Proof It Works

Alcoholic driving in Brazil

The spurting price of oil has prompted both scientists and backyard tinkerers to try tapping alternative forms of energy, ranging from sun power to geyser power. Not waiting for these exotic energies to arrive, Brazil is making an all-out effort to exploit a quite ordinary, but until now underused, power source: alcohol distilled mainly from its bumper crops of sugar cane. Already, 230,000 of the automobiles moving along Brazil's roads are powered by pure alcohol instead of gasoline. By 1982, Brazil hopes to have produced at least 1 million alcomobiles. Except for a few minor engine alterations, the cars look and run like standard models. And instead of putting out the acrid smell of gasoline fumes, the autos give off an odor resembling vanilla.

Dependent on foreign suppliers for 85% of its petroleum needs, Brazil fears that an unchecked appetite for oil could stunt the country's growth and worsen its already horrendous 109% inflation rate. Five years ago, the Brazilian government began heavily subsidizing construction of new sugar distilleries to encourage the switch from crude to cane. As production of alcohol increased, new service-station pumps popped up around the country. At first, most of them dispensed gasohol, which was mixed at a ratio of 80% gasoline to 20% alcohol and could be used by regular car engines. But in the past year, some 2,000 stations have begun selling undiluted alcohol.

In October, when the Persian Gulf war cut off shipments from Iraq and Iran, Brazil lost 40% of its petroleum imports. Following that, the government moved even more vigorously to alcohol power. It hiked the price of gasoline to $3.10 per gal., or 86% higher than the cost of alcohol fuel, and increased road taxes on gas-powered cars to 134% more than on alcohol models.

Alcomobile sales in Brazil took off. Says Mario Garnero, president of Brazil's National Automobile Industry Association: "We cannot produce enough alcohol vehicles for the public demand." Volkswagen, Brazil's largest automaker, increased its output of alcohol-consuming cars from 5,000 in July to 26,000 in November. Only one of every five cars coming off the Volkswagen assembly line is now gasoline-powered. Drivers unable to buy new alcohol-consuming cars have besieged mechanics, who, for about $900, will retool a gasoline engine to burn alcohol.

Next year General Motors Brazil will introduce 12-ton alcotrucks and Honda will make alcomotorcycles at its plant in Manaus. Ford alcotractors are being tested. A Brazilian food distributor is using an alcoboat to make deliveries to isolated communities along the banks of the Amazon. The government expects that by 1985 alcohol use will cut Brazilian gasoline consumption in half.

The U.S. has also stepped up its use of alcohol as motor fuel. Gasohol is currently being marketed through some 10,000 service stations owned or supplied by Texaco, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips and a few smaller independent petroleum companies. It is unlikely, however, that Americans will turn to pure alcohol in place of gasoline. The U.S. does not have a surplus production of sugar. Corn, the U.S.'s most plentiful crop, contains far less potential energy per ton than sugar. Moreover, any large boost in alcohol production from corn might drive up already surging domestic food prices.

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