An interesting and potentially lucrative home for 'alternative investments' has been launched in Brazil, South America. It relates crucially to energy supply in the leading BRIC (BRIC is an acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all seen to be at a very similar stages of economic development, although Brazil seems to be racing ahead at the moment) Country. The background is that traditional everyday fuel sources have had more and more demands placed on them in recent times due to global population growth, essentially finite supplies are now struggling to keep up with burgeoning demand in the developing economic countries. This is not just caused by ever-expanding Industry of course but also by the growing consumption of ordinary people too.

In this context the pioneering and groundbreaking work being done by 'Vinema Multioles Vegetais' (a southern-based company located in Rio Grande do Sul state in North East, Brazil) is very important. The company's new approach to bio-fuels uses by-products from the rice 'industry' to produce ethanol based bio-fuel products.

The simple but effective concept uses standard rice grains which have been deemed unsuitable for consumption as food (chalky, damaged, stained, etc) and converts them into a usable non-carbon fuel source. The process, by the way, overcomes a principal objection to bio-fuels which has always been that they use up far too much land and resources which should be used more urgently to produce food.

The Head of Research at Vinema is Vilson Machado who explained to listeners recently at a conference that the company plans to construct and install six different rice ethanol bio fuel refineries by the end of this decade. Each one of them will have the capacity to produce up to one hundred million Litres of the bio fuel every year, totalling well over half a billion Litres across the six refineries! Every year Brazil grows and harvests over fifteen million tonnes of rice. About 15% of this rice is substandard and before now was deemed useless, but now this substandard rice can potentially become a raw material for the many refinery plants around Brazil.

Needless to say the whole idea is attracting ever growing interest from potential investors large and small across the globe and also people and companies already involved in the main or subsidiary fuel industry.

The options now for Investing in Brazil (both domestic and international) have taken a new and interesting twist!