Brazil, a longtime leader in developing alternative energy for its transportation sector and its electricity, has recently discovered a truly gigantic supply of oil under its ocean waters. (Hmm, are we still so sure about peak oil?) Critics, meanwhile, fear that the nation’s forward-looking energy policies have just taken a big step backward and that the country will become just another oil oligarchy. [%comments]
Will Brazil Binge on Oil?
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Peak oil has more to do with the rate of discovery of new oil fields compared with consumption. I don’t know how massive Brazil’s offshore oil reserves are in relation to consumption but peak oil doesn’t preclude discoveries of new fields, it just says there will be fewer discoveries and the fields will be more difficult as we exhaust the finite resource, oil. Or are you somehow questioning the finite nature of the oil supply? Peak oil is inevitable given the supply is finite, the only question is when it will happen, if not already.
Considering how smart they’ve been so far, the smart money is on them using this windfall to apply a little pressure internationally. All the while retaining their own quest for sustainable energy.
I could be wrong though. There is always the danger of kid-in-a-candystore syndrome.
Its a wait and see game.
Brazil; the land of the future, and it always will be. Those who study social groups recognize strengths and weaknesses in different communities. Brazil is a survivor culture, constantly on the edge of glory and catastrophe. It is sad and painful to watch. Oil wealth will be just another of the many examples of opportunities wasted.
“Hmm, are we still so sure about peak oil?”
Well I’d be tempted to suggest that if oil’s been found under Brazil, then it’s infinite.
In order to answer that question properly, will Brazil binge on oil, I’d have to understand Brazilian politics better. I’m betting that, as we have Big Oil and Big Pharma, they have Big Ethanol and Big Agriculture to produce the ethanol. So, politically, it will be tough for them to use their oil. Economically, assuming they use the oil to assuage the population with cheap energy, just as most other South American and Arab countries do, then yes, they will binge. Either way, that whole peak oil thing just took another hard shot to the solar plexus.
I hope they don’t follow the Venezuela/Chavez model, which seems to be so popular down there these days.
My understanding is that the reclamation cost of a barrel of oil from the Brasilian reserves is 240 dollars. So we might be waiting a long time until Brazil becomes an oil super power. At least until the oil sands run out and Canada has sat at the apex of oil producers. After all the break even point on oil sands oil is only about 100 dollars.
Don’t hold your breath on your Petrobras shares to make you a millionaire.
First of all, sorry for my bad english.
Second, here in Brazil, we talk a lot more of how dificult it will be to suck the oil from the deep of the ocean where it lies, than how much oil there is, actually. We have the most advanced tecnology in off-shore oil extracting, but it´s not enough to do this job… it´s one of the deepest oil supply ever found, and the costs to bring it up are only justificable in a high price “oil peak” scenario. After all, ethanol-powered cars sales are all the way up these days here, noboby buys a new car that don´t run on gas AND ethanol.
In defense of this post, “Peak Oil” in this context means the idea that we have hit a peak oil supply. Arguing against this theory does not suggest that our planet’s oil supply is infinite.