Pdf of Louisiana/Brazil series front pages

View below an interactive pdf of the newspages for days 1, 2 and 4 of the Louisiana/Brazil ethanol series in The Daily Advertiser.

View this document on Scribd

Pdf of 8-page special section from Louisiana/Brazil series

View below the 8-page special section from Day 3 of the Louisiana/Brazil series. This section included stories solely from Brazil.

View this document on Scribd

Ethanol’s growing pains (Day 1 of 4)

Past failures cast shadow over future of biofuel

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 1, 2007

It was 1986, and Louisiana’s ethanol future looked bright.

We made ethanol with sugarcane molasses — 32 million gallons worth — and mixed it to make 319 million gallons of “gasohol,” more than any year before. The state was expected to lead the nation’s budding ethanol industry.

Burned by the world oil crunch in the 1970s, the United States gave tax breaks to an ethanol industry in its infancy, hoping to eliminate the country’s reliance on foreign oil. Farmers considered it a saving grace, and six plants across the state were planned to turn corn and cane into fuel. Up to 18 more were expected within the decade.

But that was then.

In the long run, Louisiana and the nation began backing away from the promise of renewable fuels as soon as oil got cheaper — and let a wobbly-kneed ethanol industry fall before it could find its legs. Louisiana erased its subsidies in 1989 that convinced investors to roll the dice, and the state’s ethanol future was gone.

Ethanol: A strategy for survival (Day 2 of 4)

Brazilian model for success offers hope for Louisiana farmers, who want game plan for diversification

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 2, 2007

After four years of crippling drought, freeze and hurricanes, Louisiana’s sugarcane farmers are celebrating a near-perfect 2007 crop, fed merely by good rain and the absence of disaster.

Louisiana keeps evolving with new cane breeds and technology, producing more sugar with fewer farmers compared to decades ago. It’s the state’s No. 1 row crop, generating more than $500 million of total value in 2006 with 27,000 jobs directly tied in.

But today’s success will be short-lived, most farmers and mill owners agree, unless the industry takes the next step and finds a place for cane in the future of U.S. ethanol.

From struggling farms to a Brazilian Boom City (Day 3 of 4)

Ethanol investment has lessons for local economy

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

RIBEIRÃO PRETO, Brazil — If you have to ask how much it costs to live here, you probably can’t afford to.

In northeast São Paulo state, where 80 percent of Brazil’s sugar cane and ethanol comes from, Ribeirão Preto is a boom-city that owes much of its success to the country’s focus on biofuels.

Property costs are rising by the minute, luxury skyscrapers sprout downtown as fast as the cane does, and imported car dealers time their sales to the beat of sugar and ethanol markets.

Separating fact from fiction about ethanol (Day 3 of 4)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

MYTH: Ethanol will harm car and truck engines.
FACT: Every major automobile manufacturer approves up to 10 percent ethanol-blended gasoline in their warranties. Cars built since the 1970s are fully compatible with E-10 unleaded. Ethanol is considered a high-value additive that boosts a car’s octane and performance, eliminates the need for antifreeze, prevents burning of engine valves and stops buildup in fuel injectors.

Ethanol creates new careers in Brazil, U.S. (Day 3 of 4)

High-tech jobs change the face of agriculture

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

PIRACICABA, Brazil — A sweet, gritty taste of hand-cut sugar cane between the teeth reminds Carlos Roberto Manochio Jr. why he gave his life to agriculture.

Ten-foot-high stalks grew everywhere he looked as a child in rural São Paulo state. It’s the richest region for cane growth in Brazil, the world leader in sugar production and ethanol export. All a kid like Manochio needed was a pocketknife and some patience, and summer days were always better with slices of sugary stalk to chew and suck dry.

“I never get to do this anymore,” said Manochio, 28, from a cane field owned by Cosan Costa Pinto, one of the largest sugar and ethanol mills in Brazil. He passed on farming to become an agronomic engineer, staying close to the cane he loves by learning how to make it grow taller and faster.

Brazil’s government started a national ethanol program in 1975, and by the mid-1980s rural youth like Manochio saw agriculture and any science related to it as the “future profession.”

“We believe that now we’re in the future,” he said.

Cane Cutters — the backbone of Brazil’s ethanol industry (Day 3 of 4)

Seasonal labor works the fields with few protections

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

SERTAOZINHO, Brazil — His eight hours are nearly up, but Valdeci Nascimento’s sore, sweaty, soot-covered hands wield a machete that he can’t stop swinging.

