Greening Proalcool: Ethanol, Cars, and Brazilian Politics in the 1990s

After fifteen years of intense government support for the National Ethanol Program (Proálcool) and its ethanol-fueled cars, public debate about the program’s long-term viability encouraged the newly democratic government to remove support for the fuel replacement program in the early 1990s. However, propaganda for a revised program focused more on ethanol production’s environmental benefits centered on the alternative fuel’s contribution to diminishing air pollution in large city centers and the electric grid. This paper explores how this new focus allowed Brazil’s sugar-based ethanol industry to successfully transition to a fully privatized industry by the end of the century. I argue that the politicization of climate issues and sustained government support for expanded car ownership allowed the sugar sector to endure a decade of general disregard for the ethanol option. Instead, producers shifted toward “green” promotion of the polemic alternative fuel option. This strategy proved fruitful with the 2003 launch of the new flex-fuel car, which could run on any combination of ethanol and gasoline and heralded a new beginning for the ethanol industry in the twenty-first century.