Homegrown Fuel Supply Helps Brazil Breathe Easy.

[barbaraann]

By Marla Dickerson Times Staff Writer Wed Jun 15, 7:55 AM ET

SAO PAULO, Brazil — While Americans fume at high gasoline prices, Carolina Rossini is the essence of Brazilian cool at the pump.

Like tens of thousands of her countrymen, she is running her zippy red Fiat on pure ethanol extracted from Brazilian sugar cane. On a recent morning in Brazil's largest city, the clear liquid was selling for less than half the price of gasoline, a sweet deal for the 26-year-old lawyer.
...
Three decades after the first oil shock rocked its economy, Brazil has nearly shaken its dependence on foreign oil. More vulnerable than even the United States when the 1973 Middle East oil embargo sent gas prices soaring, Brazil vowed to kick its import habit. Now the country that once relied on outsiders to supply 80% of its crude is projected to be self-sufficient within a few years.

Developing its own oil reserves was crucial to Brazil's long-term strategy. Its domestic petroleum production has increased sevenfold since 1980. But the Western Hemisphere's second-largest economy also has embraced renewable energy with a vengeance.
...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/homegrownfuelsupplyhelpsbrazilbreatheeasy;_ylt=AjIb6hkUcSYIB5_sxC5OG0Jhr7sF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl


So, while Brazil took peaceful steps to deal with its energy problem, our "leaders" took the path of war. I feel like crying.

[Tsiyu]

1. Brazil has a long way to go

but it is chock full of progressives.

I've often thought of moving there. Thanks for sharing this.

[barbaraann]

4. You're welcome.

I thought I was pretty well-informed but I had no clue about how well Brazil was doing regarding energy.

[bleedingheart]

5. a very class oriented society

big divisions between the "haves" and the "have nots"....if only they would work to fix that...

[Tsiyu]

7. Favelas in view of penthouses

but hell, if not for zoning, we'd be there, too. We don't let our poor set up shantytowns; we make them wander the streets.

There is a lot of work to be done, for sure, but the same can be said here.

[Squeech]

9. Getting better

Brazil is my favorite vacation spot and has been for ten years.

When I first started going there, the favelas were complete shanty towns. The dwellings were cobbled together out of whatever scraps the inhabitants could find, perched up on precarious rock faces. One day the first time I was there they had a rainstorm, 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, and scads of these shacks washed away. The media said 125 people in Rio were dead, but they admitted that they only knew about fatalities if they found the body, or if a survivor knew that somebody else hadn't made it; entire families could have been buried in the mud somewhere and nobody would ever know.

Now many of these favelas have cinder block houses, with electricity and satellite dishes. (Running water is still a problem, however.)

More to the point, there's a burgeoning middle class. It's encouraging. Lula rocks!

[Quakerfriend]

2. Yes, me too. Until there is REVOLT, things will not change.

[Wright Patman]

3. One reason the U.S.

could never take this approach is that our policy toward the Middle East and Persian Gulf requires that our military be permanently engaged there because of the client states we have there such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The powers that be never wanted us to be self-sufficient because that would have destroyed one of their arguments for perpetual engagement in the ME and Gulf.

Another thing is that as the self-proclaimed world policeman, we wanted to make sure some other power didn't control that oil, such as the USSR when it existed. Indeed, the end of the Cold War brought an alarming rise in "isolationist" sentiment, which was quickly nipped in the bud when Ambassador April Glaspie lured Saddam into Kuwait.

[barbaraann]

6. You make some good points.

Empire isn't fun.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. They did exactly what we should be doing.

They passed a law requiring that a certain percentage of every gallon of gasoline include domestically produced alcohol. Then they increased that percentage over time. We have as much or more potential to do the same and we should. If not for our economy then for our national security. Imagine how much longer our strategic oil reserves would last if 25% of our auto fuel was agriculturally produced right here in this country.