Ministry changes policy and reduces investments in thermal electric plants
"It is much easier to approve a thermal electric plant than a hydroelectric power plant. It can even be worse for the planet, but there will be fewer people protesting”, says secretary
On Tuesday (9), during a hearing at the Joint Permanent Committee on Climate Change, to debate changes on the Brazilian energy matrix, the secretary of Energy Planning and Development of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Altino Ventura Filho, recognized that that ministry changed their opinion regarding the best investment areas for energy generation.
While that sector’s priority was the creation of thermal electric plants during the first mandate of Lula’s government, the new management of that ministry is currently seeking to decrease the investments in that kind of energy as much as possible. Ventura Filho stressed, though, that, despite thermal electric plants, Brazil is a model to the world, regarding the usage of clean and renewable energy.
The change of position by that ministry was praised by the vice-president of the Committee on Climate Change, Deputy Vanessa Grazziotin (PCdoB-AM), who considered that attitude as an advancement.
Deputy Arnaldo Jardim (PPS-SP) agreed with that change of position. “During the last years, we had been going in the wrong sense and spotting our energy matrix. We now have more thermal electric plants then desirable, and we truly need to correct that route”, he affirmed. Jardim criticized the bidding system used by the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (Aneel), which, according to him, privileges thermal electrical plants.
Deputies criticize
Deputies Sarney Filho (PV-MA) and Antonio Carlos Mendes Thame (PSDB-SP) also criticized the policies of that ministry. For Sarney Filho, who had already been the Minister of Environment, Brazilian Energy Policy still sees the world with eyes from the 20th century. For him, the vision the government has of the future, exposed by Ventura Filho, can be the future which will actually not come.
Mendes Thame asked why the ministry was opposed to his proposal, which is taxing carbon-gas emissions. He and Deputy Luiz Carlos Hauly (PSDB-PR) presented a bill, which creates a contribution for environmental sustainability, and for the fight against global warming.
"How can one waste the government’s possibility to have a tax instrument defending the environment? Even if the government does not want to create that tax now, it can make it at any moment, and still blame the opposition for that”, said Mendes Thame.
Ventura Filho answered that there is no systematic position from government against that bill, but that, if government has to choose between prioritizing employment generation and following Japan’s path – which, according to him, gave up on development to consume less energy – Brazil should get the first option.
Secret decisions
Senator Marina Silva (PT-AC) also criticized her colleges related to the ministry, such as Deputy Arnaldo Jardim, who complained about the secret and sometimes questionable decisions of the Monitoring Committee on the Energy Sector.
The former Minister of Environment complained about the absence of a representative of civil society in the National Council of Energy Policy. According to that senator, law should provide for a representative of society in that body, but, since 2003, the minister prefers to let that position vacant, arguing that, if that citizen is appointed, nothing else will be approved by the council.
Lack of bills
Marina Silva also challenged the arguments presented by Ventura Filho for the development of thermal-electric plants in the last years.
According to that secretary, great part of the investments in thermal electric plants was made for two reasons:
Inflexibility of Brazilian environmental law, which would much hamper the construction of other kinds of plants; and the absence of former projects on hydroelectric plants with already performed studies, since Brazil stopped researches on that area during the 1990 decade.
Marina Silva replied that she does not see any problem in environmental legislation. For her, the only problem is the absence of those bills. According to her, since no studies have been made for years, the government is now hushing to try to approve bills on hydroelectric plants in a hurry, and as a result it is impossible not to face problems with environmental authorities.
"The energy authorities want to implement their projects without studies, with lacking and wrong information; they do not even want to talk to the assisted population, and then they blame environmental legislation or even Ibama itself. The ministry always blames the defenders of environment for their own bad job”, she complained.
Ventura Filho replied to Marina Silva and Arnaldo Jardim, saying that he will take their suggestions to the Minister of Mines and Energy, Edison Lobão, but complained of the so-called opposition, especially abroad, Brazilian hydroelectric plants face. “It is much easier to approve a thermal electric plant than a hydroelectric one. The former can even be more harmful to the planet, but there will be fewer people protesting”, he said.
Consume increase
The secretary also declared that the energy consume in Brazil is still low, if compared to the size of our population, and that there is a social debt with the poor in here, since they have little access to energy.
“The ministry’s priority is cheap energy. China and India, which still have poor people, prefer development to environment. We got to worry on both, but in the measure we are doing it”, he declared.
For him, it is unavoidable that in the next 20 years Brazil becomes a large energy consumer. “Our current consume is 400 KW/h, but they expect to consume 1000 KW/h in 2030”, he said.
Differentiated matrix
According to Ventura Filho, that increase will not be an important problem, since the Brazilian energy matrix is differentiated. “While 46% of the energy consume in Brazil is renewable, that percentage is around 16% in other countries. Brazil is an example of the use of clean energy” for the world”, he highlighted.
He also stressed that 90% of Brazilian needs are supplied by resources of the country itself, and the remaining 10% mainly come from the Paraguayan part of the Itaipu plant, and from its natural gas imported from Bolivia. He expects that self-sufficiency will maintain itself for the next 20 years.
The secretary attended the audience as a substitute to the minister Edison Lobão, who had been invited for that debate.
Report - Juliano Pires
Editing - Marcos Rossi
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda