According to video and a transcript of the debate posted to Iowa Public Television’s website, Zaun said that while he thinks the biodiesel industry needs to grow, he does not support reinstatement of the expired tax credit. In response, Boswell argued that Zaun has not connected success in the biofuels industry with a decreased dependence on foreign oil. “[Biodiesel] is a stand-up business that we’ve got to continue to support and be sure we can make it solid, and we definitely should be supporting those biodiesel plants that are sitting out there idle. We can do better,” Boswell said.

Zaun responded to Boswell’s remarks by saying he respectfully disagreed.

“When we as tax payers invest $100,000 to $600,000 for each new job created, that’s excessive,” he continued. “And, I want that industry to survive, and I want it to flourish.” However, during the debate Zaun offered no insight into possible alternative actions that could be taken in order to support biodiesel production in Iowa.

It is currently unclear how Zaun reached his $100,000 to $600,000 estimate of taxpayer support for each biodiesel job created. Biodiesel Magazine was unable to reach him for clarification. The Iowa Biodiesel Board has also been unable to verify where Zaun’s estimates have been sourced.

According to information posted to the IBB’s website, Iowa’s biodiesel industry supported 2,900 permanent jobs and contributed approximately $470 million to the state’s GDP in 2009.

“We are disappointed and concerned to hear that Brad Zaun does not support the federal tax incentive for biodiesel,” said IBB Executive Director Randy Olson. “The incentive expired last year, and the impact on Iowa’s industry has been devastating. Nearly half of the state’s 15 biodiesel plants have closed their doors or gone idle, and thousands of Iowans have lost jobs.

Iowa was once the leading biodiesel-producing state, but our position as a national and worldwide leader in renewable fuels is in jeopardy. Our sincere hope would be that anyone who represents Iowa in the U.S. Congress would continue to fight for the biodiesel industry, and energy independence.

Biodiesel is a bright spot in our state’s economy, supporting green jobs and generating economic activity on the farm and beyond. It’s also a vital component of our national energy security.”

The IBB has requested a meeting with Zaun’s office to discuss the impact of biodiesel in Iowa, and is hoping to shed some light on how vital the industry is to not only Iowa but the nation as a whole, said Olson. That meeting is currently scheduled for Oct. 25.By Erin Voegele.

SOURCE: BIODIESEL MAGAZINE

The rise of the prices of petroleum and foods entered the world agenda.Â

The leaders of different countries began to refer to the possible causes of the problem, that can derive in the global industrial capacity loss, the increase of the poverty and the famines in important regions of the world. Â

The fact that two phenomens happen simultaneously makes suspicious a common cause. Different hypothesis that tie these phenomens are thought off. The two most diffused enter inside what we could call the reassuring explanations, in the sense that they don’t question the current development pattern, based on the utopia of the limitless growth.Â

Inside these explanations, we find those that recognize the consequences that the biofuels production is generating on the prices of the foods. On the other hand, we find those that center the problem in the speculative capitals that, due to the crisis of the mortgages in United States, have switched to the commodities.Â

These are typical explanations of the neoclassicist economic tradition, that sees only market problems, investment, technology, profitability, prices and competitiveness. For this tradition, in which it is necessary to also include the Marxism, the natural resources are just another variable of the economic process.Â

The economists formed in this school seemed to ignore the principles of the thermodynamic, that puts us relentless limits, and disbelieve of the laws of the nature and of our dependence on the non renewable resources of our planet. Thisexplains that, for example, Robert Solow, Nobel prize of Economy due to his theories about the growth, has assured that, if the case comes, “the world could, indeed, manage without natural resources.”Â

Its hard to imagine life and society in a world without air, without water and without energy. Milton Friedman, also Nobel prize and father of the liberal School of Chicago, sustained in a report, soon after the second oil crisis of 1980: “Let´s suppose that the petroleum was scarce: the price would ascend and people would begin to use other energy sources. In an appropriate system of prices, the market can taken charge of the problem.”Â

