***CUBA CASE NEG **A2: SUGAR ETHANOL ADV A2: CUBA PRODUCING ETHANOL A2: CUBAL ETHANOL WILL SOLVE OIL DDEPENDENCE Cuban Ethanol Won’T Solve Oil Dependence Siegel 08
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***CUBA CASE NEG **A2: SUGAR ETHANOL ADV A2: CUBA PRODUCING ETHANOL A2: CUBAL ETHANOL WILL SOLVE OIL DDEPENDENCE Cuban ethanol won’t solve oil dependence Siegel 08. Jeff Siegel, he managing editor of Energy and Capital and contributing analyst for the Energy Investor, an independent investment research service that focuses primarily on stocks in the oil & gas, modern energy and infrastructure markets. "Cuban Sugar Cane Ethanol". Energy and Capital. February 22nd, 2008. Accessed online at: www.energyandcapital.com/articles/cuba- sugar+cane-ethanol/625 Still, it's anybody's guess how this will turn out. And even if Cuba becomes the next big ethanol player, it doesn't change the fact that ethanol is not going to provide much more than about a 10% displacement once the Renewable Fuel Standard in the U.S. is met. A2: CUBA SOLVES FOR SUGAR ETHANOL Cuba can’t and won’t produce sugar ethanol Frank 08. Marc Frank, contributer to google news, reuters, and MSNBC . "Cuban ethanol boom doubtful after Castro exit". Reuters. February 22nd, 2008. Accesed online at: www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/22/cuba-castro-ethanol- idUSN2261316320080222 "It is inconceivable while Fidel is still alive that his brother Raul, or anyone else, would convert a significant proportion of our sugar crop or vacant land to ethanol," the economist said, asking not to be identified. "Even after Fidel dies, I can't imagine that happening for quite some time," he said. Currently, ethanol is obtained from sugar cane juice and cannot be made from bagasse, but new research is focusing on cellulose technology that could make this possible. Cuba was once the world's largest sugar exporter. In 1990, it produced 8 million tonnes of raw sugar. But the fall of the Soviet Union, low prices and bad management left the industry in ruins. The 2006-2007 harvest was just 1.2 million tonnes. Sugar is no longer a major export earner and Cuba, in fact, has been importing about 200,000 tonnes a year of low grade whites to cover domestic consumption. Ronald Soligo, an energy economist at Rice University in Houston, said Cuba could produce about 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol annually if it returned to sugar cane yields prevalent when the Soviet Union was buying its sugar at inflated prices. At that time, in the 1980s, yields were 55 tons per hectare, but have fallen to 22 tons, he said in Miami at a Florida International University conference on Cuba. "It appears that sugar cane ethanol really is an opportunity for Cuba to supplement, replace some of its imported fuel and maybe even to export ethanol," he said. Some experts believe Cuba could become the world's third ethanol producer after the United States and Brazil, but that would require huge investments, not just to improve its cane harvests, but also to finance the research and construction of distilleries. The government, however, has been reluctant to allow foreign companies to administer farms, a precondition for any business wanting to invest in agriculture in Cuba. Cuba doesn’t have the capacity for new ethanol production Patino 09. Christian Santiago Patino, Studied at georgetown University . "The Cuban Sugar Dilemma: The Prospect for a Green Future". ASCE 2009. Accessed online at: www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume19/pdfs/patino.pdf But for Cuba to produce ethanol at an international scale it must acquire the needed technology—at the moment the few Cuban distilleries that could potentially be converted into ethanol factories are small and their capacity is limited to a trivial volume of 84 million gallons a year.4 Given that the Cuban regime does not have the capital to finance the development of the ethanol sector, capital will have to be injected from the outside and as investor asses their risks they will evaluate the backward and forward linkages of the Cuban sugarcane sector as well as trends in the world demand for ethanol. STATUS QUO SOLVES Status quo solves Cuban sugar production Israel 12. Esteban Israel, Reuters Sao Paulo correspondent . "Brazil to breathe life into faded Cuban sugar sector". Reuters. January 30th, 2012. Accessed online at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/30/brazil-cuba-sugar- idAFL2E8CUA7620120130 Brazilian builder Odebrecht plans to produce sugar in Cuba, the company said on Monday, as looser restrictions on foreign investment in the communist island raise hopes of a recovery in the once-booming sector after decades of decline. News of the project came on the day Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff begins a mostly ceremonial official visit to the country, which has been under communist rule since the Fidel Castro-led revolution and an ensuing U.S. trade embargo. Odebrecht