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  • Caixa Creates Label for Sustainable Housing

    Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

    Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF, popularly known among Brazilians as simply “Caixa”), Latin America’s largest public bank, is already involved in promoting green building though its insistence on construction using certified wood and its concessionary financing for the installation of the solar panels and water heaters in Brazil’s recently announced “My House My Life” Program to […]

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    Paraná Promotes Energy from Biodigestors

    Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

    If you’ve been reading The Temas Blog for awhile, you might recall a prior post about an idea promoted by the hydropower firm Itaipu Binacional (IB) to create a network of farm-based biodigestors across MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) that would generate electricity to power electric vehicles (built at facilities by the Itapu Dam) used […]

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    More Refrigerator Swaps in the Name of Energy Savings

    Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

    The government of the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), in cooperation with the state electricity distributor Enersul, is handling out new top-rated (see the Procel energy efficiency seal on the upper right corner of that unit being offloaded from the truck?) energy-efficient refrigerators to low-income families in three cities — 250 […]

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    Generating Power from Sewage Treatment Stations

    Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

    The idea has been around awhile among industry experts: find a way to capture the methane normally released from sewage treatment plants, and utilize it to generate power while cutting or eliminating the plant’s releases of a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) — and perhaps get carbon credits for doing so.  But the Sanitation Company of […]

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    BNDES Supports Cogeneration Using Sugarcane Waste

    Monday, July 7th, 2008

    The announcement of National Development Bank (BNDES) backing for cogeneration utilizing sugarcane bagasse in São Paulo was followed not long thereafter by a São Paulo state decree eliminating the charge of sales tax (Impostos Sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Prestação de Serviços – ICMS) on operations of sugarcane/alcohol plants and cogeneration utilizing their bagasse — […]

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    Consumer Protection in LAC III – Consumer Agencies in LAC

    Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

    To make up for missing World Consumer Rights Day (March 15), I promised to give you a five-part overview of consumer protection in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In Part I, I looked at how consumer agencies and consumer NGOs in the region celebrated the Day. In Part II-A I examined how intergovernmental bodies […]

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    When is a Biogas Subsidy an Incineration Subsidy?

    Monday, March 19th, 2007

    Recently a notice was forwarded to me about public hearings in Brazil on giving special breaks to projects that tap landfills for biogas to generate electricity.  Well, if you've read this blog long you probably realized by now that anything having to do with waste interests me, so no surprise that I looked into it. […]

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    PAC’ing Brazil II: Regulatory Agencies

    Friday, March 2nd, 2007

    In Part I, I provided an overview of what the Program for Accelerated Growth (Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento – PAC) proposed by President Lula is and why it matters to the issues I discuss in The Temas Blog. I also discussed its most direct impact on environment policy, the proposed changes in environmental licensing. […]

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