RAFAEL BENNERTZ
THE BRAZILIAN ETHANOL CAR: A sociotechnical analysis.
O CARRO BRASILEIRO A ÁLCOOL:
Uma análise sociotécnica.
CAMPINAS 2014
NÚMERO: 321/2014
UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS INSTITUTO DE GEOCIÊNCIAS
RAFAEL BENNERTZ
“THE BRAZILIAN ETHANOL CAR:
A sociotechnical analysis”
SUPERVISOR: PROFA. DRA. Lea Maria Leme Strini Velho
“O CARRO BRASILEIRO A ÁLCOOL: Uma análise sociotécnica”
DOCTORAL THESIS PRESENTED TO THE INSTITUTE OF GEOSCIENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMPINAS IN THE PROGRAM OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY TO OBTAIN A Ph.D. DEGREE IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
TESE DE DOUTORADO APRESENTADA AO INSTITUTO DE GEOCIÊNCIAS DA UNICAMP NO PROGRAMA DE POLÍTICA CIENTÍFICA E TECNOLÓGICA PARA OBTENÇÃO DO TÍTULO DE DOUTOR EM POLÍTICA CIENTÍFICA E TECNOLÓGICA
ESTE EXEMPLAR CORRESPONDE À VERSÃO FINAL DA TESE DEFENDIDA PELO ALUNO RAFAEL BENNERTZ E ORIENTADO PELA PROFA. DRA. LEA MARIA LEME STRINI VELHO.
CAMPINAS 2014
Ficha catalográfica
Universidade Estadual de Campinas Biblioteca do Instituto de Geociências Cássia Raquel da Silva - CRB 8/5752
Bennertz, Rafael,
B438b BenThe brazilian ethanol car : A sociotechnical analysis / Rafael Bennertz. – Campinas, SP : [s.n.], 2014.
BenOrientador: Lea Maria Leme Strini Velho.
BenTese (doutorado) – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências.
Ben1. Automóveis - História. 2. Automovéis - Inovações tecnológicas. 3. Sociologia da ciência. 4. Álcool como combustível - Brasil. I. Velho, Lea Maria Leme Strini,1952-. II. Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Instituto de
Geociências. III. Título.
Informações para Biblioteca Digital
Título em outro idioma: O carro brasileiro a álcool : uma análise sociotecnica Palavras-chave em inglês:
Car - History
Car - Technological innovations Sociology of science
Alcohol as fuel - Brazil
Área de concentração: Política Científica e Tecnológica Titulação: Doutor em Política Científica e Tecnológica Banca examinadora:
Lea Maria Leme Strini Velho [Orientador] Noela Ivernizzi CAstillo
José Manuel Carvalho de Mello Marko Synésio Alves Monteiro Rafael de Brito Dias
Data de defesa: 24-11-2014
Programa de Pós-Graduação: Política Científica e Tecnológica
AKNWOLEDGMENTS
I am in debt with many of you out there who in some way or another gave me the emotional and material (sociotechnical?) means to conduct this research and write up the thesis. It is needless to say that I take full responsibility for the content of this work. To make it easier for me to express my gratitude I’ll briefly reconstruct the journey of this own thesis by highlighting on its main stations. Those who helped me conduct and finish this work are from various points on the map and come from social worlds which are placed on different moments of this research. Please forgive me for having a faulty memory and not mentioning all of you.
Campinas/SP is obviously the first stop on the journey of my research. I’m deeply thankful to Lea Velho, my supervisor, for all her guidance, lessons (sorry, I took longer to understand some of them), and support throughout the whole journey. For believing in my project since the beginning, for teaching me valuable lessons on the implicit rules of research and for your continuous efforts to help me find my way to study the ethanol car in Brazil. Without your trust, guidance and work this research would have never been possible in the first place. To my professors at the Science and Technology Policy Department (DPCT) at Unicamp, who introduced me in this curious and challenging world of science and technology policy studies. Special thanks to Marko Monteiro, Maria Conceição da Costa and Renato Dagnino for their insightful remarks in classes or during many informal talks. To my colleagues from DPCT, with whom I had the opportunity to share an intellectually stimulating environment. More than that, we constituted each other’s social family. I wouldn’t be able to name all of you, but I want to thank Maiko Rafael Spiess for a friendship that started during our undergraduate days and spanned throughout our academic trajectories. I also wanted to express my deepest gratitude to Adriana Teixeira, Valdirene Pinotti and Maria Gorete for making the lifes of many of us students at DPCT way easier. Also in Campinas I had the wonderful experience of sharing an apartment with very good friends, Matheus Tait Lima, Alexandre Melloni and Rolo, whose company made Campinas way more pleasant.
While conducting field work I’ve been blessed to encounter people willing to help either by being key informants or by assisting me in collecting the information needed to reconstruct
the history of the ethanol car in Brazil. Part of my data sources was assembled during my masters (also at DPCT), so I am also thankful to those who helped me find data to write up this thesis even when it was merely an open ended promise. From Brasilia/DF, where I collected various documents and carried out a few interviews I am grateful to José Rincon Ferreira, Bautista Vidal, José Antônio Silvério, João Valentin Bin, Luiz Celso Parisi Negrão, Beatriz Coelho Caiado, Jordana Padovani and Aldo Costa. From São José dos Campos/SP I am thankful to Paulo Ewald, João Bosco and Alessandra M. David for giving me access to the part of the story that happened within CTA. In São Paulo/SP I went to the headquarters of ANFAVEA, their staff were helpful when I was conduct research in their database. Also in São Paulo I met Luc de Ferran, who gave an instructive interview. Last but not least I want to thank for the all the support I received from the staff at the INT, in Rio de Janeiro/RJ, while I was collecting data for this work.
During my training I was happy to be granted a scholarship from Capes to participate in the Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Doutorado Sanduíche no Exterior (PDSE), (process number 4614-11-9). From January to December 2012 I stood at the Science and Technology Policy Studies Department (STePS) at the University of Twente, in Enschede/NL, where I met a stimulating and intellectually challenging atmosphere, that gave me opportunity to develop further the sociotechnical perspective used to analyze the development of the ethanol car in Brazil. My adaptation to this new setting was made much easier for the friendly support of many individuals, out of which I will name just a few. Arie Rip, who in many ways helped me make the most out of my experience at the University of Twente. I am especially grateful for your lessons on the craftwork of academic writing and for our numerous discussions about science and technology dynamics. Stefan Kuhlmann, for accepting my proposal of stay and ensuring my involvement in the department’s formal and informal activities. I was pleased to have the opportunity to discuss my ideas with professors at STePS and fellow PhD students alike. In thanking Peter Stegmaier for his instigating comments and friendly advices I want to thank all the professors I met at STePS. From the people at STePS I also want to thank to Evelien Rietberg who helped me get through Dutch redtape and whose support went beyond her formal tasks. From the student community I am deeply glad to have met: Carla Alvial Palavicino (and through her the Latin Community in Enschede), Tjerk Timan, Jens Soethe
and La Pauline whose presence made me feel home while away from home. Apart from lsocial activities, there are some friends how also offered their comments on earlier versions of chapters and sections of this thesis and I am grateful to Gaby Bortz, Joel Haroldo Baade, Eduardo Urias, Maiko R Spiess, Camila Zeitoum and Ivo Maathuis for their attentive reading and suggestions.
