Brazil Inc

Brazil Inc

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Brazil's Energy Dilemma

From Universia Knowledge@Wharton

As Brazil continues with its plans to exploit the deposits, the government is insisting that a portion of the future revenues generated from these fields go towards projects protecting the environment.

In early September, Brazil's Petrobras and two foreign consortium partners -- Repsol and British Gas -- announced a major new oil and gas discovery in the country's Santos Basin. Industry analysts reckon that the site could contain up to two billion barrels of recoverable resources. It's yet one more piece of welcome news during an oil bonanza for Brazil, which is helping the Latin American country to potentially double its current production of oil to 3.8 million barrels a day, transforming it into an energy powerhouse.

But the Santos Basin and a string of other discoveries of vast offshore oil deposits along Brazil's coast have sparked a host thorny policy debates about the state's role in the country's oil and gas sector and the hefty, multi-year investments needed to develop the industry fully. Concerns are also growing over whether the increasing importance of oil and gas in the Brazilian economy will detract from renewable and alternative fuel programs that the government has been developing in recent years.

Yet experts agree that oil and gas are providing a wealth of economic opportunities at a critical juncture in the Latin American country's development. "Brazil aspires to become Latin America's economic leader and its engine of growth, and one of the foundations of that leadership, without a doubt, will be energy," says Xavier Mena, professor of economics at EsadeBusiness School, in Barcelona. "A substantial part of the country’s growth will be sustained by petroleum." It's one of the reasons why he rates Brazil as the having the greatest economic potential among all the BRIC countries. >>> Go to Full Story >>>

 

The Brazilian Bioplastics Revolution

The production of plastics from renewable sources constitutes the next frontier in the search for ways to mitigate our dependency on oil and reduce our environmental footprint. The country at the forefront of these tantalizing developments, however, is not commonly perceived as being a technology powerhouse. Brazil is leading the way in this industry after decades of research and commitment to a technology based on sugarcane ethanol. The technology has proven to be environmentally sustainable and potentially capable of changing the way we manufacture everything, from personal care products to automobiles.

The technology currently used in Brazil to manufacture green plastics is very efficient. Ethane, the raw material to make plastics, can be manufactured by simply removing one water molecule (H2O) from sugarcane ethanol through a dehydration process. In the end, the plastics produced have the same characteristics as conventional plastics derived from fossil feedstocks, such as naphtha or natural gas. Due to their characteristics, sugarcane ethanol-based plastics can compete favorably with conventional petroleum-based plastics and can even be sold at a premium to eco-minded consumers. Although no industry certification yet exists, carbon dating laboratories have been used to certify that the plastics produced are derived completely from renewable sources. >>> Go to Full Story >>>