will sign a "contract of productive administration" with Cuba's state sugar company Grupo de Administracion Empresarial del Azucar to operate the 5 de Septiembre mill in Cienfuegos province on the south coast. "The agreement for a period of 10 years aims for an incremental increase in the production of sugar and crushing capacity and help with an overhaul" of the sector, Odebrecht said in an email to Reuters through its press office. The project will finally open the capital-starved Cuban sugar industry to foreign inflows after years of failed attempts by overseas investors to gain a foothold in the sector nationalized several years after the 1959 revolution. Cuba's sugar production has fallen from a peak of 8 million tonnes in 1970 to just 1.2 million tonnes in the last harvest. The country was once the world's top sugar supplier. Odebrecht gave no further details but a Brazilian sugar sector executive told Reuters the contract could be signed this week during Rousseff's two-day visit, deepening Brazil's role in modernizing the island's dilapidated infrastructure. Brazil is not only the world's top sugar producer but a pioneer in cane-derived ethanol, with flex- fuel technology fitted to almost all new cars sold in the country enabling them to run on ethanol or gasoline or any mix of both. Odebrecht is also carrying out work estimated at $800 million to modernize the container port at Mariel, west of Havana. The project, largely financed by Brazil's development bank BNDES, is seen as vital for commerce should the United States lift its trade embargo with the island. Cuba has allowed foreign investment for more than a decade to develop other strategic industries including tourism and more recently, oil, with a consortium led by Spain's Repsol to explore Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico. ETHANOL ON AGENDA Cuba, where sugar once accounted for 90 percent of export earnings compared with under 5 percent last year, has drawn up plans to reorganize the industry and allow foreign investment for the first time since mills were nationalized. Its once-powerful Sugar Ministry was abolished last year, leaving it up to a new state-owned company to revamp the rusting industry, with many mills pre-dating the revolution and some built with capital provided by the Soviet Union. Odebrecht would also produce ethanol from sugarcane as well as electricity from the biomass that is left over when the cane is crushed, according to the Brazilian sugar industry executive who is familiar with the details of the project. "Cuba is opening up the possibility of producing ethanol through energy generation and Odebrecht will build a distillery there," the executive said, adding the project is similar to one Odebrecht is developing in Angola. That is a $258 million undertaking in partnership with Angola's Sonagol oil company to produce 260,000 tonnes of sugar, 30 million liters of ethanol and 45 megawatts of electricity. Large-scale ethanol production in Cuba has come up against opposition from former president Castro, a fierce critic of the use of edible crops as fuel. Some experts believe that with sufficient investment, Cuba has the potential to become the world's No. 3 biofuel producer after the United States and Brazil. Ron Soligo, economist at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and an expert on the Cuban sugar industry, calculates that the island could achieve ethanol output of 7.5 billion liters per year. Brazil, by comparison, produces roughly 20 billion liters. "But developing the ethanol sector in Cuba will take time, since most of the (cane-growing) land was abandoned for years," he said. Brazil, the world's No. 2 ethanol producer, has offered technical assistance to Cuba to produce the biofuel from cane. "The subject is on the table. There are investments planned in sugar and there exists a possibility that at some time this will be taken on board by the ethanol industry," a source at Brazil's foreign ministry told Reuters. ENVIORNMENT HEALTH Sugar harvesting causes thousands of deaths via kidney failure Cernansky 11 Rachel Cernansky, freelance journalist, a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.. "What Our Sugar & Ethanol Habits are doing to central american workers". Treehugger. December 12th, 2011. accessed online at: www.treehugger.com/health/what-our-sugar-ethanol-habits-doing-central- american-workers.html There's an epidemic of kidney failure in Central America afflicting men who work the sugarcane fields that supply the U.S. with sugar, to feed both our sweet tooth and demand for ethanol. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) takes an important and in- depth look at how chronic kidney disease (CKD) is affecting manual laborers in six countries along Central America’s Pacific coast. The Deadly Problem The ICIJ analysis of World Health Organization data shows that kidney failure killed more than 2,800 men in Central America every year between 2005 and 2009.