Which has a greater impact on the environment: farming sugarcane for ethanol production or drilling for oil and natural gas? And how can producing ethanol be made more eco-friendly? CBL Research Assistant Professor Dr. Solange Filoso is investigating these questions to help find the best fuel options for Brazil.
Recently, Brazil has been producing more ethanol, a “green” fuel made from sugarcane. Cars powered by ethanol instead of gasoline release less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but making more ethanol means growing more sugarcane — a process that can impair air and water quality. Increased sugarcane farming can cause erosion, which hurts the water quality of Brazil’s streams by allowing more soil, surface water, and nutrients to enter waterways. Farmers and policymakers in Brazil have tried to reduce these impacts by leaving strips of forest, called riparian buffers, between farmland and waterways.
Filoso is taking water samples from these streams to determine how effective riparian buffers are at trapping sediments in their roots and absorbing excess nutrients and water. Her work will also help to determine how wide the buffers must be to successfully manage runoff.
Also, her research has shown that farming sugarcane with fertilizers containing nitrogen releases the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Filoso is working to determine the size of these emissions and how they compare to the emissions that come from producing and using fuels like oil and gas.
Filoso’s research will identify the best ways to decrease sugarcane farming’s environmental impact and help see if the benefits of using ethanol outweigh its production costs. She hopes these concepts can be applied to other crops also.