He hacks away at the base of naked sugar cane stalk in a field with 45 other workers, shielding mocha skin from the tropical heat under a ragged ballcap and sweat-soaked long-sleeve shirt. The faster he cuts, the more he’s paid. At about U.S.$1.50 per ton of cane, Nascimento, 33, builds as many car-sized piles of stalk as possible to make his grunt work worth it.

This is the muscle that moves Brazil’s mammoth cane ethanol industry.

Ethanol hasn’t hindered oil exploration in Brazil (Day 3 of 4)

(Here’s a link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

In the deep waters off Brazil’s southeast coast, new discoveries of oil — not ethanol production — are a big reason why this nation could be energy-independent in 2006, and be considered a player in world fuel supply for the foreseeable future.

Following the 1973 OPEC oil crisis, Brazil was importing nearly all its oil and began heavily subsidizing a new ethanol industry. But at the same time the state-owned oil company, Petrobras, was pioneering deep-water exploration techniques now mimicked around the world, and studied by UL students.

Videos on Brazil´s ethanol industry, sugarcane field workers (Day 3 of 4)

By Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

The two audio slideshows below appeared on Day 3 of our four-day series that compared Brazil´s mature sugarcane ethanol industry with Louisiana´s early efforts towards establishing one.

The first slideshow highlights the economic impact across many business sectors in Brazil by its sugarcane ethanol industry, the stark differences between biofuel from cane versus corn (the primary source in U.S.), and the future growth prospects of Brazilian ethanol to meet demand by its own population, and export demand by European and Asian countries (Brazil was at the time of this series, and still is, the world leader in ethanol export).

The second puts you face to face with the men and women considered to be the muscle that moves Brazil´s ethanol industry — seasonal migrants who cut cane in the fields. Brazilian farms still overwhelmingly rely on handworkers like them, men and women facing few job options in many poor Brazilian states who travel south for the cane harvest. Some are treated well by employers. Some are robbed by middlemen hired to help them find jobs. Some bring savings home to their families. Some die from heat exhaustion.

Reporting and narration was provided by myself, with photos by Marcelo Min of Agencia Fotogarrafa in São Paulo.

Brazil’s cachaça: The sweet life (Day 3 of 4)

Brazilians make the most of sugar cane

(Here’s a link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

PIRACICABA, Brazil — If it were up to Bob Lange, countries like the U.S. and Brazil would tap the sun, wind and sea for the future of alternative energy, and save sugar cane for pure enjoyment.

“Let’s leave the cane for cachaça,” he said, “we’ll all be happier.”

Brazilians would agree with Lange in a heartbeat, but most in the U.S. don’t know what cachaça is. At least not yet, anyway.

The other alternative fuel — biodiesel (Day 3 of 4)

(Here’s a link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

Soybeans, animal fat, dirty cooking oil and sunflowers are just a few sources for biodiesel — the oft-ignored but more prolific brother of ethanol.

It’s the only biofuel Louisiana currently makes en masse. Two years ago, 2 percent of the U.S. soybean crop went into biodiesel; this year, as much as 12 percent is estimated.

Brazil — Where cars run on sugar cane (Day 3 of 4)

Consumers get more options in flex-fuel economy

(Here’s a link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — When Eulair Deberaldini glances across the lot of a Rede Papa fuel station, he sees the difference between choice and dependence in how much cash drivers fork over to fill their tanks, and smiles at his flex-fuel Chevy Vectra.

“This car to fill with alcohol is $50 Brazilian real, compared to $100 real for gasoline,” Deberaldini said through a translator. “Fuel choice is very important, and flex-power saves me money.”

Americans like to talk about choice at the fuel pumps, but Brazilians are living it.

Other countries getting into the biofuel game (Day 3 of 4)

Investors flocking to Brazil for tips on ethanol technology

(Here’s a link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 3, 2007

PIRACICABA, Brazil — At least twice a week, executives here at Dedini’s headquarters pencil in time to let delegates from around the world window-shop their ethanol plant-making process.

Dedini, the world’s largest maker of complete ethanol mills and their parts, is a Brazilian-born success story poised to profit as the world pursues biofuels. About 80 percent of ethanol distilleries in Brazil are Dedini-made, and 25 have been sold abroad.

More than 8,000 investors and public officials visited the headquarters here last year from Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, eager for a peek at the multi-million dollar pricetag to build their own biofuel industries.

