A very good piece here by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who explores some of the controversies around biofuels and food production, and then, more relevantly to us, cites Goldman Sachs as having come up with these figures for each kind of biofuel, for a barrel of oil equivalent. As he said;

Goldman Sachs says the cost of ethanol from corn is $81 a barrel (oil equivalent), with wheat at $145 and soybeans $232. It is built on subsidy. New technology may open the way for the use of non-edible grain stalks to make ethanol, but for now the only biofuel crop that genuinely pays its way is sugar cane ($35).

These are valuable new figures because earlier ones have become distorted by the decline of the dollar, and the rise in commodity prices, particularly inputs like feedstocks for biofuels. But the overall picture is very clear. With oil at over $100 a barrel, Brazilian ethanol producers - which is based on sugarcane - should be well in the money for some time to come. The American Mid West corn ethanol boom meanwhile looks to be on shaky ground (as if most of you didn't already know) without high tensions in the Middle East. The EU wheat story is what you might expect of European farmers seeking subsidies and whoever is producing soybeans for biofuels, that appears to be utterly indefensible.

Where I disagree with Ambrose is that he is mistaken to echo the idea that biofuels need replace rainforest in Brazil. The reality is that there is a great deal of land in Brazil that is not rainforest, which could go a long way to meeting the world's demand for biofuels at an affordable price and at a very low environmental cost. To be precise, currently, Brazil only devotes 5.3m hectares of land to sugarcane production but could easily expand into 320m hectares of genuinely arable land - i.e. not rainforest. 

Far, far better the world grows its biofuel in Brazil, than in the MidWest, Europe or Malaysia.

With that in mind, here are some Brazilian ethanol companies (and listed stocks) you may be interested in;

Acucar Guarani

Brasil Ecodiesel

Clean Energy Brazil

Cosan SA

Sao Martinho