Blumenau/SC is the second most recurrent station of the journey of this thesis and the site where most of the emotional strength needed to start and to finish this thesis came from. First of all, I am grateful to my mother, Iara Regina Piazza, and to my father, Valmor Bennertz, who have been continuously supportive and loving throughout the years. I am thankful to my family for believing in me even when I was not sure about what I was doing. Specially, I am grateful to my sister, Regina Bennertz, whose help in proofreading was extremely important during the final stretch of this thesis. As my hometown, Blumenau is a station where there are too many friends I wanted to mention here. Nonetheless, I’ll name a few who had been lifelong friends and ended up listening to me talking about this research perhaps more than you ever wanted: Jaime Baade, Reinaldo Coelho and Rodrigo Zanluca. Marcos A Mattedi who introduced me to the social studies of science in my undergraduate days. When returning from the period I spent in Enschede I have found myself in the need to rent and share a place. It was in this setting that I met Marcelo Labes a friend with whom I share an apartment, but also interest in the social sciences and in writing. Last but not least: Lu Melo, thank you for all the delicious pancakes!
I am also greatly thankful to CAPES and CNPq whose financial support during the research and the ‘doutorado sanduiche’ created the basic conductions for the development of this work.
There’s no handkerchief in my pocket, Not much money in my wallet, My shoes are not shinny as we should be.
UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DE CAMPINAS INSTITUTO DE GEOCIÊNCIAS
O CARRO BRASILEIRO A ÁLCOOL: Uma análise sociotécnica.
RESUMO Tese de Doutorado
Rafael Bennertz
Esta tese apresenta a história do carro a álcool no Brasil, a partir de uma perspectiva sociotécnica, informada por estudos conduzidos nos campos dos Estudos Sociais da Ciência e da Tecnologia, Dinâmicas da Inovação, e Politicas de Ciência e Tecnologia. A história do carro a álcool no Brasil desde o início do século XX é interessante por si só e merece ser recontada. Ao tratar o carro a álcool como uma configuração sociotécnica e traçando a sua jornada inovativa, mais aspectos do desenvolvimento se tornam visíveis: o emaranhamento dos desenvolvimentos técnicos, econômicos e sociais (Capítulo 1); a importância do discurso sobre o Carro a Álcool Brasileiro e como ele se tornou uma entidade discursiva por si só (Capítulo 2); o papel especial que teve o estado Brasileiro em estimular o desenvolvimento do carro a álcool e mantendo o seu enraizamento social (Capítulo 3); o declínio parcial do carro a álcool depois de 1989 e seu re-avivamento noutra forma, o carro flex, que ilustra que não é a substituição de velhas por novas tecnologias, mas uma colcha de retalhos de velhas e novas tecnologias em continua evolução (Capítulo 4).
A jornada inovativa do carro a álcool no Brasil, incluindo suas várias não-linearidades, começou com a pesquisa e o desenvolvimento conduzido no Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, foi menos visível nas décadas de 1950 e de 1960s, e depois se tornou novamente importante nas décadas de 1970 e 1980, como uma resposta para a crise do petróleo de 1973 e para a dependência brasileira em petróleo. Por causa das mudanças nos contextos econômicos e políticos, ele quase desaparece na década de 1990. Nos próximos três capítulos foca-se a análise em três aspectos chaves da dinâmica sociotécnica na jornada inovativa do carro a álcool. O capítulo 2 trata do Carro a Álcool como uma entidade discursiva presente nas páginas da revista automotiva
Quatro Rodas, que ao se tornar uma referência constante na revista reforçava o momentum para o
desenvolvimento tecnológico do carro a álcool no Brasil.No capítulo 3 mostra-se como o estado Brasileiro macro-orquestrou o carro a álcool, conduzindo pesquisas e desenvolvimentos para o desenvolvimento do artefato sociotécnico e ao mesmo tempo criando as condições para o enraizamento social do carro. O capítulo 4 reconstrói o declínio do carro a álcool durante a década de 1990 e a emergência do carro flex durante a década de 2000 como uma colcha de retalhos de velhas e novas tecnologias em continua evolução.
Nas conclusões, se dá novamente destaque à importância da abordagem multi-nível, assim como também o modo como a jornada inovativa do carro a álcool no Brasil foi moldada pelo regime tecnológico do automóvel, o regime nacional de inovação, e por novas constituencies de design e de manutenção, que em contra-partida foram modificadas pelo que aconteceu na jornada inovativa do carro a álcool no Brasil. Assim, esta tese não apenas apresenta uma reconstrução do desenvolvimento do carro a álcool no Brasil, mas também dá destaque à importantes elementos da jornada inovativa em contexto e contribui para os Estudos Sociais da Ciência e da Tecnologia, Dinâmicas da Inovação, e Políticas de Ciência e Tecnologia.
Palavras chaves: Carro a álcool; Análise sociotécnica; Brasil, Estudos Sociais da Ciência e da Tecnologia;
UNIVERSITY OF CAMPINAS INSTITUTE OF GEOSCIENCE
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY POSTGRADUATION PROGRAMME
THE BRAZILIAN ETHANOL CAR: A SOCIOTECHNICAL ANALYSIS.
ABSTRACT Doctoral Thesis Rafael Bennertz
This thesis presents the history of the ethanol car in Brazil, analyzing it from a sociotechnical perspective, informed by scholarly work in Social Studies of Science, Innovation Dynamics and Science and Technology Policy. The history of the ethanol car in Brazil since the early twentieth century until today is interesting in its own right and deserves to be retold. By treating the ethanol car as a sociotechnical configuration and tracing its innovation journey, further aspects of the development become visible: the entanglement of technical, economic and social developments (Chapter 1); the importance of the discourse about the Brazilian Ethanol Car and how it became a discursive entity in its own right (Chapter 2); the special role of the Brazilian state in stimulating the development of the ethanol car and ensuring its embedding in society (Chapter 3); the partial decline of the ethanol car after 1989 and its revival in another form, the Flexible Fuel Vehicle, which illustrates that it is not substitution of old by new technologies, but an evolving patchwork of old and new technologies (Chapter 4).
