Technological transition in renewable energy innovation systems: potentials and limitations of the Brazilian bioethanol innovation system

• Grant number: 17/03407-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2018
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics
• Principal Investigator: André Tosi Furtado
• Grantee: André Tosi Furtado
• Host Investigator: Marko Peter Hekkert
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências (IG). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Utrecht University (UU), Netherlands

Abstract

This Project intends to analyze the transition of the Brazilian bioethanol technological system from the first generation to second generation technologies. Sugarcane is one the most promising biomass feedstock for biofuels. However, to take profit of its potential, this technological system has to become more sustainable, bypass several obstacles as land competition with food crops and land deforestation. The biofuels second-generation technologies are presently an important promise that can deal with several of these challenges. The sugarcane culture is facing growing difficulties to increase its productivity, due to the exhaustion of the first generation technologies. During long time, these technologies were the engine of technological change in Brazil. In that point, the transition to second-generation technologies, including agricultural modern biotech and enzymatic hydrolysis for industrial process, are great promises to increase bioethanol land productivity. The theoretical approach of this project will be related to technological system literature. This approach understands innovation as the result of the interaction of actors of different institutional nature that intends to generate and diffuse new technologies. The technological innovation system approach has developed a framework adapt this approach to the emergence of new renewables energies. Our purpose will be to analyze the transition from first to the second generation in the bioethanol industry using and adapting the functional analysis framework developed by the researchers of the Copernicus Institute form the Faculty of Geosciences of the University of Utrech. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FURTADO, ANDRE TOSI; HEKKERT, MARKO P.; NEGRO, SIMONA O.. Of actors, functions, and fuels: Exploring a second generation ethanol transition from a technological innovation systems perspective in Brazil. ENERGY RESEARCH & SOCIAL SCIENCE, v. 70, DEC 2020. (17/03407-5)