The 400-plus-mile plane journey between Manaus and Urucu is like an overture to a green opera. From the airplane you gaze in awe at the vastness of the Amazon forest, a sea of trees that lies quietly and powerfully on the ground below, looking eternal as the earth itself. It’s a feeling of amazement as well as relief. Yes, the forest is still there, or at least part of the original coverage. But in an ever-expanding world, the pressure from development forces threaten biomes all over the globe. In the case of the Amazon, the threat comes mainly from cattle ranching (60%), mining and agriculture.

At some point, in the middle of the green sea, a small clearing presents itself as our destination. There’s a small runway for the airplanes and a scattering of concrete boxes housing the offices from where Urucu is run. When our group of journalists invited for a visit sponsored by Brazil’s development and investment agency, Apex, lands on Urucu, we find ourselves in a tiny enclosure in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by hundreds of miles of greenery that expands in every direction.

The story behind Urucu has touches of an Indiana Jones saga. Back in 1917, a geologist called Pedro de Moura, while doing research in the area, realized that the place could be the site of oil reserves. In 1954, the first discovery of oil in non-commercial amounts took place in three locations in Amazonas state. In 1986 oil was found at Urucu and by 1988 production started there.

To find out how to tread as lightly as possible in such pristine setting, Petrobras hired a group of scientists to give advice on how to be socially and environmentally responsible. Three basic measures were suggested: employ local work force, recover deforested areas and minimize road construction. Since then, that has informed the ethos of the place. Despite the fact that we were on a highly directed tour of the site, it’s impossible not to be genuinely impressed by the efficiency and systematic discipline seen at Urucu, where 55,000 barrels of oil and 10 million cubic meters of natural gas are produced per day.

During a presentation to the press, exploration manager Júlio Cesar Carvalho Coelho boasts that the local municipality of Coari, the township of 80,000 people where Urucu is domiciled, received $23,375,000 in royalties in 2009. Petrobrás contributes over $1,000,000 per day in tax revenue to Amazonas state. The company never had any spills in the region. A pipeline to transport LPG (cooking gas) from Urucu to Manaus was completed in late 2009 and no road was open for that purpose. Most of the material transported to and from Urucu is shipped up and down the river of the same name. A recycling center ensures nothing is wasted at the unit. And the list goes on.

Then there are the reforestation efforts within Urucu. The unoccupied areas are recovered to their original state based on a meticulous inventory of plants and local fauna. A nursery with more than 170,000 seedlings of 90 native species operates in the area. Local wildlife has benefitted from the company’s presence because it inhibits hunting, says the employee in charge of the nursery.

Despite all the immense social challenges that Brazil faces, some of which were historically inherited, the country has scored some impressive environmental achievements. 48% of the country’s energy matrix is renewable, with hydropower and biofuels accounting for most of it. It has set an ambitious emissions reduction target of 36.1% to 38.9% by 2020 that was presented at the COP15 meeting in October 2009. The target was made into law with the introduction of the National Policy on Climate Change.

Brazil also claims it has succeeded in reducing deforestation since it peaked in 2004 and on 22 July it announced a reduction of 47% between August 2009 and May 2010. Forest clearing is the country’s biggest source of carbon emissions and curbing it is seen as the single most important step to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.

In fact, forest protection is the subject of a heated debate at the moment, as the agribusiness lobby group in congress is pressing to change the text of the 1965 Código Florestal (forest code) to loosen up regulation and avoid penalties. Environmentalists say the altered code will legalize deforestation and undo some of the legal achievements of the last few decades. Besides, it will compromise the country’s ability to meet its emissions target.

But for now let’s get back to Urucu. One operational staffer is demonstrating how oil gets pumped out of the ground, waxing lyrical about the quality of the stuff, how easy it is to decant it (separate it from water) and its general superiority. The press crew is then invited to get their hands doused in freshly pumped oil and make a wish. He says the oil unleashes the spirit of the forest and our wish then becomes reality. It is a quirky touch to a day of corporate hospitality, but somehow in tune with the magical location of this unique oil operation. I wondered then whether Petrobras, when touched by oil, wishes that it could, in the not-so-distant future, become a 100% renewable energy company (it already has a biofuel arm called Petrobras Biocombustível), although that’s not very likely to happen any time soon. In any case, that was my wish when I got my hand greased with Amazon oil.

Sure enough, fossil fuel and natural gas are not clean, although some consider the latter a less dirty, transitional option until we find something better that can be scaled up to mass consumption. But for the time being and the foreseeable future, we will be using fossil fuels as a source of energy. Petrobrás and Brazil know that and are happy to provide the goods, including oil drilled from the deep water, pre-salt layer. As a developing country, Brazil wants to make money and speed up development. Until renewable energy can power the world, the example that Urucu sets is that we must try to make it as nice and light as possible. Its business is not renewable, but it endeavors to make it sustainable at the point of extraction.