But, obviously, Friedman didn’t worry to define which those energy sources are and today, in front of the constant rise of the price of the crude and the technical doubts on the development of alternative energy, the market seems not able to take charge of the problem. Just the opposite, the problem is increased because in the current system of world production of foods the hydrocarbons have a fundamental role, in such a way that energy and foods are united as never in the humanity’s history.Â

It is in this point where we should abandon the soothing hypotheses and begin to assume that the problem is much deeper and of difficult solution, since it is necessary to recognize that our industrial civilization is getting to a point where it stops being sustainable.Â
Up to the industrial revolution, the world population took every time about a thousand years to duplicate its number. In the second half of the XX century, the duplication was done in hardly two decades.Â

This populational growth was only possible thanks to the great agricultural transformation, the called Green Revolution, that was developed during the decades of 1950 and 1960.Â
The Green Revolution was the result of the industrialization of the agricultural production. Great part of this advance was product of the new hybrid species that generated a bigger grain productivity and natural ecosystem substitutions, especially of the tropical forests, to use them in agriculture.Â

This generated an important biodiversity loss that attempts against the development sustainability: 90% of the food of the world is derived from only 15 cultivations and 8 animal species. In less than thirty years, the world production of grains was increased by 250 percent.Â

This phenomenal increment of the foods was possible thanks to the fossil fuels that provided the necessary energy. The world system alimentary is more and more dependent of the petroleum and of the gas, in forms of fertilizers, pesticides, watering systems and machineries, without counting the transport that allows a global movement of the foods.Â
The Green Revolution increased the energy flow towards the agriculture in an average of 50 times regarding the traditional agriculture. For each calorie of foods, the alimentary system of United States consumes 10 calories of hydrocarbons. We are eating petroleum!Â

The energy régime based on fossil fuels has a systemic character: it doesn’t decrease to a technological matter, but rather it constitutes a form of social organization, production way and consumption patterns, lifestyles and mobility, world financial system, globalization and geopolitics. This forces us to think of new development forms, where the inclusion and the social justice are not only a consequence of the growth, but other ways of living in society.Â

In 1970, when the world swimed in petroleum and this was quoted to less than 3 dollars the barrel, Henry Kissinger wrote with his habitual strategic capacity: “The one that controls the petroleum will control the nations; the one that controls the foods will control the people”. And this thought dominated the policies of the industrialized countries of these last thirty years. The invasion of Iraq on the part of George W. Bush and his allies and the agricultural subsidies of Europe and United States are clear examples of this strategy.Â

Today, with the petroleum to more than 130 dollars and with symptoms of shortage, this thought is more current than ever, with the attaché that the one that dominates the petroleum will dominate both the nations and the towns, because the food production depends on the hydrocarbons. It is in this context in which the Argentina should think in its development model, beyond the problems of the situation, while we continue eating petroleum.Â

By Victor Bronstein for La NaciónÂ

The author is director of the Center of Energy, Politics and Society Studies (Ceepys); professor and investigator of the UBA.Â

Source: La Nación

The leaders of the eight main powers of the world, that will meet from tomorrow in Japan, will look for ways to cool the record prices of the petroleum and the foods; there is a massive security operative.Â

AFP. – The leaders of the eight main powers of the world, that will meet from tomorrow in Japan, will look for ways to cool the record prices of the petroleum and the foods. The other point that stands out of the summit will be the fight against the climatic heating.Â

A massive security operative that involves more than 21.000 policemen sealed the island of Hokkaido (north) and relegated the antiglobalization demonstrators to the nearest city, Sapporo, at 150 kilometers of where the summit will be carried out and where four people were arrested on Saturday.Â

The first leaders began to arrive to Japan on Sunday, among them the north american president, George W. Bush. In a combined press conference with Bush, the host of the summit, the first Japanese minister, Yasuo Fukuda, announced that he will travel to the ceremony of inauguration of the Olympic Games in Beijing on August and detached his presence from the human rights matter.Â

