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Brazil. Biofuels' booming is destroying Amazon rainforest

Brazil. Biofuels' booming is destroying Amazon rainforest

Monday, 16 February 2009 14:43

For the first time in Brazil's history, in 2008 sales of ethanol as fuel for motor vehicles surpassed those of petrol - according to the National Fuel Authority (Agência Nacional de Petróleo ANP).

In Brazil ecofuels' exchanges have increased in one year by 45%, reaching 16 billion liters sold in gas pumps.

Ethanol is cheaper than petrol, it is derived from sugar canes through an alcoholic fermentation process of the plant's sugars.

Brazil is the second largest producer of ecofuels worldwide behind the United States, which derive them from maize, though.

At the same time environmental associations are more and more worried about the overwhelming development of this market. Ecofuels have become the vanguard of the green technological revolution, the US increased by 5 times ethanol production, in Brazil almost all pumps have been converted.

Investments on ecofuels' production are expected to reach 100 billion dollars in 2010. However the impact on the environment is serious, as destroying the Amazon Rainforest so to create new areas destined to cultivation may lead to an acceleration of global warming: on the one hand huge quantities of CO2 are generated by the forest's burning, on the other hand its capacity to produce oxygen is reduced as well.