并非一帆风顺，但还是为美国的雄伟目标所面临的实际挑战提供了一些思路。

巴西官员和科学家称，起码就其本国情况来看，在当今推广使用乙醇的主要阻力来自于外部。依科学数据所示，巴西造的乙醇所产生的能量将近是玉米基制造法的8倍。然而，针对巴西产品的高额关税却为其进入欧美施加了限制。

巴西官员和科学家称，鉴于新近研究的结果，甘蔗产量可能会出现上升。

“可更新燃料对我们而言已经成为了一个绝佳的解决方案，”巴西农业部长罗伯特・罗德里格斯最近在圣保罗（圣保罗州首府，蔗糖产量在巴西占60%）接受一次采访时说，“而且，它还为其他各方提供了一个摆脱矿物燃料困局的途径。”

在巴西自16世纪起就一直栽培甘蔗的地区，那些茎干随着热带微风轻柔摇曳的绿色甘蔗林，一望无垠，所产作物注定并非只会被消耗在制糖和软饮上，而是还会被消耗在数百万汽车的油箱之中。

在过去3年里，随着以乙醇、汽油或这两者的各式混合物为目标动力的“灵活燃料”引擎的引进，乙醇在巴西的应用急速扩大。（在巴西出售的汽油含有约25%的乙醇，这种做法已经为巴西摆脱石油进口起到了推动作用。）

但巴西官员和企业高层称，如果美国不对所有从巴西进口的甘蔗基乙醇征收每加仑54美分的税额的话，乙醇产业甚至还会发展得更快。

随着乙醇需求在巴西的飙升，蔗糖产商认识到向美国出口的想法在目前是不切实际的。但巴西领导人抱怨称，华盛顿方面的限制已经抑制了外国投资，尤其是美国人的投资。

因此，乙醇开发都是由资本有限的巴西公司来主导的。但是在最近，随着油价的飙升，掌控世界大部分农贸交易的四家国际巨擎（阿彻丹尼尔斯米德兰公司、邦吉公司、嘉吉公司、路易达孚公司）已经开始表露出了兴趣。

巴西称，那些公司以及其它外来公司都是受欢迎的。在意识到美国和其它工业国家不愿将其对石油的长期依赖改换成一种对可更新燃料的新型依赖后，来自政府和业界的官员称，他们乐于与那些对效仿巴西感兴趣的国家共享技术。

“我们对成为乙醇领域中的沙特阿拉伯不感兴趣，”全国甘蔗农工联合会（一家行会组织）的主席埃得瓦多・卡瓦略说，“那并非我们的战略，因为那不会有成效的。如果乙醇按照我们的实际目标，将成为一种商品的话，作为一个大的产商和使用者，我需要在国际市场中找到其他大的买家和卖家。”

在经历了一个不短的消沉期后，于本年代伊始在巴西出现的乙醇的迅猛发展，并非是首次。该国政府曾在全球首次能源危机后于1975年引入了其最初的“支持乙醇”项目，而到了20世纪80年代中期，在巴西年产的80万辆汽车中75%以上都可以用甘蔗基乙醇作为动力。

虽然乙醇可以通过酵化众多自然物质来制取，但甘蔗所提供的好处要强于玉米等其它物质。根据甘蔗技术中心以及巴西其它研究机构的科学家讲，将甘蔗转化为乙醇，每花费一个单位的能源，就创造出8.3倍的能源来，而与之相对的是，玉米的最大产能是1.3倍。

“我们要将那一比率提升至10比1的话，是没有什么不可以的，”圣保罗大学的全国生物质中心主任苏阿尼・泰希拉・科埃罗说，“那并非是什么奇迹。我们的能源收支比非常有利，那不仅是因为我们拥有高产量，还因为我们在加工甘蔗时并不使用任何矿物燃料，而这在加工玉米时则不尽然。”

巴西产商估计，只要油价不降到每桶30美元以下，他们就拥有一个汽油所没有的优势。但是他们还是已经在着手进行那些预期将会提升产量并更大限度降低成本的技术改进了。

现在，有一些工厂正在利用蔗糖副产品发电，电量非常之多，以至于他们都将其超额部分卖给了国家电力公司。另外，借助于圣保罗州的拨款，巴西的科学家还绘制出了甘蔗的基因组图谱。那开启了种植转基因蔗糖的前景，而如果政府允许，转基因蔗糖则可以被用来更为高效地制取乙醇。

摘自《纽约时报》

LINKS

1. Henry Ford

在文章第一段中，提到了Henry Ford这个人。此人的来头可不一般，全球著名的汽车制造商福特公司（Ford）就是由其在1903年所创建，而且该公司的名称就是以他的姓氏来命名的。1908年，福特汽车公司生产出世界上第一辆属于普通百姓的汽车――T型车，从此拉开了世界汽车工业革命的帷幕，并在同时奠定了Henry Ford在汽车行业的元老地位。

2. ethyl alcohol、ethanol 和alcohol

在文章当中，多次出现这几个词汇。这三个词汇在化学中指的都是“乙醇”，只不过在词形上不同而已，实质上的差异并不大。另外，“ethanol”是由“ethyl alcohol”缩拼而来。

3. We are not interested in becoming the Saudi Arabia of ethanol.

在文章倒数第六段中出现了这句话。众所周知，沙特阿拉伯是中东石油大国，在全球石油供应中占有举足轻重的地位。而Eduardo Carvalho说巴西不想在乙醚领域成为沙特阿拉伯的翻版，就是在表明巴西不会垄断乙醚的供应，为其下文阐明他们愿意与其他方面加强合作，共享技术做了一个铺垫。

predict /pri`dikt/ v.预知；预言

petroleum /pi`tr9uli9m/ n.石油

barrel /`bAr9l/ n.桶

embrace /im`breis/ vt.信奉

self-sufficient /`selfs9`fiH9nt/ adj.自给自足的

sugar cane 甘蔗

State of the Union 国情咨文

cutting-edge /`k7tiMe_/ adj.尖端的

chip /tHip/ n.碎片

stalk /st5k/ n.茎；梗

switch grass 柳枝稷

incentive /in`sentiv/ n.刺激；鼓励

yield /j1ld/ v&n.生产/产量

duty /`d(ti/ n.税

account for 占……的比例

fossil fuel 矿物燃料

cultivate /`k7ltiveit/ vt.培养；耕作

ripple /`ripl/ v.起波纹

destine /`destin/ vt.注定；预定

soft drink 软饮；不含酒精的饮料

levy /`levi/ v.征收

soaring /`s5riM/ adj.高涨的

inhibit /in`hibit/ v.抑制；约束

trade /treid/ vi.对换

longstanding /`l4M`st2ndiM/ adj.为时已久的

commodity /k9`m4diti/ n.商品

slump /sl7mp/ n.消沉；衰退

fermentation /,f8men`teiH9n/ n.发酵

ratio /`reiHi9u/ n.比；比率

biomass /`bai9um2s/ n.生物质；生物量

miracle /`mir9kl/ n.奇迹；奇事

balance /`b2l9ns/ n.收支差额

edge /e_/ n.优势

embark on 着手

mill /mil/ n.工厂

grid /Grid/ n.高压输电网

map /m2p/ v.绘制(某物的)形态图

genome /`_1n9um/ n.基因组

genetically modified 转基因的