HyWind

Have you ever seen a wind farm ? If in Europe, probably yes. If in other countries, perhaps.

For me, it's a bit curious that people in Norway think that they affect negatively the landscape. Ok, Norwegian landscapes are amazing thus why to screw it all up if you could put wind turbines somewhere else?

StatoilHydro, not only due to "not in my backyard" sentiment, is investing around USD 80 million in a full scale offshore floating wind turbine. Siemens is a project partner. 

The system can work in more than 100 meters depth and combines two proven technologies: floating concrete sub-structure (such as ships) and offshore wind turbines. The potential is the electrification of offshore installations and 

Seems that wind is stronger, vaster and more consistent offshore.

 I got to know the project while visiting StatoilHydro in June. It seems awesome, but it's still in the second out of 4 stages of R&D. So there is a long way up to become a business case. 

Something I noticed was that the major offshore sites for wind turbines are located close to developed countries coastline, like Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea. Therefore close to the consumption sites. 

ethanol. here we go...

One of the controverses on the “ethanol fever” is that the production implies in the use of large areas of cultivation for monoculture, generating impacts on biodiversity, water use and soil fertility.  

Well, let's have a look on the maps presented by Banerjee&others at Yale, march 2008.

1. The red spots are sugarcane fields and as shown they are close to the Atlantic Forest. The red spots scattered up north mean they are in Cerrado area. 

So if ethanol threatens primary and secondary forests, probably these are in Cerrado and of Atlantic Forest reminiscent (in the coast).

2. According to Bannerjee et al. 2008, sugar cane production is projected to increase 141% by the year 2020 while the area cultivated will increase by 121%. Ethanol production is projected to increase by 265%, domestic consumption by 249% and exports by 324% (UNICA, 2007). 

The map below shows that if today sugar cane/ethanol production are quite concentrated in Southeast Brazil (Sao Paulo and surrounding States), it might expand to Cerrado area, other Atlantic Forest parts and also to the borders of the Amazon bioma (the upper red circle in the Maranhao State).

                      

3. Bioethanol has a different dynamic from that of biodiesel. 

According to study published by ISPN, 2008 currently the production of biodiesel is already made in agricultural frontiers, such as the Cerrado region, which is a “barrier of protection” for Amazônia. Summing up the pressure of the southeastern sugar cane and the agrobusiness on this bioma, with the comparative advantages (in special the low value of the land) of cattle ranching and soy production in the Amazon, biofuels catalyze the reduction of tropical deforestation in Brazil.

But biodiesel production seems to be positively correlated to soya international prices. According to Rodrigo Junqueira/ISA- Brazil, since early 2008, when commodities prices skyrocketed in the international market, none of the biodiesel mills worked. Quoting Junqueira, "who will burn soya when the international price is so high?". Seems that no one Rodrigo... 

ethanol. back to basics...

I could not resist... so here is an excerpt of the paper Michele Ferreti and I are writing together about oil companies...: 

the ethanol production in Brazil began early - during the oil crisis in the 70s - at a time when the country had to import over 80% of its domestic oil consumption. Since it was first launched in 1975, the Brazilian Ethanol Programme remains to date the largest commercial application of biomass for energy production and use in the world. It succeeded in demonstrating the technical feasibility of large-scale ethanol production from sugar cane and its use to fuel car engines. Since 1979, 5.4 million ethanol-powered cars have been manufactured in Brazil. 

After oil prices sharply decreased in the eighties, the major benefit of the Ethanol Programme was 

its contribution to curbing the increase of air pollution in Brazilian cities and of the greenhouse effect. In 1999, the production cost of alcohol was still higher than petrol manufactured from imported petroleum priced at just below US$ 20 per barrel (bbl), approximately equal to half of its international price in 1980 when the second phase of the Ethanol Programme was launched. The relatively high price of ethanol is the main reason of the financial difficulties faced by the programme from 1986 to 1999. However, considering the double impact of petroleum price hikes and of productivity gains in the production of alcohol and its by-products (especially through the introduction of improved fermentation technologies and the use of bagasse for power generation surplus to be injected in the national grid), sugar cane ethanol gained a new momentum in 2007. 

