With restrictions in place on using corn to make ethanol, Mexican companies are working to find ways to produce biofuels that are not dependent on the country’s traditional food staple. Two plants built to distill corn in the northwestern state of Sinaloa have had to adapt to using another feedstock such as sugarcane.
Fearing that its people may go hungry if they use corn for ethanol, Mexico now has laws that disallow the use of corn until domestic demand has been met and there is a national surplus. No such surplus currently exists, which is why the country has a total of 145 projects looking into alternative biofuels, according to Francisco Lopez Tostado, the undersecretary of agriculture.
By 2011, Mexico has pledged to replace 2 percent of the hydrocarbon fuels used in three of its main cities — Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City — with renewable alternatives
Filed under: Biofuels, Cellulosic, Corn, Enviroment, Ethanol, Food vs. Fuel, Government, Sugarcane, Sustainability
[...] law to promote and develop the use of biofuels was enacted in 2008 and calls for the production of ethanol from different sources, including [...]