As many industries shift away from a reliance on fossil fuels and towards alternative energy sources, it can be somewhat beneficial to examine how some rather similar challenges have been tackled in the past.
A good example of this can be found in biofuel; whilst today the tanks, relief valves and infrastructure to efficiently produce biologically derived fuel sources is substantially developed enough to shape policy in many different nations, this has not always been the case.
In fact, when there was a sudden spike in the cost of oil, many countries were taken by surprise and had to temporarily adapt to an immediate future deprived of a resource that they had become exceptionally reliant on.
However, Brazil took a different approach and in doing so produced the first ever large-scale sustainable biofuel programme, with the suitable transportation and storage infrastructure to match.
Early Innovations
Brazil had experimented with ethanol fuel as early as 1919, benefitting from the versatility of the fuel tanks of early cars such as the Ford Model T, which could theoretically run on anything combustible.
Whilst the automobile auction house Hemmings asserts that this was not an intentional feature, it did ultimately prove beneficial to early experiments in sustainable, locally sourced biofuels long before the term had entered common parlance.
In 1931, all imports of petrol needed to be blended with five per cent hydrated ethanol, and this blend would be altered as and when necessary. During the Second World War, for example, the mandatory blend hit 50 per cent.
However, following decades of plentiful crude oil supplies and a relatively low cost-per-barrel following the War, petrol won out, as it did in the rest of the world.
Wake Up Call
In the 1970s, there were two oil crises, one in 1973 and one in 1979. However, the 1973 crisis is the one that had the farthest reaching consequences when it came to oil and biofuel.
There were a lot of different reactions to the Oil Crisis, but the result was the sudden end of the “economic long summer”, a global recession and an era of malaise.
Whilst the oil embargo only targeted eight countries in total (the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Portugal, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa), the economic domino effect it had led to a wide range of effects, some of which are still felt to this day.
The oil crisis led to a fundamental change in car design, with a greater focus on smaller, efficient and economical vehicles, with the starkest change seen in the USA, where the consequences to its natural car industry have since been described as the “malaise era”.
In the UK it led to a greater dependence on coal and thus indirectly into the Three Day Week, and throughout many of the most strongly affected countries, there was a hunt for alternative energy solutions, albeit one that was stymied by a search for quick-fix solutions rather than a sustainable long-term transition.
Brazil was a very notable exception to this and ultimately would prove to be a pioneer.
Pro-Alcohol Era
The Programa Nacional do Alcool (National Alcohol Programme), often shortened Pro-Alcool (Pro-Alcohol), was a government initiative launched in 1975 to phase out petrol and fossil fuels more broadly in favour of bioethanol produced from sugarcane.
At the time, sugar prices were very low, there was a lot of capacity for distillation in nearby plants and the plentiful supplies of sugarcane made it ideal.
Initially integrated as a blended fuel in concentrations that would vary depending on need, neat ethanol cars entered the market in 1979 with the Brazilian version of the Fiat 147, although several prototypes made by Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors were also developed.
Brazilian-spec cars were modified to meet the needs of bioethanol at the time, including a change in compression ratios, fuel injection ratios, the use of corrosion-resistant parts, colder spark plugs and a cold-start system that used a small supply of petrol to help the ignition during winter days.
The Flex-Fuel Era
The era of neat ethanol cars largely ended due to a production peak for ethanol in Brazil, which led to the importation of biofuels from Africa and Europe starting in 1991 and the reduction in government subsidies.
They would be replaced in 2003 by flexible fuel cars such as the Volkswagen Gol 1.6 Total Flex, the local version of the VW Golf first car capable of running on any petrol or ethanol blend.
This reduced the complications of adjusting to different fuels or fuel blends and ensured that during shortages or spikes in global oil prices, drivers can still economically get around, particularly as it became easier and more economical to develop biofuels.
