Lester R. Brown: Author, Ecologist and Economist

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So we're seeing some important changes as we look ahead to renewable energy sources. We can expect an enormous amount of change.

PLOWBOY: Are there any countries in the world today that are prepared to cope with the coming switch from oil to renewable sources of energy? Can you name any countries that have any kind of "game plan" for meeting their future energy requirements?

BROWN: I can name two such countries. Two countries that have very different ideological systems, interestingly. I'm talking about Brazil and China.

The people of Brazil, as you probably know, are making a major effort to develop grain alcohol as a basic fuel for their economy. They've committed $400 million already to this program. By 1980, the Brazilians plan to be getting 20% of their automotive fuel in the form of alcohol made by fermentation of sugar cane and cassava. By 1995, they want to be able to replace all of their imported automotive fuel with alcohol. When that happens, you'll probably be able to drink or drive, but not both (laughter)!

It's funny, you know, but within Brazil many people scoffed at the idea of making alcohol in such large amounts for use as fuel, because the Americans weren't doing it. If the Americans weren't doing it-some Brazilians argued-it must not be a sensible thing to do. In the past, Brazil has always looked to the United States for leadership where new technologies were needed. We now find that we're no longer providing that leadership.

The other country that's doing some interesting long-term planning is China. The Chinese are doing a number of things. They now have, for example, more than four million methane generators capable of converting animal waste, human waste, and organic waste of all kinds to methane gas, which is then used for home cooking and heating.

China is one of the few countries in the world to have had a very aggressive and successful reforestation program. You know, 25 years ago China was an ecological basket case: deforestation, soil erosion, flooding, the works. Today-once again?they've got a great deal of wood, and they're starting to look at the possibility of making methanol-wood alcohol-in large quantities.

Grasslands are an important part of the global economy. If grasslands deteriorate, the supply of protein will diminish and the cost of food will rise.

China is also doing a better job than any other country in harnessing the energy in falling water. Here in the U.S., we don't even begin to think about hydroelectric power generation unless a dam is 300 feet wide and 100 feet tall and costs $60 million. If it's not that big, the engineers aren't interested. The people of China, however, have been harnessing the power in every little bit of falling water they can find. A friend of mine who was at the trade fair in Canton recently showed me a photograph of some generators that were on exhibit at the fair. They were only about yea-big ... you could have carried one home on the plane with you, they were that compact. The Chinese are using these things all over the place ... wherever water falls.

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