Although ethanol powered the first car of Henry Ford, very few cars today use ethanol (alcohol). Brazil uses fuel blends with up to 20% of ethanol, while in the United States nearly a tenth of all motor vehicle fuel sold is blended with up to 10% ethanol. Ethanol is produced from cane sugar in Brazil and from maize in the United States. The US ethanol production is expected to reach 75 billion litres a year by 2020 from the current 9 billion.
In January 2003, Iogen, a Canadian firm, opened a pilot plant that converts straw into ethanol using cellulase. Iogen's main partners and investors in the EcoEthanol project are Shell, Petro-Canada and the Government of Canada (see www. Iogen.ca). Canada intends to quadruplicate its ethanol production, up to 1 billion litres, between 2000 and 2005. While the production, transport and consumption of gasoline generate 11.8 kg of carbon dioxide per gallon (3.8 litres), ethanol generates 7 to 10 kg of carbon dioxide if conventionally produced, and only 0.06 kg if one relies on
bioprocesses (Reverchon, 2002).
