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Published online 24 September 2008 | Nature 455, 438-439 (2008) | doi:10.1038/455438b
News
Brazil braced for unexpected oil wealth
President appoints committee to exploit reservoirs found on coast.
At a time when most countries are struggling with ageing oilfields, Brazil is debating a new future as an oil exporter following the recent discovery of world-class reservoirs off its coast.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) has appointed a cabinet-level committee to come up with recommendations on proposals such as the creation of a state-owned company to manage the development, and a national 'rainy-day' fund for collecting and disbursing the revenue.
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It's a matter of concern when on one hand, leading scientists have projected that any further expansion of exploitation of fossil fuels could push climate stabilization out of reach, while on the other hand, even Nature still reports a petroleum discovery like this as a great boon, with nary a note of caution for climate. f not Nature, then who? If not now, then when? New petroleum discoveries pose a real and measurable threat to global climate. How are these discoveries likely to impact attempts in Brazil and worldwide to achieve CO2 emissions reductions? This needs to be part of the story.
The estimates about how much oil there really is in the "pre-salt" vary wildly. Numbers are in the range from 5 to 80 billion bbl. Let us use the rule of the geometric mean to get a number out of these widely varying guesses: 20 billion bbl. Just to set the scale, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia has produced some 60 billion bbl since opening up in 1951. (This oil - mostly very cheap - made a significant contribution to the economic growth of today's rich nations.) Another scale: the world consumed 29 billion bbl of oil last year. Poorer countries, like Brazil, will need hundreds of exajoules of equally cheap energy in order to grow. And this cheap energy is not yet available outside fossil fuels. Were Brazil to burn 20 billion bbl of oil, that is, not more than 2 Gt of fuel carbon (not CO2), it would increase the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by about 500 parts per billion (see W S Broecker, Science v315, p1371 (2007)). That's 1.3 thousandths of today's concentration of atmospheric CO2. I think it is more reasonable for rich countries to slow down burning fossil fuels, than to claim this oil discovery as a measurable threat to mankind. As a threat, it is not so difficult to measure. And as a measure, it is not much of a threat.
Mr. Roger Tissot, a 'Latin America expert' from Canada quoted in the news article, believes nationalization steps are not professional or serious. Hence according to him and Mr. Landau, a Brazilian 'consultant' also quoted, countries like Brazil should (i) rather than trying to develop their own technology, continue to depend on foreign investment, (ii) rather than use these revenues to develop the country's infrastructure, should allow those resources being tapped by foreign companies. Could such short-run remedies allow closing the gap between rich and poor countries? Or do Mr. Tissot and Mr. Landau not hold such concerns? I regret that a Nature news article reflects such biased opinions on this issue.