Ethanol, divine treasure

Since man discovered fire, a never-ending fight for control of energy sources has unfolded upon the earth, something that persists today. In the last decades that fight has led to some countries associating themselves with others (like what happened with coal and steel within the European Union) or orientating their foreign policies (as well as defense) in order to assure energy supplies, such as the United States. This means that making a decision about what type of energy a certain country will use is a strategic one that definitely affects many different interests.
A few hours ago the President of the United States, George W. Bush and his equal from our neighboring country, Lula da Silva, signed an agreement to promote bio-fuels. The big stars of the vegetable-based fuels are ethanol and bio-diesel. There are only two important leaders regarding ethanol: Brazil and the United States. Between them they control 72% of global production.
However, the United States has only recently jumped into the ethanol market. Three years ago only the ecologists were talking about ethanol in the U.S. Two things changed the scene: the constant rise of the price of oil and the huge discredit the country fell into due to its military interventions in the Middle East that were meant to ensure oil supply.
Since then the democratic opposition has been proposing regulations to gear the country more towards alternative energy sources such as ethanol, which is currently the more technologically advanced substitute for oil.
Bush, who is also the president with the most direct link to the oil industry in the history of the country, even set up a development timeline for the project, last January: in the State of the Union address he said that by 2010 the U.S. will decrease gasoline consumption by 20%.
That country's political class seems to be pretty solid: the two strongest candidates for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, share the same opinion.
The U.S. currently has 116 ethanol production plants and 79 being built; to-date only 2% of the energy in fuel tanks in that country has ethanol. A real fever has broken out in the U.S. for the new fuel and the three most important car manufacturers have shown support for the growing importance of ethanol and they have already started with technologies that will allow their vehicles to use fuels such as E85, which is a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.
The purpose of Bush’s visit is threefold: decrease his country’s dependency on oil, strengthen his alliance with a strategic partner in the region (like Lula in Brazil) and counteract Chavez's political and economic influence in Latin America.
Brazil, at the same time, is the largest producer of sugarcane ethanol in the world, which is cheaper to distill than those corn-based processes, which is how the U.S. does it. The Brazilian companies have over 30 years accumulated in the business regarding sales, technology, engines and equipment.
This means that Brazil will be the most benefited country if the U.S. keeps its promise of decrease gasoline consumption by 20%.
The ethanol phenomenon is also making the U.S., which is the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world, concentrate its production towards generating ethanol. As a result of this, they have started exiting international markets, thus benefiting Argentina and Brazil, which are large producers on a global scale. Our countries will also benefit from soy since, in the U.S., this crop is loosing ground to corn.