Energy & Commodities Archives - Page 10 of 12

Financing Renewable Energy in Latin America

While renewable energy investment globally fell by 11 percent in 2012, renewable energy financing increased by 127 percent in Latin American countries, excluding Brazil. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, this included gains of 595 percent in Mexico, 313 percent in Chile, 285 percent in Uruguay, and 176 percent in Peru. In total, renewable energy … Read more

Thinking Twice about a Brazilian Gas Boom

SAO PAULO – The natural gas industry in Brazil is relatively new—large-scale development only began in 1999—but it has quickly become a key element of the national energy matrix, increasing its share to 11 percent in 2012. Domestic supply has grown on average 5 percent per year over the last decade, but the potential for … Read more

Eight Popular (& Misleading) Myths About Energy And Green Technology

Whether the issue is global warming, carbon footprints, energy security, or shale oil, energy is very much front and center in the region’s public policy agenda. Nevertheless, discussion has been riddled with suspicions, accusations and wishful thinking on all sides. Here are some of the biggest myths and fallacies to look out for. Click on … Read more

The Renewed Interest in Argentine Energy

Last year when Argentina expropriated most of Repsol’s majority stake in YPF, the country’s flagship oil and gas company, the Spanish government and the European Union howled in anger, leading calls to sanction Argentina and restrict trade in retaliation. The high drama in April 2012 culminated in a few months of frosty relations between Spain … Read more

Will the Darién Gap Stop the Region’s Electrical Integration?

In April last year, the Colombian government announced its intention to pursue the creation of an interconnected electrical grid from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego. Naming the project “Connecting the Americas 2022” (“Connect 2022” ), the Colombians had picked up the idea from Washington and included it in last year’s agenda at the Summit of … Read more

Central America Unplugged

The integration of Central America’s fragmented electricity market has always seemed a no-brainer—at least to outsiders. A seamless grid for delivery of electricity would not only make regional power generation projects affordable, but would also reduce costs to consumers and governments alike, as well as strengthen energy security at the national level. The foundations for … Read more

Clean, Cheap Energy

While clean energy sources are gradually becoming more affordable, wind turbines and solar panels are still prohibitively expensive for much of the world’s poor. To fill the demand for cheap, alternative energy, a number of do-it-yourself innovations that cost next to nothing have popped up across the globe. They require little technical expertise to use, … Read more

Ask the Experts: Energy

Pedro Joaquín Coldwell answers: We should appreciate first the progress we have already achieved in the region. Mexico now has a legal framework—non-existent just six years ago—for promoting renewable energies, which establishes goals for cutting down on emissions and contemplates that 35 percent of all power used in the country will be produced through clean … Read more

Is Brazil the Energy Power of the Future (and always will be)?

Read sidebars on wind, solar and geothermal energy. Brazil’s pro-álcool (pro alcohol) policy, which for decades had sought to substitute gasoline with locally produced sugarcane ethanol—a goal once dismissed as folly—suddenly became a world model. Brazil was hailed as the “Saudi Arabia of biofuels,” and massive investment plans were launched. That year, my firm, Garten-Rothkopf, … Read more

Power Shift

The energy landscape in the Americas has shifted dramatically in just a few years. Only a decade ago, experts expected most of the world’s new oil supplies to come from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Now the odds are that most of the growth in global oil supplies will come from North … Read more

The Next Energy Superpower?

A revolution in supply, driven by technological change and beginning in the United States, is transforming the energy sector. A commodity whose scarcity defined geopolitics and economics from the beginning of the industrial age is now becoming a potentially abundant resource. This will not only reshape the global energy map and global politics, but also … Read more

Business Innovator: Felipe Arango, Colombia

The Chocó region in western Colombia is one of the most mineral-rich places in the hemisphere. It is also ecologically rich, boasting species of flora thought to be unique to Chocó. But due to years of commercial gold and platinum mining that have leached mercury and cyanide into local rivers, the Chocó region has also become … Read more

Fresh Look Reviews

Fresh, unique perspectives on recent books from across the hemisphere originally published in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Argentina Signs Deal to Jump-Start Drilling

A little more than a year after Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner seized control of Argentine oil company YPF from Spain’s Grupo Repsol, Argentina has enlisted Chevron to develop its massive Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas field. The deal, inked Tuesday evening in Buenos Aires, confirms the California-based Chevron Corporation will invest an … Read more