The innovation journey of the ethanol car, including various non-linearities, started as a research and development project conducted at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia, was less visible in the 1950s and 1960s, and then became important in the 1970s and the 1980s, as a response to the 1973 oil crisis and Brazil’s dependence on imported oil. Because of changing economic and political contexts, it almost disappeared during the 1990s. In the next three chapters I zoom in on three key dynamics of sociotechnical development in the innovation journey of the ethanol car. Chapter 2 treats the Brazilian Ethanol Car as a discursive entity present on the pages of the automobile magazine Quatro Rodas, that by becoming a recurrent reference in the magazine reinforced the momentum for the technological development of the ethanol car in Brazil. In Chapter 3 it is shown how the Brazilian state macro-enacted the ethanol car, that is, at the same time conducting research for the development of the sociotechnical artifact, and creating the conditions for the societal embedding of the car. Chapter 4 reconstructs the decline of the ethanol car during the 1990s and the emergence of the flex-fuel vehicle during the 2000s as an evolving patchworks of old and new technologies, and argues that this is the general phenomenon encompassing different specific patterns.
In the conclusion, the importance of the multi-level approach is highlighted again, as well as the way the innovation journey of the ethanol car in Brazil was shaped by the automobile technological regime, the national innovation regime, and by new design and maintenance constituencies, which in their turn were modified by what happened in the innovation journey of the ethanol car in Brazil. Thus, this thesis not only offers a sociotechnical reconstruction of the development of the ethanol car in Brazil, but also, by highlighting important elements of innovation journeys in context and taking part in the reflections about the tools and approaches of the sociotechnical perspective, contributes to the scholarly fields of social studies of science and technology, innovation dynamics and science and technology policy studies.
Key words: Ethanol car; Sociotechnical Analysis; Brazil; Social Studies of Science and Technology;
SUMMARY
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS ... xxi
FIGURES ... xxi
TABLES ... xxiii
INTRODUCTION ...1
CHAPTER 1: DEVELOPMENT OF THE ETHANOL CAR IN BRAZIL: THE BIG PICTURE. ...7
1.2A REPERTOIRE OF CONCEPTS ...9
1.3DEVELOPMENT OF THE ETHANOL CAR IN BRAZIL ...16
1.3.1 The early-history of the ethanol car in Brazil ...17
1.3.2 The early development of the ethanol car 1973 – 1979 ...24
1.3.3 The societal embedding of the ethanol car in Brazil, its partial collapse, and its partial revival through the Flexible Fuel Vehicle. ...32
CONCLUSIONS ...38
CHAPTER 2: THE BRAZILIAN ETHANOL CAR ...41
2.1DISCURSIVE ENTITIES, AND THEIR ROLE IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DYNAMICS. ...43
2.2FOLLOWING A DISCURSIVE ENTITY. ...49
2.3BEC’S LIFE WITHIN QUATRO RODAS. ...52
2.4DOWN –UP –DOWN THE STABILIZATION LADDER ...63
CONCLUSIONS ...69
CHAPTER 3: THE ROLES OF THE STATE IN DEVELOPING AND EMBEDDING THE ETHANOL CAR IN SOCIETY. ...73
3.1GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DYNAMICS...75
3.2MACRO-ENACTING AND EMBEDDING BY THE STATE ...80
CONCLUSIONS ...96
CHAPTER 4: AN EVOLVING PATCHWORK OF OLD AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES... 103
4.1EVOLVING PATCHWORKS OF OLD AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES -EPONT ...105
4.2DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS ...113
CONCLUSIONS ...125
FIGURES
FIGURE 1-A SOCIOTECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF AN INNOVATION JOURNEY. ... 11
FIGURE 2-VISUAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A LANDSCAPE. ... 15
FIGURE 3-EARLY TWENTIES;INT'S FORD T FUELLED WITH ETHANOL. ... 19
FIGURE 4-MONTEIRO LOBATO ... 21
FIGURE 5-THE 1973OIL CRISIS. ... 25
FIGURE 6-A STAMP BEING FIXED AN ETHANOL FUELLED CAR. ... 34
FIGURE 7-THE FUEL FOR THE BRAZILIAN CAR ... 41
FIGURE 8-THE FIRST ETHANOL CAR TESTED BY QUATRO RODAS ... 52
FIGURE 9-THE MINISTER OF AERONAUTICS DRIVES AN ETHANOL FUELED CAR DURING THE NATIONAL INTEGRATION CIRCUIT ... 74
FIGURE 10-ORGANS INVOLVED IN PTE. ... 85
FIGURE 11-DISTRIBUTION OF EXPERIMENTAL FLEETS IN 1979. ... 89
FIGURE 12-ETHANOL CARS BECOME AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE. ... 91
FIGURE 13-BRAZIL –SUPPLY/DEMAND OF OIL AND ETHANOL NEED. ... 117
TABLES
TABLE 1-GASOLINE ENGINES CONVERTED TO RUN ON ALCOHOL PER YEAR (1979-1982). ... 36 TABLE 2-PERFORMANCE TESTS WITH ETHANOL FUELLED CARS... 54 TABLE 3-ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF CARS IN BRAZIL (1979-1989). ... 56 TABLE 4-MODALITIES IN THE ARTICLES AND EDITORIAL TEXTS IN QUATRO RODAS
(1973-1989)... 65 TABLE 5-ETHANOL FUEL CONSUMPTION IN BRAZIL (TOTAL IN MILLION LITTERS) ... 121 TABLE 6-CAR PRODUCTION IN BRAZIL BY FUEL (2003-2013). ... 124
LIST OF ABREVIATIONS
AEA – Associação de Engenharia Automotiva (Automotive Engineering Association) ANFAVEA – Associação Nacional de Fabricantes de Veiculos Automotores (National
Automaker’s association)
BEC – Carro a álcool Brasileiro [a entidade discursiva] (The Brazilian Ethanol Car [The
discursive entity])
CAPES - Comissão de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (Coordination for
the Improvement of Higher Education Personel)
CAT – Centro de Apoio Tecnológico (Technology Support Center)
CDPA – Comissão de Defesa da Produção Açucareira (Committee for the Defence of Sugar
Production)
CEAM – Comissão de Estudos do Álcool Motor (Commission of Studies on
Alcohol-engine)
CENAL – Comissão Executiva Nacional do Álcool (National Executive Comission on
Ethanol)
CME – Comissão de Minas e Energia (National Comission on Mines and Energy) CNA – Comissão Nacional do Álcool (National Commission of Alcohol)
CNAL – Conselho Nacional do Álcool (National Council on Alcohol)
CNI – Confederação Nacional da Indústria (National Confederation of the Industry) CNP – Conselho Nacional de Petróleo (National Council on Oil)
COASE – Conselho para Assuntos de Energia (Council for Energy Issues) CTA – Centro de Tecnologia Aeroespacial (Aerospace Technology Center)
CTI - Coordenadoria de Informações Tecnológicas (Coordination of Technological
Information)
Deinfra – Departamento de Infra-estrutura industrial (Department of Industrial Infrastructure)
E100 – O carro a álcool[um elemento sociomaterial] (the Brazilian ethanol car [a
EECM – Extação Experimental de Combustíveis e Minérios (Experimental Station of Fuel
and Ores)
EMBRAPA – Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Brazilian Corporation of
Agricultural Research)
EPSP – Escola Politécnica de São Paulo (Polytechnic School of São Paulo) FINEP – Financiadora de estudos e projetos (Brazilian Innovation Agency) FNT – Fundo Nacional de Tecnologia (National Technology Fund)
IAA – Instituto do Açúcar e do Álcool (Sugar and Alcohol Institute)