Bush also confirmed his presence in Beijing after estimating that the contrary scenario would be an “insult” to China. China isn’t part of the G8 but its president, Hu Jintao, will be in Toyako as guest of the session on climatic change of Wednesday, the same as the presidents from Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Mexico, Felipe Calderón, as well as other leaders of emergent economies.Â

The appointment in the town of Toyako will take place in moments in that the barrel of the petroleum is quoted to the record of 145 dollars – twice more than one year ago – and the shortage of the foods causes protests in the developing world, threatening a world economy hit already by the “subprime” crisis.Â

The petroleum prices will continue falling due to the fall of the dollar, predicted in Algeria the president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chakib Jelil, while Bush reaffirmed in Japan the northamerican policy of “a strong dollar.”Â

For the earth. The fight against the climatic heating is one of the central topics of the appointment. The leaders from Germany, Canada, United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Russia should decide what follow up to give to the Protocol of Kyoto that expires in 2012, and to which Washington never joined.Â

The final declaration of Toyako would indicate that “the G8 will lead the efforts to reduce in 50% the polluting emissions” for 2050, indicated the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. But United States rejects all commitment that doesn’t include India, China and other big polluting ones, specified the newspaper.Â

Bush promised on Sunday that United States will play a “constructive” role in these discussions, while the former first Japanese minister Shinzo Abe revealed that the American leader and the French president Nicolás Sarkozy maintained a “ferocious dispute” on this topic in the summit of the G8 in Germany in 2007.Â

The G8 would keep its promise also of duplicating the help to Africa to 50.000 million dollars for the 2010, adopted in its meeting in Gleneagles (Scotland) in 2005, said to the AFP a source of the group.Â

But “the countries are still divided” on the calendar of other commitments with Africa, mainly the date limit for the payment of 60.000 million dollars to fight against the AIDS and the malaria, announced in the summit of the G8Â on 2007, he added.Â

The humanitarian groups ONE – created by the singer and activist Bono – and Oxfam requested that the record prices of the petroleum and the foods don’t derail the dialogue on the help to Africa since they have only increased the situation of the poorest.Â

“The quick rise of the costs of the petroleum and the foods can hurt in the rich countries but they are destroying people’s life and whole economies in the countries in development”, said Takumo Yamada, of Oxfam.Â

In answer to the shortage of the foods, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said to the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag newspaper that the G8 would adopt measures to “alleviate in the short term the alimentary crisis and a long term strategy to increase the world agricultural production.”Â

The final declaration of the G8 also “would strongly condemn” the president of Zimbabue, Robert Mugabe, after his reelection on June 27 in elections denounced as fraudulent, said the White House.Â

Source: La Nación

Can more crude be extracted and increase the supply or is the production at a standstill?Â

Sadad al-Husseini and Nansen Saleri climbed positions in Saudi Aramco, the most powerful oil company in the world, collaborating during years to extract more crude from the immense locations of Saudia Arabia. Today, however, they are in opposite sides of a momentous debate for the oil industry. Â

Husseini, lieutenant of Aramco up to 2004, says that the world faces a difficult reality of diminishing resources and petroleum prices in perennial rise. Saleri, until recently manager of crude reservations of Aramco, insists that with enough devise and investment abundant quantities of petroleum can be found.

