Ethanol & sugarmarket

Ethanol Sugar Market

Ethanol today is a very dynamic commodity with international trade recording strong growth in recent years. Developing countries, particularly Brazil, have benefited from that dynamism, including by taking advantage of existing preferential trade agreements. South-South trade and transfer of technology are thus important features of this growing marketplace.

Conversely, there appears to be little international trade in ethanol feedstocks. Subsidies are likely to contribute to the expansion of domestically produced feedstocks in developed countries.

In the continued absence of strong government policies, the International Energy Agency projects that the worldwide use of oil in transport will nearly double between 2000 and 2030, leading to a similar increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Biofuels, such as ethanol, biodiesel, and other liquid and gaseous fuels, could offer an important alternative to petroleum over this timeframe and help reduce atmospheric pollution. In the short term, conventional biofuel production processes in IEA monitored countries could help reduce oil use and thence greenhouse gas emissions, although the economic costs of doing so may be high.

In the longer term, possibly within the next decade, advances in biofuel production and the use of new feedstocks could lead to greater, more cost-effective reductions. Countries such as Brazil are already producing relatively low-cost biofuels with substantial reductions in fossil energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.