ICT – Tecnologias da Informação e da comunicação (Information and Communication
Technologies)
IME – Instituto Militar de Engenharia (Military Institute of Engineering) INT – Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia (National Institute of Technology) IPI – Imposto sobre Produtos Industrializados (Tax on Industrialized Products) ITA – Instituto Tecnológico da Aeronautica (Aeronautics Technology Institute) MIC – Ministério da Indústria e do Comércio (Ministry of Industry and Trade) NIR – National Innovation Regime (Regime Nacional de Inovação)
OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer
OLAE – Eletrônica Orgânica de Grandes Areas (Organic Large-Area Electronics) PBDCT - Plano Básico de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Basic Plan for
Scientific and Technological Development)
PCP – Pre-Commercial Procurement (Procurement pré-comercial) PRI – Instituto Público de Pesquisa (Public Research Institute)
Proálcool – Programa Brasileiro do Álcool (Brazilian Alcohol Program)
PROCANA - Programa de melhoramento genético da cana-de-açúcar (Sugarcane Genetic
Improvment Programme)
RFID - Radiofrequency Identification Tags (Etiquetas de identificação por
radio-freqüêencia)
SAE-Brazil – Sociedade dos Engenheiros Automotivos no Brasil (Society of the Automotive
Engineers in Brazil)
SBIR - Small Business Innovation Program (Programa de Inovação em Pequenos Negócios)
SOPRAL – Sociedade dos Produtores de álcool (Society of Ethanol Producers) STI – Secretaria de Tecnologia Industrial (Office of Industrial Technology) TEP - Tonelada equivalente de petróleo (Tonne of oil equivalent)
TSR 2 – a British military aircraft Project (um projeto de avião militar britânico) UnB – University of Brasília (Universidade de Brasília)
INTRODUCTION
The story of the ethanol car in Brazil is an interesting one. From its early years to the programme’s institutionalization in the 1970s, the success in the 1980s and its subsequent decline, to be revived again by the advent of the Flexible Fuel Car in the 2000s. The story has been told by journalists and commentators, and analyzed for its social, technical, economic and policy aspects. (Santos, 1993; Ripoli, 1983; Silva and Fischette, 2008; Ferreira, 2003; Figueiredo, 2005; Oliveira, 2002; Moreira and Goldenberg, 1999, Berger, 2010).1 What has not been done is the reconstruction and analysis of the sociotechnical dynamics of its development and embedding in society. In this thesis I will apply the sociotechnical perspective to this case, but also contribute to it by zooming in into specific aspects of the case like the role of the label “the brazilian ethanol car” to refer to the development of a working sociotechnical artifact. Thus, the case is interesting for the historical reconstruction carried out and also because these specific aspects of sociotechnical dynamics speak to STS, technology dynamics and technology policy studies. Why emphasize sociotechnical dynamics? This perspective has been shown to be important to understand and address the complexity of actual technological developments and their embedding in society. The perspective was put on the scholarly map through the Bijker et al. 1987 volume, which continues to be a key reference (cf. it being reprinted in 2013). The volume marked the coming together of recent history of technology, which addresses contexts and creates rich pictures; the newly emerging sociology of technology, e.g. SCOT (Social Construction of Technology) and ANT (Actor-Network Theory); and indirectly, evolutionary economics of technical change.2 In recognizing these different disciplinary contributions, the volume begins to operationalize the approach of what one of its editors, Hughes, called the “seamless web” of artefacts, systems, people, organizations, and institutions (Hughes, 1986).
1 Ferreira, 2003, Berger, 2010, and Bennertz (2009) looked at the case from a sociotechnical perspective. 2 No economist authored a chapter in the Bijker et al, 1987, ‘The Social Construction of Technological
Systems. New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology”. but Van den Belt and Rip’s chapter builds on the work of evolutionary economists Nelson & Winter (1977) and Dosi (1982).
Thus, the sociotechnical perspective follows Hughes (1986) claim that science, technology and society are interconnected and mutually shape each other. Sometimes, they are still an undifferentiated mix, as when high-temperature superconductivity was discovered in a laboratory setting, but seen as the basis of new technology, and clothed with expectations about the societal changes that would follow (Nowotny and Felt 1997). The sociotechnical perspective is a multidisciplinary approach building upon studies that symmetrically analyze the role of heterogeneous, social and material actors. A sociotechnical perspective considers material affordances and constraints, as well as the meaning created by culture as intrinsically indissociable (Bijker, 1995). Trying to establish where society ends and where science & technology begin is a counterproductive task. One should look at processes and phenomena identifying the entanglements of science, technology and society, highlighting their interactions, not reinforcing an artificial divide among them.
The analysis of these entanglements is conducted with the help of a conceptual repertoire that invites the analyst (and the readers) to bring the interconnectedness of heterogeneous elements to the foreground. I will outline this conceptual repertoire in Chapter 1, and add to it in the later chapters. The sociotechnical perspective has been used to deconstruct simplistic versions of accounting for technological developments and their embedding in society. My aim in this thesis is to use it as a tool to grasp the ongoing societal construction of technology in society. This helps to unfold the story of the ethanol car in Brazil, and links it to recent work in sociotechnical analysis of science, technology and society.
Since the Bijker et al. 1987 volume,3 there have been a plethora of case studies, from the same community (Bijker & Law, 1992; Bijker’s, 1995) and others, all taking the sociotechnical perspective. There has been further work on Large Technical Systems (e.g. Mayntz and Hughes, 1988), developing Hughes’ seminal work (1983). And there has been a new development emphasizing the multi-level character of sociotechnical developments, conceptualizing/theorizing it and offering relevant empirical research (Rip and Kemp 1998, Geels 2005). This has created links with the study of technology and innovation systems (e.g. Nelson 1993). My thesis will build on these new developments when reconstructing
3
Actually, the book was based on a conference at the University of Twente in 1984. Clearly, It was in the early 1980s that the overlap and convergence between the different disciplinary strands was becoming visible.
the history of the ethanol car in Brazil, and add to them by looking at specific phenomena within the development of the ethanol car in Brazil.
