If Brazil can do it, why can’t we?
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, dressed in an orange jump suit, drenched his hand in oil as he flipped the switch Friday on a new oil rig that will usher in overall independence from foreign oil.
The start of production at the P-50 rig off Brazil’s south Atlantic coast puts Brazil on track to produce as much oil as it consumes.
The grounds for their growing energy independence go beyond mere oil production. a significant percentage of Brazilian cars are flexfuel vehicles.
Several things in play here. Big oil, who thinks things are just fine as they are, and have to the money to pay off the politicians to keep it that way. Car companies that love to sell BIG SUVs. And Environmentalists that complain whenever oil companies what to explore new oil rich areas.
hopefully, the US can replace some of its oil consumption with ethanol, but the track needs to be changed from incentives — which haven proven ineffectual and are now largely a scam — to mandates. the taxpayers have been supporting the oil industry for decades, through sweetheart leases on oil drilling and an oil-driven foreign and military policy, now it is time to get tough.
ramp it up over a series of years, but at some point every car sold in the US must be able to run on alcohol or soy diesal and every gas station must sell it.
But we still pay more than 1 dollar per liter of gasoline…
all of #1’s reasons and the fact Brazil isn’t suppling the energy needs of 280 million people. In Brazil you still have a significant percent of the population living in towns and villages that have no or little power, few mechinized vehicles and little or no infrastructure.
Brazil is on track to be a world power someday, and economically they are quite advanced, but it’s still like comparing apples and oranges.
We can do it… but the price of gas will have to shoot to $5 a gallon, like it is in the rest of the world, before people really care… We should look to Brazil for an energy model. Invest in Ethanol now!
Now lets get back to protesting something more meaningful, like the 2 cent stamp increase!! 2 cents! Cmon, A mans gotta eat!
Sugar cane, I wonder what happens when there is a bad crop due to weather or disease? But so far it is looking pretty good. This must have taken a hit on the “aguardiente” crowd.
Flexfuel vehicles, gee who would have thought of that?
6,
Well, would you rather take a risk with the weather, or be dependent on foreign oil. I will take the weather, it will only ever be a short term problem.
Big oil is retarding this country.
#7 – Maybe you should use a glider or a scateboard.
I was not saying that we should not resort to alternative blends but sometimes you can have things called “droughts” which last for years , disease of crops, weather related damage. We need to be prepared and the public needs to be aware of that. When these short terms occur the price of oil will go up also.
Are we going to have 7 to 10 blends across the country? I hope not.
Brasil wants to sell us sugar cane. I thought we wanted to be less dependent from foreign sources? The smart people will remember rubber.
gotta go
#6 I don’t remember a crop problem occuring in Brasil since they started using Methanol. I could be wrong as I have been in the US for a long time now.
The problem is that Methanol is not as efficient as gas. So, when the price of oil goes down, Methanol looks less appealing.
Now, with FlexPower/FlexFuel engines, it doesn’t matter anymore as you can add any mixture of gas/methanol into your gas tank without worries.
BTW, I am tired of seeing GM adds in the US about E85 (15% ethanol) when they’ve been making flexPower engines (any ratio of gas/methanol) in Brasil for at least a couple of years now. E85 is old technology and it does nothing to curb oil consumption, especially when OPEC decides to cut their prices if M/Ethanol gets more popular.
-Klein
#9 You’re missing the point.
The beauty about plant based fuels is that the US (or any other large agricultural country, e.g. China) can produce their own damn fuel!
Look at the farm subsidies in the US. Instead of the government paying farmers to overproduce any crop they desire, the government can subsidize Ethanol (or Bio diesel) producing crops.
-Klein
hmm.
Brazil is being praised for drilling in the Gulf and being energy independent? And yet America can’t drill in ANWR because of the politics of environmentalism.
is that hypocrisy I smell?
Pardon my ignorance, but maybe some of you could steer me to a web site with some info…I was wondering – if all vehicles were ethanol powered, would the U.S. farmers be able to keep up with the demand? If they could ramp up that much production, would the price per mile be less than with gasoline? I know it sounds like old technology, but is anyone researching going to pure electric cars? Nuclear power technology has come a long way to safely generate electricity. What about a battery exchange station for cars to quickly get back on the road (as opposed to refueling)? I have not forgotten the Venturi Fetish – an electric powered sports car. I would love to have that much torque for $475,000 less than the current MSRP.
#9 – Yes droughts can happen, but the bigger picture here is that if we keep burning fossil fuels like oil and coal, our planet will heat to tipping point and it’ll be too late to change anything. Then we’ll REALLY have drought problems.
Fixing the problem and dealing with short term pain is better than continuing as we are. The money spent on subsidising fossil fuel development etc could also be spent on covering any short term issues in transitioning and ensuring ready supply.
Scarily enough, we may be able to get all of those over subsidised farmers in the mid-west growing a crop that actually sells for real money.
As my dad always told me, the right things to do are quite often the hardest.
Regards,
Shane.
