Ethanol is being promoted as an alternative and additive to gasoline. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated a 7.5 billion gallon renewable fuels standard by 2012. The Bush Administration wants to quintuple that standard up to 35 billion gallons. The Center plans to examine the environmental and business implications of ethanol.
Joe Downey, an advisor to the Center and a Special Projects consultant, has established Alternative Ethanol Solutions to develop ethanol from sugar cane in the Dominican Republic. He has partnered with Dr. Charles Worrell to pursue building and operating an ethanol facility that can export the product to other countries.
The U.S. imposes a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol from such countries as Brazil, but Caribbean nations and countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement are exempt from those duties if they make the ethanol from products grown in their own countries. Using Brazilian technology for refining sugar can based ethanol, such countries could become exporters to the United States. Caribbean nations can export a limited amount of ethanol that comes indirectly from Brazil and other countries. Under the Carribean Basin Initiative, countries can take partly processed ethanol from a country like Brazil and carry out the last step in processing before shipping it to the U.S.
The Carribean is allowd to export partly processed ethanol only up to a limit of 7 percent of the US. ethanol consumption. In 2006, the U.S. imported about 600 million gallons of ethanol. According to the Renewable Fuels Association about 200 million gallons came indirectly from Brazil through the Caribbean. The total imports of all kinds of ethanol amounted to approximately 10 percent of American consumption in 2006. (Source: The New York Times, Sat, March 3, 2007)
Interested parties and investors should contact Joe Downey.
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