Nowadays the Brazilian experience with the use of ethanol fuel is a recurrent reference as a leading example on the development of a biofuel economy. Commonly people consider it exclusively as an outcome of the military efforts to reach energy independence after the oil crisis of 1973. However, the history of the use of ethanol as an automotive fuel in Brazil did not start with the launch of the Brazilian governmental programme Proálcool in 1975. There were earlier relevant activities, by researchers and by the State. As such activities continued, there was more than the Proálcool programme. Because there was a sort of coherence in the activities and in the visions behind them, one could speak of a de facto programme, or a programme+, to emphasize that it was broader than the formally established Proálcool programme. By taking a sociotechnical perspective the notion of a programme+ allows me to raise questions about the role of the state in the overall development, which go further than traditional science policy questions about policies and programmes and their implementation (this will be taken up in Chapter 3).
The emergence of ethanol car in Brazil dates back to the late 1920s, with experiments on
ethanol fuel carried out at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia – INT, 4 a Public Research
Institution (PRI) in Brazil. At that time automotive races being powered by ethanol and a mandatory blend of gasoline and ethanol turning to be the standard composition of gasoline in Brazilian. By the time the first oil crisis hit the country, in 1973, the research at INT had already been stopped, nevertheless, Brazilian cars were propelled by a certain amount of ethanol. The emergence of an economic external threat to the Brazilian dictatorial regime – the energy dependence – created the necessity for the government to invest in alternative sources of energy. Among many options, which also included nuclear energy and hydroelectric power, ethanol became the Brazilian substitute for oil as an automotive fuel. Its production and use were already widespread in the country, although after 1973 both needed to be improved and the government took the lead to do so. Ethanol was already part of the Brazilian automotive regime and the oil crisis gave it momentum.
To increase the use and the production of ethanol in Brazil social and technical elements became re-aligned in various layers of the societal fabric. There was the Centro de
Tecnologia Aeroespacial - CTA contracted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade to
conduct research and experiments up to the development of prototypes of ethanol cars.5 Also significant was the creation of experimental fleets of ethanol cars, as well as the production of ethanol cars by automakers in the country. All this was sustained by reference to a shared goal, namely to make The Brazilian Ethanol Car (BEC) real.6 In a sense, the Brazilian Ethanol Car existed already in discourses before it was actually running on the roads. As a discursive entity, it exerted force, justifying actions to realize the goal, but it was also dependent on the material developments of the E100. In this way, it was the core of what I called the programme+ of the Brazilian ethanol car. In Chapter 2 I will consider its de facto implementation by tracing how the ethanol car was presented in a popular automobile magazine, Quatro Rodas, whose discursive practices within articles and performance tests influenced the societal embedding of the E100.
By the mid-1980s, motor cars with engines using 100% ethanol were widespread and accepted in Brazil. But then, circumstances changed: in the late 1980s oil prices decreased, selling sugar became more lucrative than making ethanol and, there was a shortage of ethanol on the market. The government stopped financial support for the use of ethanol fuel which affected the sales of ethanol cars. The latter’s acceptance decreased sharply, but not to the point that it would completely disappear from sight. To some extent, ethanol cars and gasoline cars co-existed. Gas stations continued selling ethanol and gasoline besides existing ethanol cars needed maintenance.
The situation changed when the automotive industry launched the Flexible-Fuel Vehicle (FFV) in 2003. FFVs can be fueled with gasoline, ethanol or a blend of these at any proportion. Its flexibility increased the options for the consumers. The acceptance of the FFV has grown steadily; in 2012 it had a 88% market share (ANFAVEA, 2013: 60) in Brazil. From these brief indications, it will be clear that there is no simple substitution of one technology by another. As will be argued In Chapter 4, one should think about it in
5 In English: Aerospace Technology Center. 6
In Portuguese: “O carro Brasileiro a álcool” or “o carro a álcool” as it became to be known, when the nationalistic character of the technology was already taken for granted.
terms of an evolving patchwork of technologies. Many processes take place before a technology is adopted and becomes part of the societal fabric. The history of the ethanol car in Brazil offers examples of some of such processes, and I will particularly focus at the meso level (see Chapter 1 for further discussion). Thus, issues at micro level- such as the production of ethanol, the routines within laboratories - and at macro level - the Brazilian economy, and the relations between politics and policy - are outside the scope of this thesis. Not because these issues are not worth pursuing, but because they have already been studied and I can take them into account for the influence they had on the adoption of the ethanol car in Brazil.
During the early history period, I identified the creation of research practices, relations between PRIs and broader societal needs, the development of knowledge on ethanol production and use and the emergence of institutional elements that supported the production and the use of ethanol as an automotive fuel, such as the enactment of the blend of gasoline and ethanol. The study of the early history of the ethanol car in Brazil affords the comprehension of the building up of scientific and technological competencies within the country, the emergence of The Brazilian Ethanol Car (BEC) as a broad sociotechnical promise, the development of a prototype of the Ethanol Car in Brazil (E100), and it sheds some light on the nature of the role played by the Brazilian State.
After 1973, policy makers and consumers alike would talk about The Brazilian Ethanol Car (BEC) in their discourses. Even before being launched by the industry, BEC was part of the Brazilian cultural repertoire appearing in newspaper articles, political speeches and on the pages of Quatro Rodas. BEC was considered a promise for reducing the country’s oil imports, but it was also a technological artifact, a car whose performance had to equal or be better than that of the gasoline car. Looking at how BEC existed in discourse offers an example of how nonmaterial elements can influence the life of an innovation, how they shape the technical artifact and how the latter affects the way people would refer to BEC in their discourses.
The outburst of the Oil crisis in 1973 was faced by the government as an external threat to the country, which pushed the government to search for energy alternatives. The authoritarian government that was ruling the country reintroduced the ethanol car into the
national agenda by coordinating research that would lead to the development of the technology to use ethanol as a fuel, but also to technological development and its adoption in Brazil. It established the Secretaria de Tecnologia Industrial – STI as the governmental organ that coordinated funding for the production of ethanol and the research work on the development of the E100.7 Thus, the government was a central actor that created the conditions, conducted R&D and pushed the societal embedding of the ethanol car in Brazil during the 1920s, 1970s and 1980s.
By the late 1980s, oil prices started to decrease and sugar prices started to increase, leading to a shortage of ethanol in the market. Despite technological and economic projections, the contextual conditions for the development and maintenance of the E100 changed, the country adopted a more liberal orientation that considered the costs to maintain the whole ethanol programme functioning too high. The E100 declined and the Gasoline car, specially the “carro 1000”, became central to the Brazilian automotive sociotechnical regime. Nonetheless, the supply and maintenance infrastructures created to support the E100 did not disappeared. The E100 car and the Gasoline car existed and interacted, such co-existence created conditions for the emergence of the FFV, as an evolving patchwork of new and old technologies benefit from both sociotechnical configurations.
These considerations about what can be learned from the sociotechnical analysis of the development of the Brazilian ethanol car informed the three focused chapters, each with its own discussion of relevant literature, and each having its own conclusions. Chapter 2 addresses the role of an element present in discourses in the process of consolidating BEC as a functioning artifact. Chapter 3 observes how the government took a pro-active role, coordinating various elements to get the ethanol car developed and embedded in Brazil. Chapter 4 reconstructs the later developments (since the early 1990s) and reflects on the character of the dynamics between old and new technologies.
