It took Brazil about 20 years(give or take) and they are now officially independent of foreign oil.
Right you are... 3 decades to be exact.
As Brazil Fills Up on Ethanol, It Weans Off Energy Imports
David Luhnow
Geraldo Samor
The Wall Street Journal, 16 January 2006
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- After nearly three decades of work, Brazil has succeeded where much of the industrialized world has failed: It has developed a cost-effective alternative to gasoline. Along with new offshore oil discoveries, that\'s a big reason Brazil expects to become energy independent this year.
To see how, take a look at Gildo Ferreira, a 39-year-old real-estate executive, who pulled his VW Fox into a filling station one recent afternoon. Instead of reaching for the gasoline, he spent $29 to fill up his car on ethanol made from sugar cane, an option that\'s available at 29,000 gas stations from Rio to the Amazon. A comparable tank of gasoline would have cost him $36. "It\'s cheaper and it\'s made here in Brazil," Mr. Ferreira says of ethanol. If the price of oil stays at current levels, he can expect to save about $350 a year.
[Saving at the Pump]
At current prices, Brazil can make ethanol for about $1 a gallon, according to the World Bank. That compares with the international price of gasoline of about $1.50 a gallon. Even though ethanol gets less mileage than gasoline, in Brazil it\'s still cheaper per mile driven. As a result, ethanol now accounts for as much as 20% of Brazil\'s transport fuel market. The country\'s use of gasoline has actually declined since the late 1970s. The use of alternative fuels in the rest of the world is a scant 1%.
Yet countries wanting to follow Brazil\'s example may be leery about following its methods. Military and civilian leaders laid the groundwork by mandating ethanol use and dictating production levels. They bankrolled technology projects costing billions of dollars, despite criticism they were wasting money. Brazil ended most government support for its sugar industry in the late 1990s, forcing sugar producers to become more efficient and helping lower the cost of ethanol\'s raw material. That\'s something Western countries are loath to do, preferring to support domestic farmers.
With government support, sugar companies and auto makers\' local units delivered cost-saving breakthroughs. "Flexible fuel" cars running ethanol, gasoline or a mixture of both, have become a hit. Car buyers no longer have to worry about fluctuating prices for either fuel because flex-fuel cars allow them to hedge their bets at the pump. Seven out of every 10 new cars sold in Brazil are flex-fuel.
(snip)
So the question is why didn\'t we do this? A variety of reasons, but our lawmakers like to point their fingers at each other. Oil companies, auto makers, consumers and lawmakers are all to blame. I would also like to point out in the first paragraph of the above article the words "new offshore oil discoveries". It is a combination of both new alternate energy sources and existing ones that will get us out of the situation that we are in.
On another note, corn is not as economically viable as sugar cane in producing flex fuel. Only now do we see a few flex fuel cars on our roads... For a so called third world country to see this coming and create their own self reliance really makes us look bad.
