Second-generation ethanol: a challenge for Brazil

Overview

Brazil, the world’s lowest-cost ethanol producer, faces a serious challenge over the next decade with the arrival of next-generation technologies that can conjure up new biofuels from wood chips and switchgrass. Already the US, China, and other countries have committed billions of dollars in research on second-generation technologies with the aim of making them commercial as early as 2012. By comparison, Brazilian companies including Petrobras, along with state and federal governments,...