SCANIA ETHANOL BUSES TO BE TESTED IN BRAZIL
São Paulo, Brazil is one of several major cities where Scania’s ethanol-powered buses will now be tested in public transport. The first bus went into service in October. The bus will be operated by the transport company Empresa Metropolitana de Transportes Urbanos de São Paulo (EMTU/SP), and the trial will be co-ordinated by biofuel experts at the Brazilian Reference Centre on Biomass (Cenbio), which is linked to the University of São Paulo.
The field trials of Scania’s ethanol buses in São Paulo will occur as part of the BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport (BEST) project. The aim of the BEST project is to support the large-scale use of ethanol as a vehicle fuel. Trials take are taking place in ten urban areas around the world. Scania is supplying the city buses included in the project.The BEST project is building ethanol refuelling stations in ten locations around the world and carrying out trials involving both cars and city buses. In addition to São Paulo, participating locations include Stockholm, Rotterdam, Dublin, La Spezia (Italy), Madrid, the Basque provinces of Spain and Nanyang (China).
The BEST project was started by representatives of the Stockholm regional public transport company Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL) and is now partly financed by the European Union (EU). The aim is to pave the way for broad-based acceptance of ethanol as a viable alternative fuel for both cars and commercial vehicles.
Scania started to develop ethanol buses in the mid-1980s in close co-operation with SL. After more than 15 years of regular full-scale operation in tough city conditions, SL considers it a fully proven bus technology. There are no operational drawbacks as long as the scheduled maintenance requirements are followed. The buses themselves are completely standard, using regular Scania components.
Since the late 1980s, Scania has delivered more than 600 ethanol buses to Swedish public transport companies, and the technology has yielded major environmental gains. Ethanol is a renewable fuel that does not make a net contribution of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Ethanol can be produced from sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as from cereals and biowaste. The technology is developing continuously. Recent findings include technologies for producing ethanol from cellulose and burning the residual products in district heating or electricity generating plants.
