Powerful sugar: Columbia's ethanol industry evolving quickly.

Colombia’s sugarcane-based ethanol industry, after operating for only 3 years, is the second most developed in the Western Hemisphere, according to a report from USDA. Brazil's, by the way, is number one.

"Most Colombian ethanol plants are energy self-sufficient and even generate surplus power that is sold to the national electric grid," according to a summary of the report. "Colombia’s sugarcane-based ethanol production is increasing: proposed expansion projects have the potential to more than triple daily production from 277,000 million gallons in 2007 to almost 1 million gallons in 2010.

Most of the expansion is aimed at supplying the exports market, principally to the United States. "However, it is unlikely that Colombia could export ethanol anytime soon because domestic production is insufficient to meet nationwide requirements that gasoline contain a 10-percent ethanol blend," according to the summary.