Brazil favoring biofuels over EVs to cut emissions

Brazil is favoring biofuels over electric vehicles (EVs) as the government maps out its long-term decarbonization strategy for the transport sector.

While other countries are pursuing aggressive EV strategies, Brazil's government has expressed its commitment to a biofuels-based darcarbonization plan, bringing it in line with the position of the biofuels industry.

"Increased electrification is inevitable. It is already underway around the world and it will accelerate over time," the oil, gas and biofuels secretary at the energy ministry Jose Mauro Coelho said in a 'Future Fuels' webinar. "But the question is what kind of electrification. In Brazil, it is going to have to be with biofuels and it will be a bio-electrification."

Biofuels sector executives say plug-in EVs are unlikely to take off in Brazil because electricity costs are too high, and huge investments would be needed for charging infrastructure.

"Our long-term energy plan (PNE) contains various technologies and new energy sources, for example the ethanol fuel cell, hydrogen fuel, bio-jet fuel," Coelho said.

Drop-in fuels such as bio-kerosene, which is interchangeable chemically with petroleum-based jet fuel, are seen as the only solution for the decarbonization of the aviation industry at this point, Coelho said, adding "there are no electric engines that will work on a commercial airliner today."

A government task force led by the mines and energy ministry will conduct studies over the next 180 days and make policy recommendations to the national energy policy council CNPE on how to reduce carbon emissions in the transport sector.

Pietro Mendes, biofuels director at the mines and energy ministry, added that Brazil is unlikely to give tax incentives for EVs as they do in Europe and the US when they have higher carbon footprints than existing hybrid vehicles that use ethanol on the market now in Brazil.

Mendes said the government was taking a full life-cycle approach to analyzing the energy used to power vehicles and transport in their study, which means it will look at the feedstock used in electricity generation that powers plug-in EVs, rather than just the emissions generated by operating the vehicles.

"A flex-hybrid vehicle, such as Toyota's Corolla, you get 29 grams of CO2/km in emissions, while an average electric vehicle in Europe, for example, emits 54 grams per kilometer when you consider the feedstocks for the electricity used to charge it," Mendes said. "Why would the government help finance the latter?"