The debate is far enough from being academic. The prices of the crude have been duplicated in the last 12 months and political leaders, airlines, automotives and investors try to sight toward where the prices head. The difference of opinions between two of the best men informed of the industry leaves to the nude the lack of clarity around a basic query, if petroleum can be extracted quicker than it is today.Â

For the time being, the pessimistic vision of Husseini is in vogue. Even before the escalade of the petroleum price, there existed somber predictions that the global crude production would soon arrive to its end. The price of the crude beat a new mark on Friday when closing at US $140,21 the barrel in New York, triplicating its level of 2004.Â

Saleri, in any event, is not the only one that believes that there is no reason for the pessimism. The optimists, that include both the North American State Department and ExxonMobil Corp., argue that the market forces will force the companies to invest and to innovate. As the supply recovers, the prices will fall.Â

The own Saudia Arabia, producer of 12% of the world crude, has hesitated during years on if it should extract quicker petroleum. Recently, at instances of the King Abdullah, seemed to agree with Saleri. The Kingdom is willing to invest dozens of thousands of millions of dollars to increase its production at levels without precedents, 15 million daily barrels compared with the current 11 millions.Â

From friends to rivalsÂ

The opinions in the Persian Gulf about the health of the oil wealth of the region vary a lot. Husseini and Saleri differ on if the new saudi production goal is desirable or even feasible.

The fact that both have worked elbow to elbow in the company that controls a fourth part of the proven petroleum reservations of the world makes their divergences even more attractive.Â

Husseini, that now exercises as independent consultant, has traveled around the world spreading their points of view. Recently he had dinner with George Soros and a group of important investors. Saleri has given conferences, written editorials and has met with the main authorities from Latin America to Kuwait.Â

Husseini, 61 years old, lives in the house in front of the powerful hydrocarbons saudi minister Alí Naimi, in the tree-lined neighborhood of Dharan, the city where the Saudi Aramco officials live, in the east coast of Saudia Arabia. The geologist assures that the big deposits of petroleum have already been identified and that the technological advances won’t be able to give youth again to the locations from Indonesia to the Gulf of Mexico.

“The reality is that we have to make more and more effort to obtain the crude that we need”, he says. Those that assure to have some “magic potion….that doesn’t exist”, he asserts.

Saleri, a year smaller, believes that his former boss’s pessimism is exaggerated.¼br /> From the consultant that he founded last year in Houston after resigning his position in Aramco, he has become an energetic opponent of the opinion that assures that the crude prices will continue ascending at the same time of a descent in the production.Â

“We have hardly consumed a trillion (million of millions) of the 14 or 15 trillions of crude that exist”, Saleri says, mentioning at personal estimates that include many classes of crude and that they exceed amply those of most. “I don’t notice any problem for the next 40, 50 or 60 years.”Â

After completing his studies in the University of Brown, in United States, Husseini began to work in Aramco, when the company was in American hands.Â

In 1980, when Saudia Arabia assumed the control, the geologist was climbing positions in the company.Â

“Sadad is one of the best engineers in the world with those that I have worked”, says Edward Price, president of Aramco in that time.Â

Saleri studied in USA and united Standard Oil of California, the Chevron Corp. predecessor, in 1974. In 1978 his company sent him to Aramco as consultant, where he spent seven years and met Husseini. The world was prepared to suffer the rise in the petroleum prices that began with the Iranian revolution. For three years, starting from 1979, Aramco increased its production to almost 10 million daily barrels, breaking a record that continues effective today.Â

The result of that effort is fundamental to understand the pessimism of Husseini. The effort to extract so much petroleum almost paralyzed the best saudi locations. The pressure in many of them collapsed and the water began to filter in the petroleum areas. “They threw the house through the window to satisfy the world demand”, he points out. “And we had to spend the following seven or eight years fixing the disaster.”Â

After Aramco began to reduce the production in 1981, Husseini took charge of repairing the gigantic deposits. In 1992 persuaded Saleri to integrated Aramco with the mission of creating simulation models for the locations of the oil company.Â

Both worked hand by hand in some of the most ambitious projects in Aramco, among them the exploitation of a big location called Shaybah.Â

It was in Shaybah, in fact, that Saleri became a great optimist. Saleri found a way to substantially increase the production of the field digging much deeper wells than the common. “It was a great engineering innovation”, Rick Chimblo said, the main geophysical then in Aramco.Â

“Shaybah made me famous”, Saleri says. “And made me realize that the old rules no longer work.”Â

