Brazil biodiesel sputters on social, green goals - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Brazil biodiesel sputters on social, green goals
02 Apr 2008 14:58:15 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Raymond Colitt

IRAQUARA, Brazil, April 2 (Reuters) - Booming demand for
biodiesel has become a lifeline for some poor farmers who
plant oil seeds in Brazil's dry northeast but critics say
the fuel is not as clean, equitable and bountiful as the
government boasts.

"Nobody ever wanted this stuff and now they can't get
enough," farmer Joel Queiroz said of the drought-resistant
castor beans he sells to a biodiesel refinery in Iraquara,
310 miles (500 km) west of the Bahia state capital, Salvador.

-snip-

But the second generation biofuel is not as propitious as the
government would have it.

Nearly 95 percent of the 1 billion liters of biodiesel produced
per year is made from cow fat and soybean oil, both less
energy efficient and made by big farm businesses.

"If we are not careful, biodiesel will generate the same
concentration of wealth that ethanol did over the decades,"
said Erico Sampaio Souza, head of a Bahia farm cooperative.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N01341114.htm

[DainBramaged]

1. biodiesel will generate the same concentration of wealth that ethanol did over the decades

Interesting comment

[gear_head]

2. competition for the wealth concentrated in big oil. n/t