Tag Archives: Brazil

Brazil’s Economic Future Hinges on Fossil Fuels

From Watts Up With That?

By Vijay Jayaraj

Brazil’s prosperity hinges on its capacity to harness the foundational element of any economy: energy. However, for millions of Brazilians, the path to economic advancement is complicated by the hypocritical “green” agendas of leaders in developed economies that have benefited from fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial era.

As an Indian and someone with shared developmental interests in the BRICS economic bloc, I have been gratified by the hydrocarbon-driven growth of India to a $3.7 trillion economy over the past two decades. Other developing countries like India have transformed their economic despair to promising futures through the unhindered use of fossil fuels. Brazil’s future — now clouded by pressures to abandon coal, oil and natural gas — should be no different.

Fossil Fuels are the Keystone of Flourishing Economies

The wealth of Europe and North America is undoubtedly linked to the strategic use of fossil fuels. Since the 1950s, the transformative power of oil, gas, and coal has propelled manufacturing industries into a new era, culminating in the elevated quality of life enjoyed in the modern world.

With an estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of around $2.1 trillion, Brazil’s economy is on par with those of Russia and India — two other founding members of BRICS. In the context of Brazil’s policy planning, India is particularly relevant because of the countries’ similar challenges with poverty.

India’s GDP has undergone a meteoric rise, increasing from a modest $470 billion in 2000 to a staggering $3.7 trillion today.

How did this remarkable growth come about? The answer lies primarily in India’s bold approach to energy utilization, fully harnessing local coal reserves and becoming one of the world’s largest importers of oil and gas. In addition, with a deadline of 2070, India has the longest timeline of any country for achieving the Net Zero commitment of moving away from fossil fuels. And the country has made no categorical promise of meeting the objective.

Brazil’s Energy Pathway Should Be No Different

Brazil must adopt a similarly pragmatic approach. Currently, about 60% of the country’s electricity comes from Brazil’s abundant hydroelectric sources. Coal, oil, and gas together constitute only 10% of electricity. However, when it comes to total primary energy consumption, fossil fuels constitute about half and hydroelectric just under a third.

These are significant contributions from reliable sources, but Brazil is far from achieving universal access to affordable energy.

A 2022 study found that “11% of households still live in conditions of energy poverty, and in rural areas this number reaches 16%.” Households with adequate energy supplies had incomes at least twice of those in energy poverty. Clearly, energy will be critical not just for growth of national GDP but also for the socio-economic improvement of individual families.

When Lula Da Silva became President in 2023, he declared that he would reverse his predecessor’s cuts to Brazil’s ambitious climate targets, renewing an emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and signaling a rejection of fossil fuels. Brazil’s 2016 plan was to have 2030 emissions be 43% of 2005 levels. This has now been increased under Lula to 51%.

Lula’s new policy has not had a major impact on the nation’s oil sector yet. Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, may ascend to the position of the third-largest oil producer globally by 2030, only behind Saudi Arabia and Iran. In December, Brazil auctioned off more than 602 lots for oil and gas exploitation. Experts believe it would be impossible for Lula to reduce fossil fuel dependency without missing goals to alleviate poverty.

For Brazil, the plan for economic growth is straightforward: Improve existing hydroelectric power systems, continue with expansion of the oil sector, and remove obstructions to the free flow of reliable and dependable coal supplies.

President Lula and future Brazilian leaders must resist the pressure of influential anti-fossil fuel lobby groups located in Washington, D.C., New York and Brussels if the country is to make any meaningful economic progress. The nearly 61 million Brazilians living on less than $6.85 a day deserve nothing less.

This commentary was first published at Real Clear Markets on May 27, 2024.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

New Reconstructions From Brazil, China, Europe Indicate No Net Warming In Recent Centuries

Understanding past climates relies on gathering climatic data from natural archives, including glacial deposits, river terraces, ice cores, varve sediments (annual layers of sedimentary rocks), corals, and tree growth rings.

From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 26. October 2023

Paleoclimate studies continue to undermine claims of “unprecedented” global warming in the modern era.

