Greenedia.com: Will Cuba Lead the World in Biofuel Industry?

WILL CUBA BECOME ETHANOL LEADER WITH FIDEL CASTRO GONE?

Environmental bloggers have been speculating about how Castro’s exit will affect the Cuba’s biofuel industry. Castro has been outspoken against the fuel, although some claim his criticism was simply a slap at the U.S. and its corn industry. Despite this animosity, however, Cuba has been slowly building its ethanol infrastructure.

The question remains whether the installation of his brother Raul, who is known to be much more practical, will put Cuba on track to be a biofuel leader. Some are encouraged by Raul’s support of biofuels, while other’s believe that Castro still has enough power to limit the industry’s growth.

Biopact, an organization that strives to create mutually beneficial “energy relationships,” remains optimistic. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, so went Cuba’s sugar-based economy, as they were a major player in the oil-for-sugar campaign. The ethanol industry is the most obvious way “for Cuba's leaders to revive the island's economy.” Sugarcane provides competitive biofuels without requiring subsidization, “tapping this potential would bring in major economic returns” and serve to as “an excellent opportunity for the country to transform its economy gradually into a more open, market-oriented system.”

All this is dependent upon “the economic policies of the island's new leaders,” writes Biopact in the post, “and on America's willingness to engage with them.” Fortunately, Raul Castro is “more concerned with improving Cubans' daily lives than spreading the revolution.” He has been in favor of biofuels, “especially in the context of providing local energy security.”

EnergyBulletin, a respected clearinghouse of news and research on the global energy supply, is more doubtful. Local experts say that “Cuba will only jump on the ethanol bandwagon if it can produce the biofuel from sugar cane as a by-product that does not affect its sugar output.” And even though Raul Castro is now leading the country, Fidel Castro “is expected to retain huge influence in Cuba.”

Fidel Castro has called the use of food crops to produce fuel “a crime against humanity because rising prices will increase hunger,” states EnergyBulletin in the post. However, local economists say Cuba could become more interested in producing ethanol if it is successful in developing a new technology “to produce fuel from milled sugar cane bagasse.”

Treehugger, a leading media outlet for sustainability issues, adds that “Cuba wouldn't be able to start producing all that ethanol without ‘a huge investment in Cuba's rickety sugar industry,’” in the form of foreign investment. The post states that this “may not be as unlikely as it sounds.” According to the Washington Post “Cuba's leaders likely will ‘want to pursue an incremental, gradual approach to reform’ that does not privatize the large state-run sector but allows a new private sector to grow alongside it.” The country has “little need for ethanol and could easily export it in large quantities.” We shouldn’t be surprised if we begin to “see Cuban ethanol in gas stations around the world.”

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