Perhaps the ethos of this Amazon oil exploration unit is best translated by Urucu’s press contact, who quotes the famous Amazonian poet, Thiago de Mello, to explain the company’s vision. It goes like this: “I don’t have a new way, but a new way to walk.” That sums up what Petrobrás is doing in Urucu. Here’s to hope that a new, renewable way will be found sooner rather than later.

Disclosure: Energy Refuge’s trip to the Amazon was sponsored by Apex, a governmental agency that promotes trade and investment in Brazil, with funding provided by Petrobras, Eletrobras and Banco do Brasil.

Watch the video:

Hello from the Amazon in Brazil!

This week we will be posting a series of dispatches from the Amazon region in Brazil, home to the world’s largest rainforest that spreads out to other South American countries as well. Brazil is a major player in renewable energy and it is a key country in any environmental discussion. Therefore we are very excited to see firsthand how this pivotal country is dealing with the enormous challenges it faces in order to develop in a sustainable way, meet its emission targets and preserve the biomes it harbors at the same time.

I arrived here on Sunday and this is my first impression of Manaus, the capital city of the state of Amazon in the north of Brazil, a very atmospheric city with an impressive 19th century opera house. But there is nothing like experiencing the vastness and beauty of the rainforest.

Our next post will be about Urucu, a gas operation in the middle of the Amazon forest and whose policies prioritize a low-impact approach to energy exploration. Is it really possible to explore energy in the Amazon region without damaging the environment?

Source: Reuters

Comedienne Sandra Bernhardt on her Twitter (April 30, 2010)

And who isn’t terribly upset about this? Watching nature and wildlife being devastated by oil is not something that anyone wants to see. But it’s happening now and every day we hear the gulf spill is worse than anticipated.

“The oil threatens one of the world’s richest fisheries, and could decimate entire species of wildlife and their habitat, while convincing the millions of tourists they attract to take their vacation dollars elsewhere”, wrote Money Morning. Elsewhere, Joe Conason at Salon.com talks politics and asks: “Will Palin, and Obama, rethink offshore drilling now?”

This terrible accident, which some predict will be worse and more wide-reaching than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, should remind politicians that renewable energy is the way forward. It doesn’t spill and kill wildlife on such a gargantuan scale, wreaking havoc with tourism at the same time.

The public must demand from authorities that we move away from dirty energy and replace it with greener sources of power. Meanwhile, get some information on how you can lead a greener life here.

A new research to be released on Friday by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) reveals that “the largest U.S subsidies to fossil fuels are attributed to tax breaks that aid foreign oil production”. The report was produced in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The study reviewed fossil fuel and energy subsidies for Fiscal Years 2002-2008 and shows that the lion’s share of energy subsidies supported energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases.

During that period, the federal government provided substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewables. Fossil fuels benefited from approximately $72 billion over the seven-year period, while subsidies for renewable fuels totaled only $29 billion. More than half the subsidies for renewables – $16.8 billion – are attributable to corn-based ethanol, the climate effects of which are hotly disputed. Of the fossil fuel subsidies, $70.2 billion went to traditional sources – such as coal and oil – and $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage, which is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Why is this happening? The U.S. energy market is shaped by a number of national and state policies that encourage the use of traditional energy sources. These policies range from royalty relief to the provision of tax incentives, direct payments, and other forms of support to the non-renewable energy industry. “The combination of subsidies – or ‘perverse incentives’ – to develop fossil fuel energy sources, and a lack of sufficient incentives to develop renewable energy and promote energy efficiency, distorts energy policy in ways that have helped cause, and continue to exacerbate, our climate change problem,” says ELI Senior Attorney John Pendergrass. “With climate change and energy legislation pending on Capitol Hill, our research suggests that more attention needs to be given to the existing perverse incentives for ‘dirty’ fuels in the U.S. Tax Code.”

The subsidies examined fall roughly into two categories: foregone revenues (changes to the tax code to reduce the tax liabilities of particular entities), mostly in the form of tax breaks, and including reported lost government take from offshore leasing of oil and gas fields; and direct spending, in the form of expenditures on research and development and other programs. Subsidies attributed to the Foreign Tax Credit totaled $15.3 billion, with those for the next-largest fossil fuel subsidy, the Credit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels, totaling $14.1 billion. The Foreign Tax Credit applies to the overseas production of oil through an obscure provision of the U.S. Tax Code, which allows energy companies to claim a tax credit for payments that would normally receive less-beneficial treatment under the tax code.

