Economic downturn, weather blamed for big drop in Brazilian ethanol supply, demand

In Brazil, the BBC highlighted reasons for a sharp downturn in ethanol demand among Brazilians, noting that in January 2009, four out of five flex-fuel vehicles used ethanol most of the time for fuel, but that this number dropped to one in four by October 2012, prompting a drop in ethanol demand from 17.9 billion liters to 11.3 billion liters between 2009 and 2012.

Sustainable Cities Collective, looking at the data, identified a lack of long-term planning abd the international economic downturn causing sugar mill production decline; in addition, extreme weather has been hitting sugar harvests and resulting in a reduction of ethanol blending levels.

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