Husseini applauded its partner’s achievement, but soon both began to differ on key projections.Â

Around 2001, the rise in the oil demand renewed an internal debate in Aramco on how to increase the production above the 10 million daily barrels.Â

Husseini, remembering the risk of collapse of the locations in the 70´s, proposed “a gradual and realist approach”. Saleri, remembering the experience of Shaybah said that the Kingdom could sustainably produce 15 million daily barrels.Â

“My opinion is that a location is exploded during the longest period at the smallest capital cost”, Husseini says. “Nansen comes from the international companies school, that is in favor of obtaining the maximum quantity of petroleum in the smallest time possible.”

By Neil King Jr.

Source: The Wall Street Journal/La Nación

The prices were skyrocketed five dollars after Libya affirmed that it evaluates options to clip its production in answer to the threats of the USA against the crude producing countries.

The future of the north american crude ascended more than five dollars on Thursday, to set a record mark over the 140 dollars the barrel, bolstered by the news that Libya was evaluating a production cutting and because of the weakening of the dollar.Â

The comments of the OPEC president that the barrel of crude could reach the 170 dollars in next months also gave impulse to the market. In the Mercantile Board of New York, the crude for delivery in August went up u$s5,20, or 3,8%, to 139,75 dollars the barrel, after oscillating from u$s133,68 to a historical maximum of 140,05 dollars.

“The oil market ascended strongly during the morning, after the boss of the National Petroleum Corporation of Libya, Shokri Ghanem, said that Libya was considering a production cutting”, said Tim Evans of Citi Futures Perspective.

Ghanem, the Lybian oil official of more hierarchy, affirmed that he was considering the possibility to reduce the pumping in answer to a bill of the Congress of the United States that would allow the Department of Justice to demand the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to limit the supplies.

“We are studying all the options”, Ghanem pointed out to Reuters. “There are threats of the Congress and they are taking the OPEC to court, extending the jurisdiction of United States outside of United States”, he added. The American president, George W. Bush, said that he would veto that project if it were approved by the Congress.

The Camera of Representatives approved it in May, but the Senate should still program the voting of it. The prices broke the record of 139,89 dollars the barrel set on June 16th, amid the escalade of the last six years encouraged by the growing demand of emergent economies as China and India.

Source: Reuters/Infobae Nextfuel Argentina/Biodiesel.com.ar

Both define their energy plans.Â

NEW YORK. – The North Americans finally reacted to the naphtha record prices, when underrating the sport vehicles, driving less and even debating the extraction of crude in front of the costs of Florida and California. Â

And in an electoral year dominated by the economic concerns, the candidates to the presidency of United States, the democratic Barack Obama and the republican John McCain are including proposals to reduce the petroleum addiction to the world´s biggest consumer of fuels. Â

But to those plans – that go from the defense of Obama of the biofuels to the efforts of McCain to perforate more and to achieve bigger tax deductions for the “clean” vehicles -Â would take them one decade to achieve that the prices of the naphtha go back.Â

According to George Philippidis, professor of energy policies of the International University of Florida, to speak of an eventual change is useless, because no candidate wants to take a risk to win the dislike of the voters. “I don’t believe that anything will happen until the election passes. And for then who knows what the petroleum price will be”, he added.Â

While, the polls show that the consumers are the instigators of the change. More than half of the North Americans tries to drive less and 74% supports the oil perforation in the north american coast waters, according to surveys of the Zogby International consultant.¼br /> For the first time since the decade of the 70´s, the number of kilometers driven by the Americans decreased and the naphtha demand would have reached a roof, specified the Cambridge Energy Research Associates. “With the gallon [3,8 liters] to four dollars, we are observing changes of behavior that we didn’t see when it cost two or three dollars”, said Samantha Gross, directress associated of the consultant.Â

The sales of sport vehicles and vans fell this year below 50% of the total of zero kilometers, something that didn’t happen since 2001. Ford and General Motors plan to close truck plants and to increase the production of automobiles with a more efficient fuel consumption.Â

The escalade of the barrel price to almost 140 dollars made the North Americans worry about the most efficient cars, the production of ethanol, the solar energy and the perforations in the Arctic or in the Gulf of Mexico.Â

BiofuelsÂ

The plan of Obama would depend on the next generation biofuels, as the cellulosic ethanol that companies plan to manufacture through plants. But the technical difficulties have prevented to produce commercial quantities of that fuel.

