Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Uganda scraps plan to cut rainforest for palm oil
Tim Cocks, Reuters
KAMPALA – Uganda’s government has scrapped plans to convert thousands of hectares of rainforest on an island in Lake Victoria into a palm oil plantation, the environment minister said on Saturday.
President Yoweri Museveni has faced intense opposition, including violent protests, over proposals to give private firms the right to bulldoze protected forests to create farms.
(26 May 2007)
Silva: Brazil to improve working conditions for cane cutters in biofuel industry
Associated Press / International Herald Tribune
BRASILIA, Brazil: Brazil will push to improve working conditions for sugarcane cutters who harvest most of the cane that is turned into ethanol for the nation’s booming biofuel industry, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday.
Brazil has come under increasing criticism over the condition of the cane cutters, who use machetes to chop down sugarcane for wealthy landowners with large plantations where the cane is distilled into ethanol.
Now that Brazil has built up its ethanol industry, the nation “must take the next step, to discuss the humanization of the sugar cane sector in this country,” Silva said at a news conference.
The government plans to talk with the industry and with cutters about ways “to improve working conditions for these people,” Silva said, without offering details.
Silva was widely criticized recently at home for calling Brazil’s ethanol producers “national and world heroes,” while critics say they are pocketing huge profits but keeping their workers poor. ..
(15 May 2007)
Castro on problems of biofuels
Fidel Castro, Alcaabajo
..It’s necessary to demystify all the propaganda about the alleged benefits of agrifuels. In the case of ethanol, the growing and processing of sugarcane pollutes the soil and the sources of drinking water because it uses large amounts of chemical products.
Ethanol distillation produces a residue called vinasse. For every liter of ethanol produced, 10 to 13 liters of vinasse are generated. Part of this residue can be used as fertilizer, but most of it pollutes rivers and the sources of underground water. If Brazil were to produce 17 or 18 billion liters of ethanol per year, this means that at least 170 billion liters of vinasse would be deposited in the sugarcane field areas. Just imagine the environmental impact.
Burning sugarcane to facilitate the harvesting process, destroys many of the microorganisms in the soil, contaminates the air and causes many respiratory illnesses.
The Brazilian National Institute of Space Research issues a state of emergency almost every year in Sao Paulo -where 60% of Brazil’s ethanol production takes place- because the burning-off has plunged the humidity levels in the air to extreme lows, between 13% and 15%; breathing is impossible during this period in the Sao Paulo area where the sugarcane harvest takes place. ..
(18 May 2007)
EU will demand sustainable biofuel production
Mongabay.com
The European Commission is planning new criteria to ensure that biofuels are produced in an environmentally-friendly manner, reports Reuters. The move comes a month after the Dutch issued voluntary guidelines for biofuel production.
“We want to define a minimum sustainability standard,” Paul Hodson, a European Commission official, told a conference in Brussels. “We want to say if you don’t meet the standards, you’re not eligible for state aid and it doesn’t count for the biofuel requirements.”
The EU has mandated that biofuels make up at least 10 percent of liquid fuels used in Europe by 2020. ..
(24 May 2007)
Toyota Launches Biofuel-compatible Vehicles in Brazil
Saeko Kushitani, Tech-On
Toyota Motor Corp. has announced that Toyota do Brasil Ltda (TDB), the company’s manufacture and sales subsidiary in Brazil, started manufacturing Corolla Flex and Corolla Fielder Flex that are compatible with bioethanol.
These models are available from May 25, 2007. Based on the 1.8-liter gasoline engine models currently on the market, Toyota has added some modifications to the engine body and fuel system specifications. The dynamic performance of the new models is comparable to or even better than that of the 1.8-litter gasoline engine vehicle. ..
(25 May 2007)