Chapter 1, after presenting the relevant conceptual repertoire for sociotechnical analysis, offers the “big picture” of the developments, while Chapter 5 after a brief look at the findings and offers concluding comments.
CHAPTER 1: DEVELOPMENT OF THE ETHANOL CAR IN BRAZIL: THE BIG PICTURE.
INTRODUCTION
In a historical reconstruction of science and technology dynamics in general, and of the Brazilian ethanol car focused here, one can, and to some extent must, rely on the stories people write and tell about what happened. Nevertheless, there are risks in doing that, as historians know. It is not just a matter of faulty memories, partial views and biases. There is also the tendency to go for singular origins and linear causalities, which may seem obvious in retrospect, but were not necessarily there in the complexities of actual developments. This is emphasized in the sociotechnical perspective (with the risk of being confined to the here and now and neglecting larger patterns that might be playing out as well).
In the case of the Brazilian ethanol car, this is the story commonly told by enthusiasts and critics about how it was born: It is June 1975, General Ernesto Geisel, president of Brazil’s, enters the laboratory of an absent-minded professor. An idealist, as people used to call him. This laboratory, the Laboratory of Engines (PMO) at the Aerospace Technical Center (CTA), is part of a military complex made up of offices and classrooms and is governed by military discipline. Its major objectives were to offer top quality technical solutions to issues related to national security; scientific and technological development; and the training of a highly qualified work force of engineers to lead Brazil out of underdevelopment. The complex, the Institute of Technology of Aeronautics (ITA), is the country´s most important and qualified engineering school, a military school, inaugurated in 1951, that follows the MIT model. After the usual formalities, the professor – Urbano Stumpf – managed to capture the President´s attention. What was supposed to be a short visit of fifteen minutes ended up lasting for more than two hours, and it was the starting point for what turned out to be a major technological programme. All the secrets, promises and details of Stumpf´s ambitious project were presented to the head of the State, the most powerful man around. Jobs would be created, technical and scientific competencies would be developed, the economy would be boosted, the industry would get its share and energy independence would be achieved. After a period with little investment in an alternative fuel
like ethanol, and in which the ethanol car was just a possibility, the enactment of the Brazilian Ethanol Car was set in motion. Shortly after Geisel´s visit to Stumpf´s laboratory, in November 1975, the programme was started as a national initiative.
The scene described above is considered to be the birth of the Brazilian Ethanol Car. Interviewees mentioned it and the story was published in Science magazine. (Hammond, 1977). Nevertheless, it is a founding myth, rather than the full story. It may not even have happened in exactly this way. And, in any case, it is not the origin, but more like a knotting together of earlier strands. The advent of the ethanol car in Brazil did not start in the 1970s following the first oil shock in 1973. The first attempts to offer an alternative to gasoline in Brazilian territory date back to the early 1920s. Since then, many developments took place, sometimes moving the ethanol car in Brazil closer to becoming a stabilized innovation, but at other moments there was contestation of the status of the Brazilian Ethanol Car. This is not a simple story of drivers leading to outcomes. Rather, there are evolving patterns in an overall trajectory of the Ethanol Car in Brazil, which is full of vicissitudes and contextual specificities. It is necessary to trace sociotechnical dynamics to do justice to the complex story. And I can use the metaphor of an innovation journey, as introduced by Van de Ven et al. (1999) to highlight complexities, set-backs, and emerging new directions, in contrast to the common linear view of how an innovation develops. I will come back to this concept and broaden its scope in the next section. For the moment, it allows me to say that this chapter presents the Ethanol Car innovation journey in its context in Brazil.
The historical reconstruction offered in this chapter can profit from understanding of general processes visible in science and technology dynamics, such as the role of sociotechnical promises and protected spaces, and the influence of an overarching “landscape” in which science and technology developments take place. I will come back to these concepts in the next section, but note here the importance of the role of the State in building up a national innovation regime, an important part of the landscape. This has been somewhat neglected in sociotechnical analysis. In Brazil, it is particularly important because
Parts of the military government and military groups outside the government had continuously pursued a strategy of self-sufficiency in key inputs, especially fuel. With their strong values about national security and the need for national
self-sufficiency, the military sectors saw the oil crisis allied to the high dependency of the country on the world fuel market as a threat to national sovereignty. Oliveira (2002: 132)
Hence, this chapter offers the big picture of the development of the ethanol car in Brazil until the 1970s. While the next chapters take an analytical approach, they do offer further historical detail, and round out the big picture until the present.
1.2 A REPERTOIRE OF CONCEPTS
When the sociotechnical perspective came into its own during the 1980s (cf. Chapter 1),it combined empirical approaches to trace sociotechnical developments with concepts to capture the complexity of technological change, innovation and its embedding in society. Rather than giving a comprehensive overview, I will be selective and discuss those concepts and underlying perspectives that are relevant for my reconstruction of the sociotechnical development of the Brazilian ethanol car. This implies that I move away from the tradition in Science and Technology Studies to focus on micro interactions and processes. For example, the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach (Bijker 1995) offers important insights, but should be seen as part of broader approach, the Societal
Construction of Technology.8 This broader approach includes the role of the political order,
for example the developmentalist perspective of the Brazilian military regime mentioned above, and the shift to neo-liberal approaches after the transition to democracy. But also, at a lower level, the evolving innovation regime in a country (see below for this concept). I introduced the notion of innovation journey, following Van de Ven et al. (1999) to capture vicissitudes, set-backs and new directions as these occur. In the case studies upon which their book draws, the emphasis is on the innovation processes in firms (see Van de Ven et al. 1989). They argue against a common perception of processes of innovation as linear, and pushed by heroic efforts. (cf. stories of success and failure). Rip and Schot (2002) added market introduction and embedding in society to the innovation journey, because innovation continues (and will include economic and social innovation). Visible already in their mapping approach is the idea that there may be recurrent patterns in those journeys, in spite of the contingencies. This idea was further developed and published in Rip (2010),
8
The term 'Societal Construction of Technology' was originally introduced by Rip (1990): for a full discussion, see Disco and Van der Meulen (1998: 6).
who claimed that in addition to the basic pattern of industrial product and process innovation, which has been studied extensively in the literature, there were three other basic patterns: large systems and infrastructures, information and communication technologies with their combination of hardware and software (and orgware), and technologies in agriculture and health that depend for their performance on the working of living entities. Rip (2010) discusses the journeys of industrial products and processes in detail, but limits himself to a few remarks only about large systems and infrastructures (long lead times must be taken into account, both private and public actors are involved, and there is little or no possibility of testing the overall system in a protected space). Thus, when looking at an evolving sociotechnical system, linked to broader societal developments, I cannot just follow his analysis. Still, some of the concepts and findings can be helpful for my study of the Brazilian ethanol car as a sociotechnical system, including a variety of specific innovations. The existing literature on large technical systems, from Mayntz and Hughes (1988) onwards, is of little help as well because it focuses on large installations like power plants.
