Add another to the list of desirable Brazilian imports

A couple of weeks back, Petrobas, the Brazilian state-controlled oil company announced they had struck oil about 150 miles off the coast of Sao Paulo state. This find sits adjacent to the company’s massive Tupi field which was discovered two years ago and remains the world’s largest find since 2000 and the biggest in the Western Hemisphere since 1976.

Brazilians, though, say they are going to forego drilling and continue their pursuit of alternative forms of energy such as wind, solar and ethanol. Naw, just kidding – they’re gonna drill.

The Brazilians won’t say just how much of that black sticky stuff is setting down there so let’s put it this way: The Brazilians as a result of Tupi and this most recent find, have locked up 80% of the world’s fleet of vessels capable of drilling in deep water and have plans to lease 40 more drilling vessels and semisubmersible oil platforms starting in 2017.

Meanwhile, back in the states, as the price of 87 octane rose to $4.37/gallon here in San Diego, the price-gouging rolls on completely unabated. The gougers profit margin is 15 cents on the dollar as compared to the 4 cents on the dollar that the oil companies make and yet it’s the gougers who have been pitching a fit and have been the ones sounding aggrieved of late with all their grandstanding and worthless hearings.

But don’t fret. Just a couple years back an agreement was reached that allowed for off-shore drilling just 50-90 miles off the Florida Keys. Unfortunately, its gonna be these guys. And any bets, they won’t employ slant drilling techniques to tap into our own untouchable off-shore reserves which are part and parcel to the estimated 112 billion barrels of oil in nonpark federal lands in the West, Alaska and under water? Go right ahead. And lets not even get into the abyssmal environmental and pollution track record possessed by these people.

But back to the Brazilians for a moment: at least they get the ethanol thing a bit better than we do. (Story here)

“Corn is food. Turning it into fuel, which is costly and energy-intensive, removes nourishment from the global food supply. Subsidizing corn-ethanol production in Iowa also diverts land from soy, another important staple.
Sugarcane is not a staple. It's eight times more productive than corn. It grows year round. It must be processed fast, so CO2-spewing transport to distant ethanol plants is impossible (unlike for corn).
Its leftover biomass can be used to produce electricity, enough, by some estimates, to provide a third of Brazil's power needs by 2030. Ethanol already accounts for about 50 percent of car fuel in Brazil. The vast extent of unused arable land - only 16 percent is cultivated - offers enormous scope. At $40 per barrel-of-oil-equivalent in Brazil, sugarcane ethanol makes strategic and economic sense.
Yet, the new U.S. farm bill extends the current steep ethanol import tariff - 54 cents a gallon - until 2010, to keep what Brazil makes out. The Iowa boondoggle marches on.”

Could the U.S. Government, if they tried, come up with a more completely counterproductive, wasteful, expensive, up is down, black is white energy policy? Moot question – they already have.