Brazil currently leads the market with 25% of the total of the production and with most competitive product: the carbon released in the atmosphere when bagasse and ethanol are consumed for fuel is more than compensated by an equivalent quantity of carbon absorbed by sugar cane during its growth. Brazilian government announced that aims to raise to 2% the participation of biofuels in the national energy consumption (ISA, 2007).  

(Unterstell&Ferreti, 2008 - working paper)

ethanol. anything to say?

Today Brazil is the second largest producer of ethanol (just behind USA).

I like a lot this ANFAVEA chart showing how the domestic market consumed ethanol over the last 3 decades. It shows how the vehicles produced in Brazil were flexi-fuel and it is possible to connect the dramatic drop in alcohol powered vehicles from late 80s to early 2000 to the lower oil prices in the same period.

When the oil prices were quite high, investing in renewables was quite interesting. But when "cheap oil" was available, the consumption of renewables was disencouraged, even in cases such as the Brazilian ethanol production (first led by the Military Dictatorship Gov). 

ethanol. anything to say?

We all know that ethanol has been a hot topic these days and I don't wanna repeat what everyone has already heard about it. But if there is something I can contribute to this discussion - and yes, that is what I've been repeating again and again - regards the spatial distribution of ethanol production in Brazil.

I heard (and probably you too) a lot about ethanol threatening indigenous lands and promoting deforestation. 

Well, ethanol is part of a quite old and unfair value chain. Was the first export product Brazil ever had. And sugar cane has channeled (or has been channeling) tones of slave labour, land injustice and economic inequalities from Brazil to the world.

The MST (landless movement) was responsible for high profiling these to Brazilians, and also to people all over the world. I am sure that many had seen the pictures made by Sebastiao Salgado of people working in sugar cane fields. 

Anyway... I had promised not to talk about same same issues. But it is impossible to talk about ethanol without going "back to basics", from a Brazilian perspective.

Moving straight to the point: ethanol is embedded in a complex chain, which has also served for ambitious governmental energy plans in the last 30 years in Brazil. Petrobras seems to be the one "laundering" ethanol nowadays, thus kind of neutralizing the odd memories of old sugar cane days.

So I will try to come up with interesting references. Unfortunately some of the best data about ethanol production is only available in Portuguese. Might be useful to give directions (at least) in English.... 

Not enough for forests

Norwegian Government: FSC – certification scheme not good enough 

 

Illegal logging and trade with illegal forest resources is one of the most con- 

cerning topics in the agenda of political institutions. Yet because of missing 

results and succuss in planned and executed missions in the rainforest, the 

Norwegian Government now stops the use of any kind of tropical forest 

products in public buildings. This conclusion is justified by the assumption, 

that any forest certification scheme is able to assure sustainable logging in 

tropical forests in the near future, not even FSC. The Norwegian consumer 

Ombudsman blamed the certification scheme after an investigation of a 

FSC – mix product that their labels were “misleading” and illegal. With this 

embargo Norway takes a pioneer part in the international community and 

hopes that some EU states will follow. 

Double thinking - could counter effect thinking be better?

Companies are becoming more and more obsessed on how to make themselves look green. It's very frustrating because they are investing $$$ on producing reports and advertising saying how wonderful they are, but do not mind about their role/bargain power in high environmental value productive chains. Surprise! They are targeted by groups such as Greenpeace and suffer with punches on the stomach.

I agree that there are companies making sincere efforts to understand and to cope with environmental issues. It's not natural for them to incorporate these issues to their "lifes"and unfortunately it's not into their "DNA", let's say.

So now we are in a very special momentum: am I naïve or my generation is trying to create born-environmental-friendly companies?

- Recently a British electricity company announced that it has the lowest carbon emission amongst electricity companies there; this is because they are providing energy powered by nuclear source. So, the problem was moved elsewhere, right?

Companies try to diffuse bias messages about what they are doing, everywhere in the world. Last week ads of the brazilian oil company Petrobras (exalting its green profile and CSR practices) were banned, after another Greenpeace action.

So there are some watchdog NGOS trying to "correct the message" available to the wide public. But instead of betting on this harmful double thinking, I would appreciate if companies could at least count on counter effect thinking (at least they could avoid these incoherences).