On the other hand, the proposal of McCain to suspend a prohibitation to the oil perforation in coastal waters, also supported by president George W. Bush, it would add between one and two million barrels of crude daily to the production of the country. But the analysts believe that to develop new wells would take ten years, lapse in which the world demand will reach the 100 million daily barrels, near 15 millions more than at the present time.Â

Tim Evans, analyst of the Citi Futures Perspective in New York, pointed out that the domestic perforation is not a great solution since the petroleum can be extracted at a much lower cost in other places of the world.Â

By Andrea Hopkins and Timothy Gardner¼br /> Of the Reuters agency
Source: La Nación
Nextfuel Argentina/Biodiesel.com.ar

The president from Brazil in a message to the United Nations Economic and Social Council in an extraordinary meeting in New York to treat on the alimentary crisis, today attacked again against the oil companies for wanting to “demonize” the biofuels.

CITY OF BUENOS AIRES (Urgente 24). In a message directed to the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) and permanent representative of Haiti, ambassador Leo Merores, the president from Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, questioned the position of the oil multinationals in front of the biofuels again, sector in which Brazil leads the production, consumption and exportation of sugar cane ethanol.Â

“It is necessary to expose the campaigns moved by the commercial protectionism and by the interests of oil groups, that seek to demonize the biofuels production”, Lula pointed out in the official statement diffused by the Presidency and reproduced by the agency EFE.Â

For Lula, the oil companies attribute on the biofuels “the blame for the rise in the price of the foods and for the global heating and they ignore, with that, the successful brazilian experience with the ethanol, made of sugar cane.”Â

Lula invited rulers and scientists to participate of the International Conference of the Biofuels, that will be held in November of this year in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo.¼br /> The ruler insisted that the renewable fuel is a development alternative for the poor countries and he denied that Brazil has the intention of imposing its model over the other ones, because “each country has its reality.”Â

In Brazil it is obligatory the mixture up to a 25% of the ethanol to the naphtha and almost 90% of the new fleet of light automobiles comes equipped with the “flex” system that allows combustion with ethanol, naphtha or the combination of both.¼br /> The biodiesel produced of soya and oleaginous as the sunflower, as long as, it is blended starting from this year in an obligatory way, in a 2%, to the derived diesel of the petroleum.Â

“The adopted models in a critical way, can help to rescue countries of the alimentary and energetic insecurity”, Lula asserted, who defended again that the rise of the petroleum, the subsidies to the production and the change in the nutritious habits are responsible for the shortage and ascent in the price of the foods.Â

Source: Urgente 24

After yesterday’s announcement of the OPEC, the price of the barrel of petroleum exceeded the US $129 dollars for the first time in New York; the naphthas in the entire world raise.Â

After the announcement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that the production won’t be increased, at least until its meeting of September, the crude marked a new historical record when going over the mark of the US$ 129 in New York.

In the New York Mercantile Exchange the barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June reached today for the first time the 129,31. The petroleum Brent, quoted in London, franked itself for the first time the threshold of the 127 dollars when reaching the unheard-of level of 127,49 dollars.

