Subscribe to My Feed
Loading ...IDB Backs Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative / BID respalda Iniciativa para la Transparencia en las Industrias Extractivas / BID endossa Iniciativa pela Transparência nas Indústrias Extrativistas
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009From the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB): IDB Backs Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative The Inter-American Development Bank has endorsed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which encourages governments and companies to disclose revenues and payments generated by oil, gas, and mining industries. The endorsement was approved today by the IDB’s Board of Executive Directors. EITI is […]
Toward a Sustainable Energy Matrix for Peru? / ¿Hasta nueva matriz de energía sostenible en el Perú?
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009Because of their choice of headline (“IDB Support Creation of New Sustainable Energy Matrix in Peru”), most readers of the IDB’s press release on this loan might come away with the impression that the loan is mostly about the promotion of non-traditional renewable energy sources (wind power, small hydro, geothermal) and bioenergy. Read between the […]
IBAMA Sets Record for Environmental Licensing
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009Brazil’s environment agency, IBAMA, has announced that it set a new record for issuing environmental licenses during 2008. IBAMA is not in charge of all environmental licensing in Brazil: much of that is done by state and local environment bodies. IBAMA issued 467 licenses in 2008, almost a 27% increase over licenses granted in 2007 […]
Recovering Used Oil in Colombia
Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008Recently Colombia’s Environment Minister, Juan Lozano Ramírez, lauded an industry initiative in that country to collect and environmentally manage used motor oil and lubricants known as the Used Oil Fund (Fondo de Aceites Usados – FAU). “This process is progressing successfully, ” declared Lozano, “because the trend now is, without a doubt, business strengthening that […]
Closer US-Brazilian Energy Cooperation
Saturday, September 20th, 2008Last month the US Secretary of Energy and Brazil’s Energy Minister met and agreed to intensify cooperation between the two nations on energy-related technology and policy issues. I haven’t seen much about this in the regular press, so I thought I’d briefly flag it here. The two parties agreed “to focus on key areas of […]
Update: Mapping Brazil’s Basins to Prepare Against Oil Spills
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Over a year ago I had a post here about the efforts of Brazil’s Environment Ministry (MMA) to prepare comprehensive atlases of the Brazilian sedimentary basins where oil and gas exploration, drilling and related activities are permitted. [80% of Brazil’s oil and gas exploration/exploitation occurs offshore.] The atlas covering the very important Santos Basin was […]
If You Can’t Find It Here, You May Not Find It
Friday, February 1st, 2008Quite a few Temas Blog readers noticed the absence of new posts for several weeks. I was fully occupied with work day-and-night on the final stages of the total revamp and re-launch of my main site, temasactuales.com Although work continues on the Spanish and Portuguese versions (coming soon!), the burden has lightened enough that I […]
Software to Calculate Gains from Recycling / Software para calcular los beneficios de reciclar
Thursday, September 20th, 2007Municipalities have been known to spend thousands of dollars to consultants to provide them with an assessment of the economic and environmental viability of creating and implementing a municipal recycling program. Now several Brazilian professors have created a software package that they claim will do all that with just a few clicks of a computer […]
Brazil Sets Norm on Oil Platform Discharges / Nova regra sobre descarte de óleos por plataformas de petróleo
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007Synopsis in English: Brazil’s National Environment Council (CONAMA) has approved a binding resolution setting the rules for the continuous discharge of production water containing oils and greases from oil and natural gas maritime platforms. The platforms have to obey a simple monthly arithmetic average discharge level of 29 milligrams (mg) per liter (l), while the […]
A Sustainable Biofuels Policy for Chile?
Monday, March 19th, 2007I scribbled some notes on this story when the report was first released in late January. But when I could not get back to finishing and publishing it right away, I thought about just dropping it because I half-expected President Bachelet to act on it quickly. Instead she appears to be holding off, digesting it […]