Stories tagged with "brazil"

What Are Our Alternatives--If Fossil Fuels Are Such a Problem?

Posted by Prof. Goose on April 4, 2007 - 11:45am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: batteries, biofuel, brazil, climate change, ethanol, hydrogen, mtbe, natural gas, oil, peak oil, renewables, sugar cane, wind [list all tags]

This is a guest post by Gail the Actuary.

1. I love my SUV. Why can't we continue to use oil and gas as in the past?

George W. Bush has given us one reason why we need to make changes - Unstable foreign oil supply. Al Gore has given us another reason - Climate change.

There is a third reason that trumps the first two - WE DON'T REALLY HAVE A CHOICE. Demand for both oil and natural gas continues to rise each year, as the result of China, India and other countries wanting to adopt a lifestyle more like that in the United States. As we saw in Oil Quiz - Test Your Knowledge, world oil supply is likely to decline in the near future. With demand increasing and supply decreasing, there is certain to be a significant gap in the not too distant future.

Natural gas is similar. Like oil, we started with a finite quantity of it, and it is now depleting. The main difference is that we are dealing primarily with a gap between North American supply and demand, rather than world supply and demand, because natural gas is difficult to transport. Demand is rising, because natural gas is viewed as a less-polluting source of energy.

Natural gas supply is likely to decline in the next few years, because most of the larger, more productive sites have already been tapped. New natural gas wells are getting smaller and smaller, so that more and more new wells need to come on line each year, just to stay even. For a while, we were able to make up our shortfall with imports from Canada, but these have begun to decline. In the next few years, both US production and imports from Canada will be declining. It is doubtful that liquified natural gas imports from overseas will be able to fill the gap.

(7 more questions and answers under the fold...along with a study guide! Go Gail Go!)

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From sweet on the table to fuel in the tank: the millenary history of Sugar Cane

Posted by Luis de Sousa on March 23, 2007 - 11:05am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: alternatives, biofuel, brazil, environment, ethanol, history, slavery, sugar cane [list all tags]



Sugar Cane is back in the news. With oil prices resembling those of the early 1980s, it seems that all those efforts made by then in Brasil to step-up ethanol production make sense again. With the promise of a high energy return and a renewable production cycle, the cane culture might be set for a return.

It won’t take long to start hearing about sugar cane successfully planted and converted to ethanol closer to home than expected. But before the cane hype gets installed, please take a dive into the fascinating history of a plant that shaped the World.

This article has a Companion that adds geographic information to the text. A Google Earth file can be found here for download; when a mark like [Pxx] appears in the text double click in the corresponding placemark to get a view of the geographic location in focus.

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Peak Oil Salvation?

Posted by Dave Cohen on January 4, 2007 - 12:55pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: algeria, angola, brazil, china, kazakhstan, kuwait, nigeria, oil production, russia, saudi arabia [list all tags]

As we start off 2007, it seemed helpful to list the oil producing countries that Oil Drum readers might keep an eye on, both in this and future years. Often, the global production curve is presented in an undifferentiated way or is divided between OPEC and non-OPEC countries (as with the EIA). Other standard data sources such as the IEA, BP, Oil & Gas Journal, etc. usually break out production by region.

Taking a different approach, I decided to single out those countries that have made significant production increases in recent years — defined as any producer nation that has contributed an additional 0.5% to the current global liquids supply from fossil fuels (crude oil, condensates + natural gas liquids) since the year 2000. The result is shown in Figure 1.


Countries contributing at least a 0.5% increase since 2000 in world production of liquids fromfossil fuels (grey) versus the rest of world (blue). Does not include CTL or GTL. Data from BP — Figure 1

Will these difference makers deliver us from the turbulence & chaos of economic contraction and provide peak oil salvation?

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Report: Brazilian Ethanol is Sustainable

Posted by Robert Rapier on October 11, 2006 - 9:18am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: brazil, ethanol, sugar cane, sustainability [list all tags]

For those who are expecting a Brazilian debunking, I am going to have to disappoint you. My previous debunking was not aimed at the issue of whether Brazilian ethanol is sustainable, but rather whether their example can be exported to the U.S. Whenever the topic of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol has come up, my response is generally that from what I have read, it appears to be a pretty good deal. Furthermore, I have never seen evidence to dispute the high EROEI claims of sugarcane ethanol. However, I will usually note that there are few comprehensive reports that have examined the process in detail, and I would feel more comfortable about the positive assessments if someone did such a study. My wish has been granted.
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Lessons from Brazil

Posted by Robert Rapier on June 1, 2006 - 1:46am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: biofuel, brazil, ethanol, politics [list all tags]

"Brazil has it figured out; why can't we?"

The following claim from Tom Daschle and Vinod Khosla appeared in their recent New York Times editorial, Miles Per Cob (now behind a pay wall):

As Brazil's "energy independence miracle" proves, an aggressive strategy of investing in petroleum substitutes like ethanol can end dependence on imported oil.

You may have also recently seen Dan Rather's report The Ethanol Solution, in which he gushes over Brazil's ethanol success and wonders why we don't heed their example. Perhaps you heard Frank Sesno on CNN's We Were Warned ask why the U.S. is not following Brazil's example. The mainstream media have it figured out. The politicians have it figured out. Many ordinary Americans have it figured out. We just need to apply the Brazilian example to the U.S., and we will end our dependence on foreign oil. But is it as simple as that? Let's investigate.

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