Project BEST — Bioethanol for Sustainable Transport — And the public policies of encouragement to ethanol usage

Th ethanol usage in buses is a reality in Stockholm, where the technology is used since 1985 with success from the environmental point of view. In order to encourage the use of ethanol in public urban transportation, aiming to reduce atmospheric pollution in the large urban centers and the mitigation of global warming, Project BEST BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport-was conceived. It was carried out in nine locations around the world and, in Brazil, it was developed and coordinated by the Brazilian Reference Center on Biomass (CENBIO). One of the goals was to compare the performance of ethanol-powered buses to buses powered exclusively by diesel oil, in order to attract the attention of the society and of the public power. The results based the recommendations for formulating public policies to encourage diesel substitution for ethanol, from a commercially available technology. The engine is advanced even for the European emissions standards, as it meets the EURO 5 and Enhanced Environmentally Friendly Vehicles (EEV) specifications, besides meeting and overcoming the stricter Brazilian limits. Nowadays, the 50 first buses arrive in Sao Paulo, a result that involves several institutions and companies searching for low-carbon economy and the improvement of the population´s health and CENBIO can follow the evolution of the activities thanks to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), which finances the continuity of Project BEST.