We are a capitalist country. Economy drives everything. When fossil fuel prices really begins the hurt, only then will real alternatives be sought out. A year of sustained $4+ per gallon prices will spur some changes. Every aspect of consumption will significantly increase. Fossil fuels effects everything from plastics to agriculture. Don’t worry about big oil. They already have hooks into every possible energy alternative.
How much energy does it take to produce ethanol? What is the yield (how much crop does it take to drive a vehicle for a mile and at what cost?)
yes it is Jim.
#15, #13 — a useful spot to begin searching around for productive solutions is the Rocky Mountain Institute — http://www.rmi.org
Essentially, they take the position that only profitable solutions are going to work. I sat in on seminars they’ve done on Green Building for contractors around the world and some of their answers are so bloody easy — it’s frustrating because people simply seem to refuse to adopt them into their building codes from sheer stubbornness.
You can save about 1/3 of all the energy required to pump liquids in commercial and residential buildings by laying out home runs instead of all the right angles beloved of architects and plumbers. You may not think that’s a lot until you add the numbers for heating and cooling, whatever the climate.
Check ’em out, some time.
#12 Jim, if it’s the environmentalists praising Brazil for drilling in the gulf, then that’s hypocrisy. But if it’s just people relieved to see less competition in world oil markets (with the attendant reduction in price pressure), then it’s just mild, transparent insincerety of the type that we’ve come to expect.
That said, I do hope to see increased willingness to drill in ANWR, though. When Americans see the steps that our leaders are willing to take to make sure we have unfettered access to world energy resources, it’s about time our citizens show a little flexibility with our own pristine wilderness, even if it won’t make a big difference in percentage terms. Yes, sometimes it’s actually the principle that matters.
Brazil produces alot of ethanol & engines that specifically handles both ethanol & gasoline!
When your president is sipping expensive champaign in the white house with arab oil barons, you shouldn’t be asking “why can’t we” questions.
Energy independence is easy. Just put a tariff on foreign oil.
the problem isn’t just imported oil, its oil. since it is a single market, a crisis in Iran will make Texan oil shoot to $75. time to dramatically cut consumption of petroleum. and finding more sources (ANWR) is at best temporary mitigation. Chinese consumption is going to skyrocket, so any increase in supply is going to be outstripped by increase in demand.
why prolong the pain and dirty up the wilderness? time to kick the addiction (Dubya’s words) and look to other sources.
Ethanol and other alternative fuels will never amount to anything in this country for several reasons.
1. If we could grow are way to energy dependence, we would have to plant corn on 97% of our countries land.
2. Corn is a once a year harvest product and not like the sugar fields of South America… where they get three harvests a year.
3. The citizens of countries like Brazil, (where ethanol is touted as the answer,) use 10% of the energy that the typical United States citizen does. (Yes, every day, every week, every month, and every year, we use ten times more energy than the typical person in South America…)
4. Hate to say it, a gallon Ethanol only has 75% of the energy that a gallon of gas has. (This means you have to use more of it to do the same thing.)
5. Really hate to say it; it takes a lot more energy to make Ethanol than what you get out of it.
6. I really don’t like doing this or mentioning this fact but… it produces a lot of pollution just to make it. Yep, we are talking about nasty air pollution and the stuff that caused Global Warming… Sorry to have burst your bubble.
7. Corn is very energy dependant… specifically… (I know you’re not going to like this…) specifically, it takes a lot of oil to plant, grow, harvest, and transport. It is the growing part that most people don’t think about. You see… fertilizer is very Oil hungry… and that is how they make the fertilizer, it is made out of Oil… Yep, fertilizer is made from Fossil Fuels.
8. Hydrogen? What a joke! 97% of all Hydrogen is made from fossil fuels. You didn’t know that did you?
9. Hydrogen is a green house gas! You didn’t know that did you? Lets see, millions of people fueling up there vehicles every year… you can not guarantee 100% containment, so just how much of it will escape into the atmosphere? Experts say 10% and that is a environmental disaster waiting to happen.
10. Hydrogen is non-polluting and the only by-product is water? Again, I am very sorry… not true and yep it is the biggest lie being told… and I won’t tell you why, you will just have to do the research to find out the answer.
11. We don’t have enough material to make all the ‘Hydrogen Fuel Cells’ that would be needed. It takes some exotic rare earth type stuff folks and it just happens to be in a limited supply. Then you have to contend with the very poisonous… Oh I’m sorry, you have to look up why it is the biggest lie.
12. They have been working on fuels cells for years, and years, and years… In fact the first fuels cells were a hundred years ago. Oh golly darn… let us not forget about NASA and the millions and millions and millions they spent trying to perfect fuel cells… yep, that miracle break through is just around the corner.
13. Natural Gas? That is a fossil fuel. We are importing natural gas. Yep! Hate to say it! You guessed it… there is not an unlimited supply.
14. Nuclear? Oh come on now and get real, we are running out of Uranium. The only way to extend the very limited supply is to build breeder reactors and then, if we are lucky… then nuclear might last a few hundred years.
15. And another thing… Oh… Sorry, you people really think that they have all the answers.