“When reiterating that it wouldn´t increase its production, the OPEC gave a slight impulse” to the prices, considered the analysts of the Barclays Capital bank.Â
The offer. Yesterday, the actual president of the OPEC, Chakib Khelil, discarded an increase of the production of crude before their meeting in Vienna on next September 9th.Â

In a colloquy organized by the algerian newspaper The Moudjahid, Khelil specified that “any relative decision to the maintenance or the increase of the current level of production will be adopted in the meeting” of Vienna. “There won’t be changes in the production of the OPEC before the meeting of September”, he emphasized.Â

The algerian minister explained that he doesn’t expect an increment of the production since “the prices of the petroleum are not bounded to the offer and demand law anymore”.Â

On last Thursday, Khelil announced that the OPEC will have a supplementary production of five million daily barrels in the horizon of 2012.Â

Source: La Nación

At regular intervals, in this and other medias, and from different fields, it is made notice and it is regretted that from the academic environment they are not taking to the citizenship and to the politicians the tought and informed advice on national significant topics. This article seeks to order briefly the options and actions that should form the nucleus of a future politic of energy State.

The current civilization is characterized by the energy consumption. The energy that we consume, either indirectly by means of manufactured products or more directly as electricity or fuels, comes from mostly the combustion of fossil fuels. This is untenable in the medium term; the reservations of petroleum and of natural gas are diminishing quickly and the consumption on behalf of the emergent countries is also growing in quick way.

The petroleum, that some years ago cost 50 dollars the barrel, is today at more than 100.Â

The environmental impact of this quick consumption is also untenable in the medium term. In the entire world an appropriate energy policie should be designed for when the petroleum will cost 500 or 1000 dollars the barrel and when it will be unacceptable to burn fossil fuel in the particular car or the power plant.Â

This politics should contemplate all the forms of energy production, that we briefly review:¼br /> 1) Eolic energy: it is a mature technology, ready to apply. What is unacceptable is that in Jorge Newbery´s country, electromechanical engineer and aeronautical pioneer, eolic generators are imported at high cost. The State, through their organs, as the Fontar and the INTI, should propel the creation of an UTE, Transitory Union of Companies, for the production in series of these generators.Â

2) Solar energy: in our country it is best known in its form of photovoltaic cells, useful for remote applications, but relatively not very efficient in terms of inputs for their production versus useful life. The solar heaters of domestic use are not well known, very popular in european countries, Oceania, etc. With their widespread use natural gas would be saved, and as the user would also save, these heaters would be welcome.Â

3) Hydraulic energy: it is known, through multiple studies, that there is still in the country a good number of capable places for the installation of reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants. This should, of course, be impelled, but it requires the installation of long term policies, non partisan, since they involve more than one administration and more than one provincial and national entity. If they were combined with the eolic power stations, one would have an efficient use of clean energy.Â

4) Cells of fuel: the electricity generation starting from the hydrogen is a possible solution to a future without automobiles impelled in the classic way. This is also a technology within reach of our investigators and developers, and to our industry, and it should receive strong support in the short term, until establishing centers of prototype creations capable for the production.Â

5) Biofuels: now that the initial furor is passing and one begins to look at the topic with some objectivity, one can say that, although they will be a good business for the country, they won’t solve the problem of the energy, since it is not conceivable to produce so much biofuel as needed today, and less still for the long term national development (without forgetting the effect on the production of foods: in Europe the increase of the cost of the wheat flour is already attributed to the emphasis in the biofuelses). However, to produce oil or alcohol is not the same thing that to produce biodiesel or bionafta under acceptable norms to be expended by european spouts. For it our country should shortly begin an important development program (and patenting!) of preservatives for biofuels to fulfill the norms, current and future, of the consuming countries, if we don’t want again to be a exporting country of non added valued raw materials, payer of royalties.Â

6) Geothermal and wave energies: the first ones are of marginal interest, given the little geothermal activity of our country. The energy of the waves is a tempting option, given the great width of the tides in the south of our country. However, the use of this energy requires works of great span, that include very important engineering and environmental challenges, for what, if considered, they should be object of extensive and exhaustive studies.Â

