Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Peak Oil South of the Border
A story of a third (second?) world nation gaining energy independence:
Technorati Tags: Kyoto | Politics | Oil
- RIO DE JANEIRO - Once almost completely dependent on imports for oil, Brazil is poised to mark an energy milestone that promises to shield it from the twists and turns of the international market.
Early next year, Brazil will begin producing as much oil as it consumes, and shortly thereafter it will become a net oil exporter.
The accomplishments are due to a years-long push to find oil within Brazil's borders and to decades of government efforts to keep oil consumption low by encouraging the use of alternatives such as ethanol from sugarcane and soy.
<...>
Brazil's story may have only limited application to the United States, analysts said. Brazil, with 186 million residents, consumes only about 1.8 million barrels of oil a day, while the United States consumes more than 10 times as much, 58 percent of it imported, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
[ed. note that the US has roughly 300 million residents]
"Americans can't ignore geological reality," Tissot said. "It would be nearly impossible to produce all the oil they use."
<...>
Brazil will continue importing about 300,000 barrels of refined oil products daily because it lacks the refining capacity to process its own heavy crude.
The state-owned oil company Petrobras said more refineries were in the works, including a joint project with the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in northeastern Brazil.
The country also will continue to depend heavily on neighboring Bolivia to supply half its natural gas, an important source of energy in its mass-transit system.
[ed. note that there is political instability in Bolivia]
<...>
Brazil pioneered deep-water exploration methods using state-of-the-art pipelines, buoys and other equipment that extended the depths in which oil could be reached. Today, it extracts four-fifths of its oil from under the ocean floor of the Campos Basin field near the coasts of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo states.
Petrobras soon will launch its largest petroleum and natural-gas production platform yet from Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay into the Campos Basin. [ed. cant do that off Florida or California in the US]
<...>
[ed. NOTE: PAY ATTENTION BELOW!]
Another major factor has been the rise of alternative fuels. Half the new cars sold in Brazil are so-called flex-fuel models that can run on ethanol as well as gasoline. Ethanol makes up about 33 percent of the fuel pumped into cars in Brazil, compared with 2 percent in the United States. Brazilian law requires gasoline to contain at least 25 percent ethanol.
Ethanol has been a perfect fit for the country, the world's top producer of the fuel, since Brazil is also a major grower of crops such as sugarcane and soy that be used to produce the energy source.
About half Brazil's sugarcane crop goes to ethanol production.
The government has pushed the use of ethanol since the global oil shortages of the 1970s, with the public's embrace of the alternative fuel rising and falling with oil prices.
Ethanol has one major drawback: It produces 20 percent fewer miles per gallon than gasoline.
But Brazilians also pay 40 percent less for ethanol, an average of $2.54 per gallon versus $4.21 per gallon of gasoline, which that makes up for the lower fuel efficiency.
Consumption of ethanol grew nearly 10 percent from 2000 to 2004, while production zoomed 40 percent. Brazil exports much of its ethanol, nearly 700 million gallons last year.
Technorati Tags: Kyoto | Politics | Oil
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