http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/19100 s: Brazil's new agriculture minister backs ethanol program
BRAZIL: December 17, 2002 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil's new agriculture minister Roberto Rodrigues on Monday expressed strong support for a relaunch of the national sugar cane-based fuel alcohol program. "It's one of the biggest generators of jobs, a clean environment and an alternative source of energy," Rodrigues said in an interview on Globo television. Rodrigues, 60, was appointed by president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday. Rodrigues is president of the Brazilian Association of Agribusiness and a sugar cane grower. Rodrigues said Brazil had 90 million hectares (222 million acres) of spare arable land, without touching the Amazon, in addition to the 56 million ha (138 million acres) it currently cultivated. "Brazil has an enormous area for it," he said. Brazil's first Pro-Alcohol program, launched in the mid-1970s when oil prices were rocketing, collapsed at the end of the 1980s when supplies of fuel alcohol, also known as ethanol, dried up. Fuel alcohol has returned to favor following a record cane crop, sharp rise in oil prices this year and development of new engine technologies to use ethanol. REUTERS NEWS PICTURE SERVICE Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
