Last Saturday, I arrived in Rio for the UN meetings on sustainability, and in the evening had dinner with friends who happen to be sugar-cane experts from the World Wildlife Fund and from the Brazilian syndicate for sugar-cane production, UNICA. We talked about many things that evening. Upon ordering our second round of caipirinhas, my new friend from UNICA explained the differences between making cachaça and rum. The cane whizzes also talked about Rio’s buses running a bit greener amidst congested traffic. But the real enthusiasm was about a flight scheduled for Tuesday, in which a new cane-derived jet fuel was going to be used in a flight from Campinas to Rio. All thanks to an innovative company called Amyris.
Sugarcane jet fuel! I thought that was very cool, and it was new to me, although biofuels for jets have been around for a few years. Still, it was not until 2011 that it was allowed in commercial air flights.
I realized only the next day that the MIF indirectly helped make this project possible – one of the private equity firms we have funded, Stratus Investimentos, is an Amyris investor. The IDB also played a more important and direct role in the development of the sugarcane fuel, through a grant from its Sustainable Aviation Biofuels Initiative (You can see the IDB logo just above the wing).
Update: On Tuesday, June 19, Brazil’s Azul Airlines had its first successful cane-fueled flight – an Embraer airplane made the short trip from Campinas to Rio. I hope the passengers aboard sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed an on-flight caipirinha.
Photo: Amyris Inc