A new temperature reconstruction (Oliveira Silva Muraja et al., 2023) for Brazil reveals there has been no net modern warming since the 1400s.

Image Source: Oliveira Silva Muraja et al., 2023

Another new temperature reconstruction (Yue et al., 2023) indicates there has been no net modern warming in Central China since the 1400s.

Image Source: Yue et al., 2023

The Romanian National Meteorological Administration indicates the Danube region cooled from 1961-2013 (Viorica et al., 2023). The driest intervals of the last 250 years include 1949-1960, 1986-1993, and 2015-present. Dry periods coincide with relatively cold North Atlantic sea surface temperatures.

Image Source: Viorica et al., 2023
1-s2.0-S0022169423000926-mainHerunterladen

Brazil’s big cats latest victims of wind turbines

From  CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

To the well-documented slaughter of birds and bats by wind turbines and the growing threat to marine life posed by the proliferation of offshore wind power, we can add the jaguars and pumas of northeastern Brazil being wantonly sacrificed in the name of “clean,” “climate friendly” renewable energy.

The hot, semi-arid, wind-swept Caatinga is a far cry from the steamy, dense jungles of Brazil’s Amazon region to the south. Pumas and Jaguars have adapted to the Caatinga’s harsh environment and thrived there as apex predators since time immemorial. But they are now facing extinction thanks to Chinese and European wind-power developers who are making the region uninhabitable for the big cats. The spinning, 150-foot-long blades atop the outsiders’ wind turbines are scaring the pumas and jaguars away from the area’s scarce sources of water, forcing them to abandon their lairs and roam vast distances across dusty plains in search of life-sustaining rivers and streams.

“The weaker perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region,” The Wall Street Journal reported (Sept. 18).

Environmental Costs

Brazil is expected to become the world’s fourth-largest wind-power producer by 2027, behind China, the U.S., and Germany, according to the Brazilian Wind Power Association. But the country’s embrace of renewable energy is coming with a steep environmental cost. The wind turbines being installed on compacted sand dunes along the country’s northern coast pose a threat to underground reservoirs. Conservationists, many of whom welcomed wind-energy development, are now having second thoughts. And indigenous groups are holding nationwide protests against the installation of wind turbines on lands they claim as their own.

People convicted of killing jaguars, pumas, and other wild animals in Brazil can land in jail for up to 18 months, but enforcement of the law is lax. Wind developers are indirectly killing lots of big cats by driving them out of their habitat, but there have been no prosecutions to date. As for the villagers setting traps for jaguars and pumas trying to escape the wind turbines, they quickly bury or burn the dead animals, and wildlife rangers are none the wiser. Meanwhile, the number of pumas and jaguars in the Caatinga continues to drop.

“While the big cats are still plentiful in the Amazon and in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, those in the Caatinga are unique, having adapted to cope with the intense heat,” the Journal notes. “The disappearance of the felines would throw the region’s ecosystem out of whack, leading to a proliferation of animals that serve as prey, such as the wild boar, deer, and armadillos, said Felipe Melo, a researcher at the Federal University of Pernambuco who has studied the impact of the wind-power industry on the Caatinga.”

Eyes Wide Shut

The notion that installing industrial-scale wind-power facilities along Brazil’s northeastern coast – or any place else, for that matter – will have any effect on the world’s climate is absurd. But the monstrosities, along with their solar-array equivalents, are having a profound and harmful effect on wildlife. All of this is far removed from the posh c suites of wind-power developers in Europe and China who, unlike the big cats and villagers in the Caatinga, have the luxury of closing their eyes to the havoc they are wreaking.

Author


Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments.

Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Busines Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country.

He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh.

He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

Not just birds and whales: Windmills threatening extinction for jaguars and pumas in Brazil

From American Thinker

By Thomas Lifson

The climate hoax is taking a horrendous toll on not just the cost of electricity and reliability of the grid, but also the survival of many species of animals, from birds to whales to the magnificent big cats of Brazil.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

JUAZEIRO, Brazil — Weighing more than 100 pounds, big cats have long reigned over this hot and semi-arid region of Brazil, developing tougher paws for the scorched earth and reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour to bring down wild boar and deer.

