A study has found that expanding sugarcane cultivation for ethanol production in Brazil could substitute up to 13.7% of global crude oil usage by 2045, agencia FAPESP reported at the end of November.

The international study looked into three scenarios that all excluded areas under environmental protection or such reserved for food production. It estimates that Brazilian sugarcane ethanol could reduce the world’s oil consumption by 3.8% to 13.7% and net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1.5% to 5.6% by 2045, as compared 2014 levels.

According to the authors, sugarcane ethanol is a near-term scalable solution to reducing CO2 emissions in global transport. They say its CO2 emissions are equivalent to only 14% of these of oil.

The study was published on October 23.

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