Time for ethanol

[NewsWhore]

Onil Abreu Tabar and Julio Alvarez from the National Energy Commission (CNE), who were in Washington, D.C. representing the DR at an international conference on biofuels say that if State Sugar Council (CEA) lands were used to produce more sugar, the country would be able to export 70% of the ethanol produced to the US. They told Listin Diario that the DR has the capacity to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol fuel per year on CEA lands. Due to the increased demand for fuels and the need to wean the country off its dependency on petroleum, the DR has begun to move towards more efficient forms of fuel. On 27 February 2008 President Leonel Fernandez announced that the Vicini and Fanjul Groups would make a joint investment of US$500 million to install ethanol production plants with a 50 million-gallon production capacity. The project could in fact produce 100,000 tons of sugar and generate 70 MW of energy. The DR has also been chosen to be part of a joint US/Brazil program to study the feasibility of mixing ethanol with traditional fuels. The fact that the sugar cane will be cultivated on lands that are not currently in use removes the risk of using sugar cane that would have otherwise been used for human consumption.

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