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i thought it was mostly an economic failure that was being (badly) covered up?

sort of a thing to give otherwise penniless farmers something to do rather than sitting round all day watching crops grow that no-one wants to buy... i remember hearing stories along those lines anyway.

or, perhaps it was america, where a similar thing is slowly taking shape - they have some flex-fuel / "E85" cars dotted around (i.e. "Ethanol 85%" - where only 85% of the fuel mix is gasoline... or in other words... 15% is alcohol..... if only they could be persuaded to not drive pickups and SUVs all over the place (and 3- and 4-litre monsters around cities) it would be completely unneccessary.

besides, there'd be none left to go into the drinks trade ------- and can you imagine the vast number of bad drinking & driving jokes that comedians would come up with?

Hmmm.. Not quite.

Growing sugar cane requires large plots of land and huge amounts of money, so only VERY BIG, industrial farms produce it.

And it's been that way since the 16th century.

The small peniless farmer is a mith, really. They were all expelled from their lands long ago, precisely because they stood in the way of sugar cane producers... And soybean, corn, wheat and whatever else Brazil exports these days. The landless peasants' movement in Brazil is just proof that farming has become a very capital-intensive, "industrial" activity, and the small guys are simply being left behind.

Anyway. Back to alcohol-powered cars.

Alcohol is a viable alternative in Brazil because we produce a lot of it cheaply and don't subsidize our farmers in the process.

If a similar programme were to be introduced in Europe, and petrol be replaced by alcohol, Europe would go broke in about 5 years from the amount of subsidies that would be spent.

Also, bear in mind that alcohol contains about 20% less energy than petrol, so alcohol-powered cars use 20% more fuel. Alcohol only makes sense if it can be sold at least 21% cheaper than petrol, and very few countries can manage that today.

Perhaps we could export alcohol to power cars in Europe, but I don't see that happening as long as the EU remains the Sam's Club of agricultural subsidies and government handouts.