Brazil's Biofuel Revolution

Already South America’s largest economy and projected to be the world’s fifth largest by the time it hosts the 2016 Summer Olympics, Brazil celebrated the new year with inaugurating a new woman president, Dilma Rousseff. Making the already momentous milestone even more noteworthy is the fact that the new woman president was a former Marxist rebel held and tortured in prison when Brazil was controlled by a military dictatorship.

While the new incoming President of Brazil has the tough challenge of maintaining the steady economic growth and holding together the various factions of the Workers Party, if the success of Brazil's implementation of a biofuel industry based on sugar cane is any indication of the new President's ability, the future for Brazil looks to remain bright.

In stark contrast to the response of the United States to the oil embargo's of the 1970s, Brazil made the strategic decision to pursue energy independence through the use of biofuel and other renewable energy sources. Going from importing 80 percent of its energy, in the 1970s Brazil is now energy independent due in large part to the creation of a sugarcane based ethanol biofuel program.

70 times more efficient than oil based gasoline and having four times as much energy as corn based ethanol, sugar cane based ethanol is also cheaper to produce than corn based ethanol .

Thanks to the award winning documentary film show Vanguard on Current TV, host Mariana van Zeller travels to Brazil and looks at Brazil’s Biofuel Revolution.