There is a basic issue in using the notion of innovation journey. Innovations have no simple starting point (as in epic stories about a new technological option recognized and developed within a lab). Various activities and strands of development get entangled, come together and become subject of concerted efforts. It is only then that Rip’s analysis of innovation journeys becomes applicable (cf. also Hughes (1983) on momentum; there, a similar criticism applies). The further dynamics will be shaped by the nature of this “coming together” and concertation.9
Any historical reconstruction suffers from the retrospective bias of knowing the end result, with the consequent temptation to define the starting point as the predecessor of the end result. In my empirical reconstruction in this chapter, I will keep the original, and maybe continuing, variety visible, but will not go into much detail. My focus is on what happens after 1970, when the ethanol car is seen as a challenge that needs concerted efforts.
My innovation journey approach has to take these considerations into account. Also, “innovation journeys are part of larger processes, and are entangled with organizations,
9
Rip (2010) recognizes this when speaking of different patterns of innovation journeys, but does not develop this question of there being no simple starting point.
other technologies, sector dynamics, and anticipations of, and responses from, society” (Rip 2012: 158). Some elements can be captured with concepts like sociotechnical regimes and innovation regimes, and emerging constituencies (Staudenmaier, 1989). Others are contingent on the specific embedding of the journey. The overall conceptualization is visualized in the figure below (Figure 1). The multi-level approach, important in recent literature, is not visible in this Figure, but will inform my analysis.
Figure 1 - A sociotechnical analysis of an innovation journey.
Innovation Journey
Including expanding system and societal embedding
News constituencies
NB: technological and innovation regimes shape innovation journey, but are changing as well because of what happens in the innovation journey.
Source: Elaborated by the author.
The historical reconstruction of an innovation journey allows the characterization of patterns as well as the contingencies and specificities visible in sociotechnical developments. The multi-level analysis (Geels, 2005) has its conceptual limitations (Rip, 2012), but its emphasis on niches, and more generally, protected spaces, on regimes of various kinds, and on the sociotechnical landscape, with its gradients of force, as a backdrop remains important to understand and analyse sociotechnical developments. I will discuss each of these three sets of concepts.
The starting point for our discussion, and for innovation journeys, is that new technological options are hopeful monstrosities, which still have low performance (or even no
performance at all) but carry promises about possible new breakthrough developments, new applications, and solutions for various technical and societal demands, as they were identified by technology enactors. Those promises are then further articulated, and/or redefined into more specific promises about the functionality of the sociotechnical artifact or process to be developed.10 Protected spaces for the development of the fledgling technological option will emerge this way, or be created on purpose, as for example when IBM needed to develop a personal computer to compete with Apple, and created a dedicated team, with its own budget, and working in relative isolation (Rip and Schot, 2002).The important point is that protected spaces allow for trial and error, and for tests before the full challenges of the “real world” have to be met. This can extend to tentative market introduction, for example with lead users, or in a market niche where experiences can be evaluated. We will actually encounter examples in the introduction of the ethanol car in the 1970s.
The point about testing in a safe environment has been made in the literature. Van den Belt
and Rip (1987) discuss how in the late 19th century synthetic chemical dyestuffs were tried
out in test labs reproducing the circumstances in textile dying firms. Since then, test labs and dedicated test beds have become a common feature of technology development. Law and Callon (1988; 1992), discussing the development of a military aircraft, add to this by arguing that the macro-level protected space was constituted by the agreement between the British and French governments to develop such an aircraft.11 As others have shown, a macro-level protected space can also emerge because of shared projections about a desirable future thanks to new technology. An example is the promise of the (electronic) information superhighway in the early 1990s; Konrad (2004) showed how this allowed German cities to continue with new projects even when earlier ones failed. Parandian et al. (2012) mention the ups and downs of the projection of a hydrogen economy, and discuss the waiting games that can be the result of such diffuse promises, in their case about so-called plastic electronics. The projection of a Brazilian ethanol car, when shared by
10 We will come back to the discussion about technological promises, will be developed in chapter 2.
11 The actual development of the aircraft in its micro-level protected space encountered various setbacks. At
first, these were seen as challenges to be overcome, but when the overall political constellation shifted and the governments wanted to dissolve their agreement, the macro-level protected space crumbled, and the project was stopped.
different actors, will create a similar macro-level protected space by defining problems as challenges for further development, rather than failures. In other words, there is more than the government’s Proálcool programme and its implementation. If one wants to think in terms of a programme, it would be a programme+, not commissioned by the government but by the shared projection about a Brazilian ethanol car. The Proálcool programme is part of it, and an important part because it created a node in the network, and allowed the
government to intervene.12
The notion of a regime, as used in political science and in common parlance, for example when referring to a dictatorial regime, was introduced in technology and innovation studies by Nelson and Winter (1977), and further developed by Van den Belt and Rip (1987).13 They illustrated their idea of a technical regime by referring to strong expectations of engineers and industrialists about the development of aircraft in the 1920s. After the introduction of the DC-3 aircraft, a technological regime emerged where a steel outer frame and piston engines below the wings would be the model (it remained the model until the advent of jet engines in the 1950s). Another example is the technological regime of the motor car. Since the early developments of the automobile, the internal combustion engine has been the dominant engine for cars. Also gasoline has been the main fuel for motorized vehicles. In the 1920s, a few key improvements like electrical ignition were developed (Abernathy and Clark, 1985), but then the regime was in place, and further developments remained within that frame, and in that sense were incremental, like increasing safety, improving efficiency, reducing consumption of fuel. Van den Ende and Kemp (1999) indicate a further feature of regimes when they show how computers at first just substituted computing tasks in what they call a computing regime, and only by the 1960s became important in their own right (partly because of the advent of programming languages), and allowed new kinds of performance.
Rip and Kemp (1998), emphasizing the key role of regimes in sociotechnical dynamics, offered a general characterization.
12
Such a broader view on government science and technology policy programs is discussed in Rip (1997).
“A technological regime is the rule-set or grammar embedded in a complex of engineering practices, production process technologies, product characteristics, skills, procedures, ways of handling relevant artifacts and persons, ways of defining problems – all of them embedded in institutions and infrastructures.” (Rip and Kemp 1998: 338).
A technological, and more generally, a sociotechnical regime structures the way technology development and innovation are shaped in specific sectors.