Fossie fuels and renewable energy were defined according to conventional definitions. Fossil fuels include petroleum and its byproducts, natural gas, and coal products, while renewable fuels include wind, solar, biofuels and biomass, hydropower, and geothermal energy production.

Renewable Energy World has published a report saying that in 2008 the United States decreased its use of coal and petroleum. On the other hand, consumption of natural gas solar, biomass wind and nuclear increased. The information was based on energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Geothermal energy use remained stable.

According to LLNL, the estimated U.S. energy use in 2008 equaled 99.2 quadrillion BTUs (“quads”), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007. (A BTU or British Thermal Unit is a unit of measurement for energy, and is equivalent to about 1.055 kilojoules).

Energy use in the industrial and transportation sectors declined by 1.17 and 0.9 quads respectively, while commercial and residential use slightly climbed. The drop in transportation and industrial use – which are both heavily dependent on petroleum – can be attributed to a spike in oil prices in summer 2008.

Last year saw a significant increase in biomass with the recent push for the development of more biofuels including ethanol.

“This is a good snapshot of what’s going on in the country. Some of the year-to year changes in supply and consumption can be traced to factors such as the economy and energy policy,” said A.J. Simon, an LLNL energy systems analyst who develops the energy flow charts using data provided by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.

Simon said the increase in wind energy can be attributed to large investments in wind turbine technologies over the last few years as well as better use of the existing turbines.

Nuclear energy also saw a slight increase from 8.41 quads in 2007 up to 8.45 quads in 2008. While no new nuclear power plants came online in 2008, the existing plants had less down time. Over the last 20 years, the downtime for maintenance and refueling at nuclear power plants had been decreasing.

“There’s an incentive to operate as much as possible,” Simon said. “It’s a smart thing to do. You can’t earn revenue by selling electricity when you’re down. I’m really excited about the renewed push for energy efficiency in this country. Because once that energy is rejected, it’s no longer useful. But more efficient power plants, automobiles and even light bulbs really do reject less energy while providing the same energy services.”

A report in the Independent newspaper published yesterday reminds us why the need to search for and implement renewable energy is very urgent.

Based on a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), it said that governments seem unaware of the fact “the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.”

“What we need to do is accelerate the mobilisation of renewables, energy efficiency and alternative transport. We have to do this for global warming reasons anyway, but the imminent energy crisis redoubles the imperative,” Jeremy Leggett, a former oil-industry consultant and now a green entrepreneur with Solar Century, told the Independent.

Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the IEA, echoes Mr, Leggett’s sentiment on the issue: “The far-reaching effects the current financial and economic crisis will have on energy security and climate change, coupled with plunging investment, demand urgent and global action to put the world on a more sustainable path”, he said.

This is not a letter from ExxonMobil, BP, or any other large corporation.

This is a letter from the small businesses that drill America’s oil and natural gas.

They want to be part of the Obama’s energy plan. They want the facts as they know them to be out there and included in the decision making process.

Petroleum and natural gas are not just used for energy production. They are used as raw materials and for heating in manufacturing and chemical processes as well.

I do not know what the IPAA thinks about the idea of Peak Oil, but I believe that oil will run out and that this means we need to start now how to not only power our cars and homes without the fossil fuels, but we need to figure out other manufacturing processes that do not need these scarce materials as well.

Yes, some chemical processes need heat, but perhaps there are different chemical pathways that use less heat. Yes, right now fertilizer is made with petroleum products. Is there a different way?

I applaud the IPAA as a front for all those small businesses that drill oil in America. I applaud the point of view and the facts they present at IPAA.org, but I feel bad that they will go away as oil goes away.

In Reuters and other places, I am sure the discussion is all about how lower oil prices area a sign of a weakening US economy.

And it may be that.

But it also proves the important environmental point that the best way to save the world is to buy less. I would rather that it did not take an economic downturn, recession, depression, panic to show that to everyone. But that is the way of the world. The less we buy, the less is made, the fewer resources are used, the more resources are left for later when we will need it.

If only it were that simple.

The other side of all this is that the US and Europe has a large material advantage over the rest of the world. And we are not going to simply give them the money they need to get their infrastructure set up correctly (and I doubt that that would work anyway). The only way to China, India, Africa to get material wealth is for us to buy things from them, and their material wealth will improve their lives and at the same time ravish the world’s resources.

So what can we do to stop this?

That is not an answer for this single blog entry but I wish I had an answer that balanced those billions well-being against our own. I know I do not want to give up my air conditioning, my XM radio, my many choices of safe food from multiple grocery stores, my paved roads, my clean water, so there are more resources available for them to use. And I doubt if my giving up these things would help them in any way.