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Ethanol is a fuel additive also known as an alternative fuel that is made from plant life such as corn, willow, hemp, switchgrass and sugar cane. Ethanol is added to gasoline as an allegedly more eco friendly fuel and made to be more energy efficient. In order to make ethanol, sugar from the plant life is extracted and fermented, distilled and dehydrated to comprise the finished product.

The two countries that produce approximately eighty nine percent of the ethanol in the world are Brazil and the United States. Brazil has been making ethanol from sugar cane for the last thirty years successfully. Their success is attributed to the fact that they are able to grow enough canes to sustain the production and that they have some of the most advanced technology for the sugar cane ethanol production. Brazil also does not have any vehicles on the road that utilize gasoline only. In 1993 the Brazilian government made it mandatory that the blend of ethanol by volume would be at twenty two percent. Brazilian auto manufacturers produce flexible automobiles that will use any blend of gasoline and ethanol.

Brazil was a major exporter of cane back in the fifteen hundreds. Ethanol from sugar cane was first made in Brazil in the twenties and thirties with the introduction of the automobile. The production of ethanol peaked during the Second World War when oil supplies were threatened. Production fell by the wayside until the seventies when again oil was threatened.

At the present time ninety seven percent of the ethanol produced in the United States is from corn. There are no current plans to produce ethanol from cane or sugar beets in the United States. Brazil is still the major producer of ethanol made from their sugar cane crops which grow in abundance. In the United States there are eleven states currently producing sugar beets and that accounts for a major portion of our sugar production. Sugar cane is only grown in the four states that have weather closest to what would be considered tropical weather.

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