Biofuel future rests with farm waste (Day 4 of 4)

La. site leads way in cellulosic technology

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 4, 2007

For the U.S. to have a long-term future in ethanol, it can’t come from corn, sugar cane or any other food-based crop. Researchers, politicians and farmers are all starting to agree that we either won’t grow enough of it or can’t afford not to eat it.

While Brazil made its ethanol niche in sugar cane, the next evolutionary step is cellulosic technology — breaking down everything from pulpy cane fiber called bagasse, corn scraps, or almost any nonfood crop into its most basic sugars, and then into fuel.

This will be what makes or breaks ethanol in Louisiana. Drawing on scraps from the state’s two largest agricultural sectors, sugar cane and forestry, it could add a new avenue of profit for farmers and mills eager to diversify.

John Deere on global move (Day 4 of 4)

Manufacturer to play role in equipping world’s sugarcane farmers

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 4, 2007

THIBODAUX, La. — As production of sugar cane grows worldwide to make the favored feedstock for ethanol, so will orders at John Deere Thibodaux.

The famed farm equipment manufacturer, which holds 68 percent of the cane farming-market as of 2007, has two factories in the world building sugar cane harvesters — in Goias state of Brazil, and Thibodaux, La.

Family mourns 2 killed in fire

Neighbor aids rescue efforts; 2 hospitalized

By Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Oct. 27, 2007

View this document on Scribd

Industries in crisis

Lack of workers to pick, process and peel could be devastating

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
March 2, 2008

Spanish gospel music should be echoing through the halls of Abbeville’s Harvest Time Seafood.

This crab and crawfish processing plant is normally bustling by now with young men and women from Mexico, their aprons damp and fingers cold, plucking seafood meat out of tiny shells. Most call this their second home, working year after year for owner Kevin Dartez during harvest season under the federal H-2B Guest-Worker Visa Program.

They’d pay taxes, contribute to Social Security and return home at the end of the harvest. Employers can bring in H-2B guest workers for many seasonal non-agriculture jobs like food processing, only after an extensive process proves no American wants the job.

But guest workers have been lost in the shuffle of the illegal immigration debate, resurfacing just as many realize how an unrealistically low cap of 66,000 guest visas has put the U.S. economy in danger.

Go visit Dartez today and see his empty tables. He’s got time to kill, and can give you a tour of his barren coolers, an unused cooker, the new oyster division he can’t start and everything else 50 guest workers would be doing for Harvest Time right now.

His story is just the prologue of a potential nightmare for South Louisiana, where hundreds of businesses in seafood, agriculture and tourism predict financial ruin unless an emergency Congressional effort forces a fix to the guest worker backlog.

Biofuel — new avenue for La. agriculture

Renewable energy seen as bright future at state ag-industry conference

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

By Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Feb. 27, 2008

MONROE — Louisiana has the fertile land, crop variety, trade routes and petro-fuel expertise to develop a strong biofuels industry. But there’s such a hodge-podge of climate and growing regions that they all must play to their own strengths for Louisiana to emerge as a major biofuels force in the U.S.

About 11 ethanol or biodiesel refineries were planned or under construction in Louisiana as of late 2007, ranging from the nation’s first sugarcane ethanol refinery in Lacassine, to corn ethanol projects in the Monroe-region, and a chicken fat-to-jet fuel refinery backed by Tyson Foods in Geismar. These new projects and more prompted the LSU AgCenter to focus its 2008 AgOutlook Conference here this week on “Connecting Agriculture and Renewable Energy.”

From enzymes to ethanol in Louisiana

Verenium expects construction on nearby plant to be complete by March 31.

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

By Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Jan. 26, 2008

JENNINGS, La. — The first ethanol plant in the U.S. using enzymes to make ethanol from plant scraps should be built here by March 31, company officials said Friday during a site tour.

Verenium, a Massachusetts-based company, built a small plant in Jennings in 2006 to test new ways to make cellulosic ethanol from plant matter and farm scraps, like sugarcane bagasse (pulpy fiber) and wood chips. It’s one of a few pilot plants in the U.S. acting like chemistry labs in search of the cellulosic breakthrough.

Finding a cheap way to break down large amounts of plant matter into fuel would solve a lot of ethanol arguments in the U.S. surrounding food supply fears, and improve ethanol’s long-term chances with consumers.

Verenium says it’s closer than most, with branches in Florida and California researching and engineering an ideal enzyme to break up the cellulose into simple sugars, and then into alcohol. Its Jennings site is where everything comes together for testing.