| Brazil imposes 2% biodiesel quota, looks to cooking oil as feedstock
Brazil, famous around the world for the scale of its bioethanol industry, took a step towards further bioenergy development by imposing its first blending quota for biodiesel.
As of January 1, the country required all diesel oil to contain at least 2% biodiesel in an effort to expand the market for the renewable fuel. The introduction of the blended fuel, known as B2, means that biofuel use is expanding beyond cars, the principal users of the country’s ethanol output, to include buses, lorries, agricultural vehicles and ships. It will also mean the country saves $500 million annually in reduced diesel imports, according to the Brazilian ministry of mines and energy.
"The great advantage is for the country to have an alternative fuel that helps in the reduction of carbon gas emissions, that reduces pollution," Mines and Energy Minister Nelson Hubner said at a press conference in Brasilia, the nation's capital. Some 800 million litres of biodiesel will be needed annually to meet the quota but Brazil already has the capacity to produce more than three times that amount, he said.
The Latin American country has 44 authorised biodiesel plants supplying its 35,000 filling stations with another 17 due to start production during 2008. They mostly use soya beans, sunflower seeds and oil palm fruit as feedstock. The country aims to increase the biodiesel mix to 5%, in the form of B5, as of 2013.
As a further step in its biodiesel programme, Brazil may look to promote the recycling of cooking oil because it is cheaper and less polluting. Government officials have suggested that a national plan may be announced in April.
The interest of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was provoked by the experience of Indaiatuba, a city of 200,000 inhabitants in the state of Sao Paulo. An experimental plant there has produced 60,000 litres of biodiesel using frying oil from local restaurants as a feedstock. In April, it will start a 3-million-reais ($1.6 million) plant with daily capacity of 45,000 litres. It has production costs of 0.80 real ($0.44) a litre.
The plan would be to create networks or consortiums of nearby cities that would work together on such biodiesel plants, gaining economies of scale by providing cooking oil and receiving biodiesel in return. According to local media, Lula was impressed by Indaiatuba’s law that stipulates that all profit from biodiesel production go to a municipal fund to combat hunger and malnutrition.
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