 The future of oil and bioethanol in BrazilJose R. Moreira, Sergio A. Pacca and Virginia Parente Energy Policy, 2014, vol. 65, issue C, 7-15 Abstract: This work compares the return on investments (ROI) of oil versus biofuels in Brazil. Although several renewable energy sources might displace oil, the country's forte is sugarcane biofuels. In our analysis we carry out simplified benefit–cost analyses of producing oil fields, pre-salt oil fields (without and with enhanced oil recovery), a business as the usual ethanol scenario, and a high ethanol scenario. Excluding the ROI from existing oil fields, which is the highest, when the discount rate is 4% or more, the ROI of the high ethanol scenario is greater than that of the ROI of pre-salt oil. Considering a US$40/t CO2 tax, the high ethanol scenario's ROI is greater than the pre-salt oil's ROI if a discount rate of 2% or more is adopted. Moreover, the high ethanol scenario throughput up to 2070 compares to 97% of the pre-salt oil reserve without EOR, and demands 78% of its investment. Pre-salt oil production declines beyond 2042 when the country might become a net oil importer. In contrast, ethanol production reaches 2.1millionboe per day, and another 0.9millionboe of fossil demand is displaced through bioelectricity, yielding a total of 3millionboe (62% of the country's oil demand). Keywords: Biofuels; Ethanol; Pre-salt oil; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:65:y:2014:i:c:p:7-15 DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.055 Access Statistics for this article Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier |
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