But nothing could have prepared them for the 150-foot blades now slicing up the deep blue sky above them.

Jaguars and pumas are facing extinction in the Caatinga, Brazil’s northeastern shrublands, as Europe and China pour investment into wind farms, puncturing the land with vast turbines that are scaring the animals away from the region’s scant water sources.

Particularly sensitive to changes to their habitat, the jaguars and pumas abandon their lairs as soon as construction work on the wind farms begins, said Claudia Bueno de Campos, a biologist who helped found the group Friends of the Jaguars and has tracked the region’s vanishing feline population. They then roam vast distances across the dusty plains in search of new streams and rivers.

The weakest perish along the way. Others venture closer to villages, where locals have started laying traps to protect their small herds of goats and sheep, often their only form of survival in this impoverished region.

The poor all over the world already are victims of the rising price of energy, and of fertilizers made from oil and gas, increasingly scarce and costly as drilling and production are shut down by governments persuaded to buy in to the climate panic.  Now their ability to keep herds of animals — an ancient source of livelihood appearing prominently in Bible — is under threat as well.

Windmills may be the most destructive of the “alternative” (meaning uneconomical) sources of energy.  Because they wear out quickly and have a short useful life, they rarely pay back the energy and carbon emissions used in their construction.  They leave an awful pile of useless, ugly junk that costs a lot to demolish.  Recycling carbon fiber blades is a particular challenge.  Junkyards are filling up with them.

The carbon cult is inflicting awful damage on the Mother Gaia it pretends to protect.  Even on its own terms, it is fraud.

Emergency? What Emergency? Amazon Deforestation Falls Over 60% Compared With Last July, Says Brazilian Minister

From The Daily Sceptic

By RICHARD ELDRED

The Brazilian Amazon has witnessed a remarkable 60% drop in deforestation compared to last year. The Guardian has the story.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by at least 60% in July compared to the same month last year, the Environment Minister, Marina Silva, has told the Guardian.

The good news comes ahead of a regional summit that aims to prevent South America’s largest biome from hitting a calamitous tipping point.

The exact figure, which is based on the Deter satellite alert system, will be released in the coming days, but independent analysts described the preliminary data as “incredible” and said the improvement compared with the same month last year could be the best since 2005.

The rapid progress highlights the importance of political change. A year ago, under the far-Right then President, Jair Bolsonaro, the Amazon was suffering one of the worst cutting and burning seasons in recent history. But since a new administration led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power at the start of the year, the Government has penalised land grabbers, mounted paramilitary operations to drive out illegal miners, demarcated more indigenous land and created more conservation areas.

The results will bolster Lula, Marina and other Brazilian hosts of an Amazon summit designed to strengthen regional cooperation that will take place in Belém on 8th-9th August with the participation of the nine rainforest nations: Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas territory French Guiana.

Silva said the acute threat of the climate crisis, which has brought record heat to many South American countries, meant the summit had to be more than a show of unity; it needed to produce concrete and continuous results to ensure the Amazon did not reach a point where it starts to dry up and die off, which scientists have warned is drawing closer.

She has proposed that each country produces an action plan, that they jointly create a scientific panel to keep them updated with the latest data, and that they share best practices to achieve the three goals of the summit: protection of the forest and traditional peoples, and to combat inequality and strengthen democracy.

The key to the improvement in Brazil, which is home to 60% of the Amazon, she said, had been a strong target. “The main reason is the decision of Lula to aim for zero deforestation. Since then, we have created new conservation units and indigenous territories that have produced some results … Now we need to move towards a new model of prosperity that is less predatory, less damaging to local people and the forest.”

In the first six months of the year, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 34%, compared to the same period last year, according to the Deter satellite alert system.

The figures for July, which is a more revealing month as it usually marks the onset of the clearance season, are still being collated, but Silva said they would show a significant improvement of “at least 60%” since the same period last year.

