The Brazilian government has launched what it is calling the Energy Transition Acceleration Program—an initiative to promote a sustainable, low-carbon, clean-energy economy. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January signed congressionally approved legislation aimed at achieving that goal in part by further decarbonizing Brazil’s transport and electric-power sectors. The program, whose Portuguese acronym is Paten, features financing for the development of technologies that advance the production and transmission of solar and wind power, which together account for 32.1% of Brazil’s electric-power generation. Paten also seeks to spur low-carbon-emission biofuels and to finance renewable-energy research and the training of workers in the clean-power industry. Projects mentioned in the law to produce low-emission biofuels include efforts to boost production of biodiesel as well as sugarcane- and corn-based ethanol, and work to replace high-carbon fossil fuels such as gasoline with...
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After more than a decade, political and legal battling in Chile over the controversial US$2.5 billion Dominga mining and port project remains far from resolved, and in February it managed to become even more complicated. The latest twist came on Feb. 17. That’s when an environmental court blocked a second attempt by the government of Chilean President Gabriel Boric to kill the proposed mining complex, whose seaport would be located near northern Chile’s National Humboldt Penguin Reserve. The project, proposed by the Chilean company Andes Iron in 2013, calls for an open pit copper and iron-ore mine in Chile’s Coquimbo region, 70 kilometers (44 miles) north of the regional capital of La Serena. It includes plans for a plant to turn mined material into slurry, which would be sent by pipeline to a dedicated seaport planned for the project just 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Humboldt Penguin...
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