Pasture-for-biofuels can boost LatAm output

Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Guatemala can double their combined biofuel production by turning existing pasture land into crops for biofuel feedstocks, according to a University of Sao Paulo professor.

The four countries already produce 24pc of global biofuels, including 29pc of all ethanol, Glaucia Mendes Souza said during a G20 Energy Transition Working Group meeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, today. But converting pastures to grow sugarcane, palm oil, corn and soybeans could increase that significantly and cut total CO2 emissions, she said.

Souza highlighted six other nations with potential to greatly increase biofuel crops: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa and Thailand. If these 10 countries combined can turn 11pc of their current pastures into land to produce biomass or biofuel feedstocks, global biodiesel production would grow by 45.7bn l/yr (792,550 b/d), while global output of ethanol could increase by 64.7bn l/yr, she said.

Brazil alone would increase ethanol production by 55pc. The country produced 35.4bn l of ethanol in 2023, according to hydrocarbons regulator ANP.

For the four Latin American nations converting that much land toward biofuels would avoid 120mn t of CO2 equivalent (CO2e)/yr, up from the 63.8mn t of CO2e/yr avoided under current biofuels production, Souza said. For all 10 countries a combined 300mn t of CO2e/yr could be avoided.

Brazil has the opportunity to "set an example" to the rest of the world, Souza said on the sidelines of the conference, as the country already serves as a benchmark for biofuel production. Key programs, such as the Renovabio biofuel policy, have helped turn Brazil into an energy transition leader, she said, while the pending fuel of the future bill could further those moves.

But Brazil has plenty of room to improve, especially in the environmental arena, she said. "Brazil's deforestation rates contaminate our entire speech," she said.

The rate of deforestation in Brazil's Amazon basin in the first quarter fell by 50pc from 2022 to 2023, and is down by 40pc in the first quarter of 2024 from a year earlier, according to government figures. But deforestation in the Cerrado tropical savanna biome, mostly located in the main Brazilian grain-producing state of Mato Grosso, grew by 68pc in 2023 from a year before, according to NGO Mapbiomas, which maps the country's land.

Souza also called for more fiscal incentives for using crop byproducts, such as sugarcane bagasse, to produce biofuels.

By Lucas Parolin