Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-30-2011

Abstract

For the past four decades, Brazil has moved to replace petroleum with highly efficient sugarcane-based ethanol, primarily to protect against recurring global oil crises and address concerns about the effect of greenhouse-gas emissions on the environment. Despite the immense promise of the ethanol industry, however, Brazilian drivers who choose to fill their tanks with the biofuel continue to face uncertain supplies and unstable prices. Even before being sworn in on Jan. 1, 2011, Brazil's President-elect Dilma Rousseff met with her agriculture minister-designate Wagner Rossi to request that he confer with ethanol producers to inform them how dissatisfied the government was with the high prices of the product at the pumps. At that time, Rossi said Rousseff wanted him to express that the government was worried about producers\' inability to keep prices stable." The new president's dissatisfaction with the ethanol pricing structure is likely to trigger yet another change in the industry's long history in a country that is also the world's largest sugar producer.

Language

English

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