Brazilian senator proposed a ban on fossil-fueled cars between 2030 and 2040

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Ciro Nogueira, elected to the Federal Senate by the state of Piauí, recently proposed a ban on the sales of new fossil-fueled vehicles to start in 2030, leading to an ultimate ban on their traffic in Brazil from 2040 on, with very few provisions for collectors' vehicles at least 30-year old, public fleets (surprisingly not just military vehicles, civilian ones too), diplomatic corps and foreign-registered vehicles in transit as per the Vienna Convention. There has been some outcry about it eventually leading to an end of internal-combustion engines, but the project actually does not explicitly state it, and actually takes ethanol as an example of a non-fossil fuel deemed acceptable. Well, even though this project sounds quite too ambitious for an underdeveloped country like Brazil, where ethanol production is too geographically concentrated to a point that it becomes challenging to supply it across the whole country and too dependent of a single feedstock while others are not properly used, it's going to lead to some fierce debates.

[Stubby79]

I like it. It's good to have an ambitious goal to work towards. There's plenty of time to back out if they find a better means.

[freebeard]

https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=countr...n%20gas%20cars

Scanning the titles it looks like at least eight of the United States and seven countries share the same intent.

[gone-ot]

Maybe the populae should propose a "breathing" ban for their Senators...for that same 10 year period? ! ?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Stubby79

I like it. It's good to have an ambitious goal to work towards. There's plenty of time to back out if they find a better means.

As long as the government doesn't try to ruin independent attempts to improve the efficiency of biofuels production it might eventually succeed, but unfortunately this is Brazil and nearly every good idea is shunned while inefficiency prevails.

[MPGomatic]

Brazil's the place to do it. High performance forced induction ICE love high-octane fuel. More feedstocks, More better.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by MPGomatic

Brazil's the place to do it. High performance forced induction ICE love high-octane fuel. More feedstocks, More better.

The problem is the mindset on sugarcane as the "ultimate" feedstock for ethanol, while other feedstocks such as corn and starch-rich microalgae that could be cultivated in the vinasse (reducing its salt load and making it safer to be subsequently reused as a fertilizer) are mostly neglected. For example, considering that inmates usually brew their own booze relying on rice leftovers and fruit peels as feedstock, it's quite surprising that fruit pulp and concentrate juice factories don't even try to brew ethanol from the leftovers of their industrial process. When it comes to engines, forced-induction had been often perceived as quite costly and maintenance-intensive, which are hard to justify for the average Brazilian car owner since people here are not so likely to care about maintenance at all. Just recently the downsizing trend started to catch up here, even though our displacement-oriented tax pattern would in theory make it a cost-effective deal.

[MPGomatic]

Corn ethanol in Brazil:
Brazil launches first corn-only ethanol plant, hopes for more | Reuters

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

There were already some ethanol plants processing corn when sugarcane is out of season, but they're also a minority among all the ethanol plants. Anyway, the biofuels market is quite over-regulated here, which might lead to the slow pace for the diversification of ethanol feedstocks. So, unless a radical change happens on this matter, I see no viability to this plan. Honestly, even though this project could be surrounded by good intentions, it could have started better if it had provisions to pull down some of the excessive regulations set by the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels that seem to be on effect just to keep the Petrobras' monopoly out of harm.