Energy News
Capt. Ed at HotAir has a couple of posts up this morning on some recent discoveries in energy. One is the finding of a large oil field off the coast of Brazil (something like the 3rd largest known) and another is on a potential process of converting sugar into hydrogen for power generation. This also has a Brazilian angle to it, as Brazil is far and away the largest cane sugar producer in the world (producing some 40% of the world’s cane).
Now I know Fausta is very positive about Brazil’s potential, and there’s a lot of things on her side in this, but one always needs to remember the old adage about Brazil: It’s the Country Of The Future…and it always will be. I love and adore Brazil, but it will never come close to its potential until it can reform its epidemic corruption, especially of its political class.
A perfect example of this showed up the other day. Brazil has long led the world in ethanol production and use in cars. I remember being in Rio in the mid-80s and seeing them for the first time and talking to folks about how hard they were to start on cold days (a problem they’ve since solved, at least for ‘cold’ as defined by Brazilians…). Anyhow, evidently Petrobras, which until about 10 years ago was state-owned and thus had a monopoly on oil production in Brazil, has been feeling the pinch in the internal gasoline market in Brazil, as due to the high world oil prices ethanol was cheaper than gas and so the Brazilian consumers were buying much more ethanol and forcing Petrobras to sell their excess gasoline production to foreign markets at a cheaper price.
So naturally Petrobras has lobbied/bribed legislators to raise the internal tax on ethanol from 3.5% to 21%.
Nice, huh?
World Stuff | Mr. Bingley | 
April 15, 2008 7:41 am
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This post reminds me of the feeling I get when I hear people wax poetic about Africa, “cradle of life,” vast resources and beauty, etc etc. It really could be, but not until the people who run it get their collective act together.
In my Vader moments, I sometimes think that it would be a great humanitarian service for the whole continent to be conquered, just so it’s run properly, and its people can finally thrive. Geez, it sounds like a comic book starring Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, doesn’t it?
Sounds like the Brazilian legislators know who their sugar daddy is, eh?