[Rhodes22-list] E85 fuel

[salm at mn.rr.com]

Rummy and Dave,

There have been more than just one year of drought in Brazil.  It's been a
huge problem.  It also affects the country's 
electical supply due to fact that their hydro-electric plants aren't
producing as much.  They have urged everyone to 
conserve electricity.  By shutting off all unnecessary lights, TVs, etc.
they have cut the national use down by 30 or 40 
percent!   

At the pumps, they sell what they call "Alcol" and I don't know if that's
the Portuguese word for ethanol or methanol 
or whatever, but it's very expensive--much more than what we pay here for
regular unleaded.  

Slim

Original Message:
-----------------
From:  DCLewis1 at aol.com
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 11:19:46 -0400 (EDT)
To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org
Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] E85 fuel



Rummy,
 
Re a drought killing Brazil's ethanol industry:  Interesting, I  guess the 
WSJ forgot to mention the fact that the industry was killed, dead, or 
otherwise 
didn't exist.  Seems like an egregious oversight on their  part.  If you're 
right, the whole article is phony, the industry was  killed.  My impression
has 
been that the WSJ is a much more credible paper  than that.  The article I 
referenced is  recent ( 1/9/06), I doubt the  drought is "new" news since
the 
article was published. Regardless, it's a good  point, any crop based
energy 
supply will be dependent on vagaries of the weather  - unlike oil which is 
subject to the vagaries of middle-east  politics.  However, from my
perspective, 
weather is sort of a "random  variable", unlike middle-east and Venezuelan 
politics which are uniformly  stacked against you.  At a minimum, the
Brazil 
experience reported by  the WSJ appears to  provide the opportunity for a
little  
energy diversity which might help keep the oil bandits at bay.
 
I think you're right to about Brazil's oil supplies, they may  be a net 
exporter.
 
Dave
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