The policymaking process for creating competitive assets for the use of biomass energy: the Brazilian alcohol programme

Public policies are fundamental to spur the use of biomass and make it competitive to face traditional commercial fossil fuels. This article analyzes the policymaking process of the Brazilian National Alcohol Policy (Proalcool). Proalcool is one of the world's most ambitious efforts to produce a renewable biomass fuel as an oil substitute. In the 1970s, after the oil crisis and the sharp increase in fuel prices, the Brazilian government started intensifying its policy to substitute sugarcane alcohol for gasoline in automobile use. Through a set of governmental interventions to increase alcohol demand and supply, Brazil created some competitive assets that made Proalcool a relative success in terms of developing institutional and technological capabilities for using renewable energy in large scale. Several key actors influenced the policy directions, such as the central and state governments, military groups, the alcohol industry, sugarcane agricultural aristocracy, bureaucrats, researchers and the media. Instead of thinking of Proalcool as a government decision based only on economic rationale or interests of few decision-makers, the elaboration and implementation of this alcohol policy could be thought of as the result of a policymaking process where the different stakeholders involved in the process with their values, interests and knowledge interacted with each other according to the political, social, technological and economic situation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.