Independent analysts believe this might even reach as high as 70%. “It’s incredible, totally crazy,” said Tasso Azevedo, a forest engineer and founder of the MapBiomas analytical group. “This is on course to be the sharpest fall since 2005. We are still figuring out why this is happening so fast.”

Worth reading in full.

Mexico and South America Must Tap Fossil Fuels to Fight Poverty

From Watts Up With That?

Despite intense news coverage of issues surrounding the U.S. southern border, it is rare to see headlines about the energy policy of Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Nonetheless, much as in other regions, energy is a major concern inextricably tied to economic well-being.

Poverty remains pervasive in Mexico and various countries to its south. Hunger, malnutrition, poor health, lack of education and limited access to basic services are the symptoms of destitution challenging millions of lives.

Hence, it would be disastrous for these countries to adopt policies disruptive to their economy.  This is why many of them are being careful about falling into the trap of the global net zero agenda being promoted as a way to avert a fabricated climate emergency.

Regardless of pressures from international leaders to join the campaign to “decarbonize,” overcoming poverty with economic growth powered by fossil fuels is taking precedence in these countries.

Mexico’s Pragmatic Approach De-emphasizes Renewables

Mexico, for instance, has made bold decisions about the its position on decarbonization. Eight-nine percent of all primary energy consumed in Mexico comes from fossil fuels. Mexico’s current administration understands the serious problems that intermittent wind and solar could pose to the growing economy of the country.

This is why it has approved a bill to reverse existing laws that require the prioritization of renewable energy. The bill would require the power grid to receive its primary electricity supply from state-owned plants that mostly run on fossil fuels.

The two main state energy companies, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), are viewed as criticial to meeting Mexico’s economic ambitions.

“We need to strengthen Pemex and the CFE, we need to rescue them, because deliberate moves have been taken to destroy them, so that the energy market could be left in the hands of private, national and above all foreign companies,” Mexican President López Obrador said in February 2021.

The online news outlet Equal Times reported that the president had “launched a crusade against private companies in the renewables sector, which he accuses of making millions in profits, in cahoots with previous governments, at the expense of” Pemex and CFE.

Seventy-five percent of the country’s electricity already comes from fossil fuels, and Obrador’s approach almost certainly ensures that this percentage does not change drastically.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA) forecasts that Mexico’s oil production is set for a revival: “Recently, increasing private investment and rising condensate production helped reverse a downward trend in Mexico’s oil production that began in 2004. In 2022, Mexico’s oil production was nearly two million barrels per day (b/d), similar to levels since 2019. As of the March 2023 Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast that Mexico’s petroleum and other liquids production will average 1.93 million b/d in 2023 and 1.91 million b/d in 2024.”

“Mexico will almost certainly fail to meet its pledge to the world to reduce its carbon output,” according to analysts.

Brazil and Peru Need to Utilize Fossil Reserves to Move Forward

Like Mexico, countries in South America hope to utilize fossil fuels to propel their economies forward. Brazil is the largest by population on the continent and also the largest oil producer.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts Brazil will “become responsible for the production of about 50 percent of the world’s offshore oil in 2040, or about 5.2 million b/d.

Brazil’s western neighbor, Peru, is predicted to be among the three fastest-growing economies in South America in the next few years. In 2021, fossil fuels accounted for nearly 72 percent of the primary energy consumption in Peru.

But still the country is in the primitive stages of energy consumption, ranked at a dismal 116th position for per capita primary energy consumption. If the country were to meet the growing energy demand in the coming years, it needs to ramp up its energy production.

According to USEIA, the country is the “seventh-largest crude oil reserve holder in Central and South America, with 741 million barrels of estimated proved reserves, as of January 2015.”  Earlier this year, in an effort to boost reserves, the state petroleum agency offered areas for oil and gas exploration through negotiations and 31 technical contracts.

In the frenzied world of net zero and green energy obsessions, it is not easy for aspiring young economies to remain committed to their use of fossil fuels, which to this day remain the bedrock of economic progress. But they must.

This commentary was first published at American Thinker, June 8, 2023, and can be accessed here.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK and resides in India.