Sao Paulo, Brazil ? Record oil prices have made the world’s energy landscape a darkly foreboding place this year, inhospitable to optimism and celebration. Except in Brazil.

It has been something of a banner year here, full of milestones. The government predicts that for the first time in its history, Brazil will achieve energy equilibrium, exporting as much oil as it imports. The production of sugar cane-based ethanol is expected to reach an all-time high. And just three years after the introduction here of flex-fuel vehicles – cars that run on either ethanol or gasoline – several major automakers predict that such vehicles will represent 100 percent of their production by the end of the year, eliminating gas-only models.

Pull up to most service stations in this country of 185 million people and you will find fuel pumps offering three choices: ethanol, gasoline or premium gasoline. The labels are slightly misleading: The gasoline varieties are blends that contain at least 20 percent ethanol. The pure ethanol is usually significantly cheaper – 53 cents per liter (about $2 per gallon), compared with about 99 cents per liter for gasoline ($3.74 per gallon) last week in Sao Paulo.

“I buy gasoline only if I can’t get anything else,” said Alexandre Rigueirra, 28, a Sao Paulo taxi driver who modified his flex-fuel Chevrolet to also use natural gas, which is sold at many locations throughout the country. “Gasoline is always the last option.”

Since President Bush this year emphasized ethanol as one possible solution to U.S. oil dependence, Brazil has become a destination of choice for curious U.S. lawmakers and venture capitalists searching for a crystal ball in which to glimpse America’s future. Ethanol is not solely responsible for Brazil’s newfound energy independence – domestic oil exploration has exploded in recent years – but it has replaced about 40 percent of the country’s gasoline consumption, according to Caio Carvalhal, an analyst with Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil’s military dictatorship launched the national ethanol program in 1975, when about 90 percent of its fuel consumption depended on foreign oil. The government offered subsidies to sugar cane growers and forced service stations in every town of at least 1,500 people to install ethanol pumps. By the early 1980s, almost all new cars sold in Brazil ran on 100 percent ethanol.

But as the decade progressed and the military government was replaced by democracy, oil prices plummeted and the subsidies granted to ethanol producers were eliminated. Sugar processing plants turned from ethanol to edible sugar, creating a shortage of supplies at service stations. The auto industry, which had dedicated itself to ethanol-only cars, stopped producing them almost entirely.

By the time oil prices began to rise steadily in the early years of this decade, ethanol producers had reduced production costs of a liter of ethanol from about 60 cents to about 20 cents.