7) Atom Energy: as complement of the hydraulic energy, it is very probable that the world energetic future involves the use of the atomic energy, since it is the only one that can generate electric power in the necessary quantities without affecting the environment. There are two ways of extracting energy from the atom: fission and coalition. The coalition process is the source of energy of the sun, using hydrogen and without producing pollutants of any species. This process has not still been dominated by the man and it is not, therefore, a practical option. It is not suggested here for our country to carry out astronomical investments in basic investigation, as they do in Europe and USA. However, we should not be completely disconnected of this branch of the science, and that appropiate would be to identify a niche in the vast topic that can be object of investigation and development specialized in our country and that gives us an entrance card to the club of those that one day will be the owners of the coalition energy…Â

The fission process is that of current use, for example, in Atucha and Embalse. The society in general has great apprehension toward this technology, specailly because of the Chernobyl disaster and its consequences. However, the fission process is the only resource for the electricity obtaining in quantity in the medium term. The countries that already suffer the energy shortage, as Japan, or want to be independent of the market of the petroleum, as France, have developed their nuclear energy industry of fission.Â

For this technology we have two lines to suggest, based on the well-known accidents. All man’s work is susceptible of flaws, for what the nuclear power plants, being at some time the shurest works that our civilization, will sometime even fail. In view of this, our country should begin investigation programs to produce atomic power plants at human scale and of autocontrolled flaw.Â

Of human scale means that if the catastrophic flaw happens, like in Chernobyl, and contrary to this case, be inside the possibilities of our technology to dominate the contamination. The problem in Chernobyl was not that the radiation escaped, but rather it was that it was at such big scale of the plants that it was not possible to even to cover the disaster area with anti-radiation shields. It would be necessary, then, to create small plants, of tens of megawatts, and not of hundreds or thousands. It would be said that in this scale they would not be efficient. It would be necessary to ask: efficient regarding what? To the petroleum to 500 dollars the barrel or to half polluted pampa húmeda with radiation?Â

The second suggestion is that if a catastrophic flaw happens it is self-contained. That is to say: if the nucleus itself enters in uncontrolled heating, the design makes it to disintegrate in separate cameras or mix with the coalition of walls of absorbent materials, in such a way that the destruction of the nucleus is autolimited. Again, this will make the power plants less efficient , but at man’s scale.Â

Finally, the energy transport should be mentioned. The eolic and waves energy of the distant Patagonia and the hydroelectric power stations disseminated in the country require a transmission method of the electricity to the big consuming centers. The transmission through lines of high tension of alternating current is possibly too inefficient, and the transmission of high powers and voltages in continuous current are a technology that was used already in other parts of the world since 1954, but never in the Argentina. It is of waiting that, when the building of big centrals at long distances, this technique is also used.Â

It is probable that the transport using a vector might also be efficient. That is to say: to use the electricity in situ to generate, for example, a synthetic hydrocarbon (methane, methanol) or hydrogen, that can be transported through conduits or by sea. The conjunction of eolic, hydroelectric and wave energy with the reservations of coal and water in the argentinean south are an ideal frame for this scenario.Â

For all said, the following actions are suggested as part of a politics of energy State, of long term and non supporter:Â

- To promote the formation of a group of companies and units of Investigation and Development (I+D) for the local production of aerialgenerators.Â

- To reinforce the support to the I+D of cells of fuel.Â

- To create a national laboratory of development of preservatives for biofuels.Â

- To promote the adoption of domestic solar heaters.Â

- To form a national technical commission of wide spectrum for the planning of the hydroelectric development.Â

- To commend to the agencies of scientific investigation the development of nuclear reactors for the electric generation of small scale, according to that exposed.Â

- To commend to the agencies of scientific investigation the identification of the areas of possible participation in the investigation of the coalition energy and to propose a national plan.Â

- To reinforce the support to the I+D in the methane reformed, the production of hydrogen and the synthesis of hydrocarbons.Â

By Eduardo Brizuela and Héctor Soibelzon For La NaciónÂ

The authors are regular professors in the energy area in the UBA and the UNLPÂ

Source: La Nación