The notion of regimes can also be applied to other aspects of the dynamics of sociotechnical developments. In particular, to improve on the concept of a national system of research and innovation (cf. Nelson, 1993) which is often reduced to organigrams of the organisations in the national system and their interactions, but would profit from paying attention to the rules that govern the system. Delvenne (2011) has shown how the institutions in the Walloon region of Belgium were shaped by overall views on modernization and how to go about innovation. To do so he introduced the notion of an innovation regime, which I will take up, in spite of the fact that it may create confusion, because it is not about rules for innovation as Van de Poel (1998, 2003) discusses them for
specific sectors,14 but about the public infrastructure enabling innovation. National science
and innovation regimes consist of institutions, rules and arrangements that shape ongoing science and innovation, and are themselves shaped by explicit governance, i.e. STI policies, as well as evolve and respond to broader changes. The focus on institutions rather than policies is important to understand long-term dynamics, possibilities and constraints. In Brazil, the establishment of public research institutes since the early 1900s, and their eventual division of labour with universities, are instances of the evolving innovation regime.
Staudenmaier (1989) has observed that a technology, in its development and embedding in society, will be carried by dedicated actors and structures. He used the automobile regime, now in a broad sense, so including roads and garages, users and their practices, to show that there is a design constituency (the developers), a maintenance constituency (ensuring the
14
Van de Poel (1998) distinguished four innovation patterns: supplier-dependent innovation; user-driven innovation; mission-oriented innovation; and R&D-dependent innovation, building on an earlier typology proposed by Pavitt (1984). In my case of the Brazilian ethanol car, none of these patterns apply. There is exploratory technological development, inspired by overall promises, which is then combined and upgraded in the government-led Proálcool program. Formally, this Program would count as mission-orientated innovation, but it did not start from zero, and the emphasis is on embedding in society.
functioning) and an impact constituency (users and their practices). One can see them as parts of an innovation regime, but focused on a particular technology. One can also see them as part of the evolving sociotechnical landscape, because the constituencies become embedded, and hence continue, shaping further developments already by their mere existence.15
The final concept to discuss briefly is the sociotechnical landscape. It is often used, for example in the sustainability transition literature, in a loose sense, to refer to broad societal contexts. Indeed, there are partly exogenous elements such as the macro-economic, cultural aspects and macro-political characteristics that enable and constrain scientific and technological developments. By speaking of a “landscape”, however, attention is drawn to the nature of the shaping. “Sociotechnical landscapes do not determine, but provide deep-structural ‘gradients of force’ that make some actions easier than others”. (Geels and Schot, 2007: 403). There are hills and valleys in this landscape, as has been visualized by Sahal (1985: 79), using height contours like those used to visualize electromagnetic potential fields, to show how actual development paths may follow a route of least resistance.
Figure 2 - Visual characterization of a landscape.
Source: Sahal, 1985, p. 79.
15
Note that maintenance and impact constituencies may occur without there being a design constituency. This is how Sørensen (1991) analysed what he called the Norwegian motor car.
In the case of the Brazilian ethanol car, one can see earlier landscapes and continuities. The early initiatives of the 1920s were linked to the worldwide interest in what was then called chemiourgy, the transformation of natural materials into useful products. The term ‘chemiourgy’ has disappeared, but the practices and ideals are still there, as in the notion of a biobased economy. Generally, technology is linked with modernists’ ideals of progress, control over nature and eventually social welfare.
The landscape in Brazil had its political and economic “gradients of force” characterized by the military dictatorship, the national economy, energy dependency and the importance of the sugar-sector. Also, how the country faced its Oil dependency problem was conditioned to the position the automobile had in Brazilian culture, to the economic, political and technological power that the automotive industry had in the country since the Plano de Metas (see Section 3). At the same time, scientific and technical promises shaped the thinking about possibilities and strategies. With Jasanoff (2004) one can speak of co-production of technology and evolving socio-political order.
1.3 DEVELOPMENT OF THE ETHANOL CAR IN BRAZIL
The story of the ethanol vehicle will be presented in chronological order, with occasional explicit references to innovation journeys, landscapes, regimes and niches. Four main phases in the history of the ethanol car can be distinguished: 1. the pre-history of the ethanol car in Brazil, including first attempts to develop an ethanol car, and its stagnation until the oil crisis in 1973 (1920s to early 1970s); 2. The early developments of the ethanol car by the government after the oil shock in 1973 and the parallel emergence of the fuel blend (1973-1979); 3. The stabilization of the programme+ (i.e. the overall constellation, not just the Proálcool programme) for the Brazilian Ethanol Car, and the societal embedding of the ethanol car in Brazil (1979-1989); and 4. The collapse of the ethanol car in Brazil and its partial revival (1990-now). This periodization is based on the character of the sociotechnical dynamics, not on overall changes in Brazil, like the rise of the dictatorial regime in 1964 and the transition to a democracy in 1985.
1.3.1 The early-history of the ethanol car in Brazil
Taking a longer-term perspective, the ethanol car in Brazil has its origins in the early 1920s (Bennertz, 2009; Ripoli, 1983; Schwartzman, Castro, 1985: 07). The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture charged the Experimental Station on Fuels and Ores (Estação Experimental de
Combustíveis e Minérios – EECM)16 with the task of finding fuel alternatives, which
included developing engines to run on alcohol (i.e. ethanol)17. The outbreak of the Second
World War, and the consequent shortage of oil-based fuels, influenced the search for fuels in Brazil. There were strong initiatives to prospect oil, but ethanol use was also being pursued, and in 1942 the results of research on fuels were presented during the I Congresso
Nacional de Carburantes. Systematic search for fuel sources lead to the discovery of the
first oil field in Brazil during the late 1930s and eventually, the foundation of Petrobras in 1953. Petrobras was responsible for coordinating, organizing and conducting oil prospection and commercialization in the country. Apparently, the government began to direct its official focus more towards the production of fossil fuels and prospection of oil within the country than towards the development of alternative fuels. Major and systematic research on the ethanol car stagnated from 1942 until the first oil shock occurred in 1973. Nevertheless, things happened: there are references to a scientific meeting about the use of
ethanol as a fuel, to the use of ethanol18 in automotive races at Gavea, Rio de Janeiro, and
to the distribution of a blend of ethanol and other carburant fuels by Usina Serra Grande
Alagoas – USGA, a local distillery in the state of Alagoas, Brazil19. And importantly, ethanol was blended to all the gasoline in the country, an initiative that required national coordination
Ethanol engines were explored in Brazil in the early-1920s, within the then recently created the Estação Experimental de Combustíveis e Minários – EECM). In 1923 the Ministry of Agriculture charged the EECM, a Public Research Institute (PRI), to carry out research on the applicability of alcohol (ethanol) as a fuel. As seen in the preface of the first edition of
16 Estação Experimental de Combustíveis e Minérios (EECM). A governmental organ regulated by the
Ministry of Agriculture, created before the National Institute of Technology (INT) was established. (Castro and Schwartzman, [1981] 2008: 11).
17 Hereafter, ethanol. I will generally speak of ethanol rather than ethyl alcohol or the common sense wording
alcohol, even when the original sources use other terms, in order to keep the flow of the text.
18
First National Congress on Industrial Applications of Alcohol, in the early 1930s. (Ripoli, 1983).
