Pollution to Follow as Gas Replaces Hydropower: Corporate Brazil

Thermal plants, which are faster and easier to build and open than wind or hydroelectric facilities, will be used as a stopgap to ensure energy supplies after the worst drought in eight decades dried up reservoirs at hydro-dams that produce 70 percent of Brazil’s power. Without the extra energy supplies, Brazil may be forced to ration power as soon as next year if the drought continues, said BNP Paribas SA and consultant Thymos Energia.

“Coal and gas plants can meet an urgent need,” Bernardo Bezerra, a manager at the Rio de Janeiro-based energy consultant PSR, said in an interview.  “The big question mark is:  is it worth contracting an expensive source of energy for so many years, when you have cheaper and cleaner sources available like wind simply because of a short-term need?”

Energy ‘Security’

Brazil’s energy research and planning agency, known as EPE, says it is.

“It’s important for the security of the system that we have more thermal energy -- it was because of thermal that we avoided rationing last year,” Jose Carlos de Miranda Farias, EPE director of electric energy research, said in a telephone interview from Brasilia.  “We need to guarantee supplies to Brazilian consumers who refuse to deal with energy shortages of even half an hour.”

Using fossil fuels at a time of need highlights tensions facing Brazilian policy makers as they join United Nations talks next week aimed at limiting global warming.  While envoys from 190 nations are pushing for an agreement in 2015 to limit fossil-fuel emissions, Brazil may need to boost emissions to stabilize its power market and meet growing demand.

Brazil, the biggest polluter in Latin America, had a 6.7 percent jump in carbon emissions last year, according to data from BP Plc.  That was the fastest increase worldwide after Qatar, Colombia and the Philippines.  A spokesman for Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy wasn’t immediately available to comment.

For the world to meet its goals of limiting global warming, Brazil would have to cut carbon emissions an average of 0.9 percent a year until 2040, the International Energy Agency estimates.  Current government policies put Brazil on course for annual increases of 1.8 percent over that period, the Paris-based institution estimates.

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