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POPSScientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol “Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.
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POPSAmazon Rainforest Dwindles In The Rush For Biofuels
'' 'It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean energy from biofuels, fingers soiled with oil and coal,' President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said." As the politicians were hurling accusations in Rome, a new Brazilian study indicates that Amazon rainforest depletion is intensifying. Read about it here. Brazil's new environment minister is blaming it on cattle ranchers. That nine-month total surpassed the entire acreage in the Amazon that was destroyed over the previous 12 months, according to DETER data. What's worse, the satellites couldn't see about half of the forest in April due to cloud cover, suggesting that actual deforestation likely was much greater. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/557332.html The minister, Carlos Minc, says Brazil's government will impound cattle caught grazing on illegally cleared pastures with an operation, dubbed "Rogue Bull," to attack deforestation in the rain forest. http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/556812.html
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POPSBrazil's Lula Rebuffs Biofuels Critics at World Food Summit "Subsidies create dependency, break down entire production systems and provoke hunger and poverty. It is high time to do away with them,'' Lula stated. "It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean biofuels—fingers tainted with oil and coal." US corn-based ethanol is an example of a harmful type of biofuel "shot up with subsidies and shielded behind tariff barriers," Lula added. ::
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POPSSweet Deal:Economical Biodiesel Chop up sugarcane. Feed it to bacteria. Produce diesel fuel. Bacteria will begin pooping out Mack-truck grade diesel fuel in test amounts next year and in commercial amounts in 2010 under a new joint venture announced today between a Northern California biotech company and a Brazilian sugarcane processor. Unlike ethanol, which draws the bulk of alternative biofuel attention, the bacterial fuel can be distributed through existing infrastructure, according to Amyris.
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POPSThe Hidden Agenda Behind The Bush Administration's Bio-Fuel Plan VERY DISTURBING REPORT Big oil is also driving the bio-fuels bandwagon. Prof. David Pimentel of Cornell University and other scientists claim that net energy output from bio-ethanol fuel is less than the fossil fuel energy used to produce the ethanol. Measuring all energy inputs to produce ethanol from production of nitrogen fertilizer to energy needed to clean the considerable waste from bio-fuel refineries, Pimintel's research showed a net energy loss of 22% for bio-fuel—they use more energy than they produce. That translates into little threat to oil demand and huge profit for clever oil giants that re-profile themselves as "green energy" producers. So it's little wonder that ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP are all into bio-fuels. This past May, BP announced the largest ever R&D grant to a university, $500 million to the University of California-Berkeley to fund BP-dictated R&D into alternative energy including bio-fuels. Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Program (read article)
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POPSBrazil's Nuclear Sub This is a fascinating development. I would disagree with the statement that Brazil has no enemies in South America. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a very real threat, and I believe the Brazilian military knows that. An oil-rich Brazil could be a hindrance to Chavez' planned domination of the region.
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POPSPalestinians Relocating to Brazil This is a very generous offer on the part of the Brazilian government. And still I ask--where are the oil-rich Arab countries taking the lead in helping the Palestinian refugees? Why does an economically emerging country like Brazil have to shoulder the burden?
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POPSThe Loneliest man on Earth? Among the few to have clapped eyes on him is Brazilian film-maker Vincent Carelli. It's unclear what happened to the rest of the man's people, but FUNAI reckons "he is the sole survivor of at least two successive massacres", although these massacres have never been proved. The last time FUNAI tried to contact him in 2005, the man shot its field worker in the chest with an arrow, fortunately not fatally. Since then FUNAI has decided to leave him be. The Man of the Hole is not alone in his plight: he's one of an estimated 40,000 isolated people worldwide, about whom we know very little. Sadly, one thing we do know is that many of them are constantly threatened by loggers and oil companies, who want to commercialise the land they live on, or harassed by paramilitary groups, missionaries, drug traffickers and foreign tourists who want to make contact.
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POPSPalestinian Refugees in Brazil Two observaions: 1. Is this a good idea? Put a whole lot of disenfranchised Palestinians in the same general vicinity as a network of terror cells working in the tri-border area? 2. Brazil, New Zealand, and Canada--where are all the oil-rich Arab countries who supposedly care the most about the plight of the Palestinians?
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POPSBrazil Stands Up to Bolivia The money quote is this one by the Bolivian president: "From the moment we base ourselves in legality and respect for property, and by fulfilling agreements, there will never be problems. I am convinced of that," That is a significant change of tune from the one he was singing a few months ago when he sent troops into the Petrobras plants. A Brazilian I talked to yesterday is of the opinion that this new-found backbone on the part of Brazil is due to Lula's recent chumminess with Bush. Time will tell.
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POPSBush and Lula Have Friendly Chat With radical dictators like Chavez and Morales taking over the left in Latin America, Lula is begining to look and sound a lot more conservative. Now this!
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POPSBrazilian Reaction to the Plunder of Petrobras (from Revista Veja) The cover shows President Lula with a huge, oil-dripping footprind on his backside, with the headline "That Hurt". Other pictures show Chavez, Castro and Morales in a meeting with Lula left out in the cold. The caption reads "The leaders and the led." The sign draped over Lula in the cartoon reads "Nationalized: Property of the Bolivians." The caption on the last picture reads Kircher, Morales, Lula, and Chavez in a meeting at Puerto Iguazu, in Argentina, to discuss the Bolivian nationalization. What is Chavez, who buys no gas from Bolivia, doing there?
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POPSI'll take 2 sugars please......in my car! This is really stunning...today, ethanol accounts for 40% of all automobile fuel in Brazil. Apparently, this isn't available in the U.S. because we're protecting farmers who don't want us importing the sugar that's needed from Brazil.
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