|
 As announced by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) on Thursday, May 21, the project for construction of the Pecém Port thermal-electric power plant, in the city of São Gonçalo do Amarante, Ceará, in the Brazilian Northeast, was granted financing of 1.4 billion Brazilian reais (US$ 690 million) by the BNDES.
The concession of credit is equivalent to 45.51% of total investment of 3.4 billion. The work should generate 1,500 jobs in the period and construction is part of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC). The period for payment is 17 years.
The BNDES funds should be granted to the Society for the Specific Purpose of Pecém Port Electric Generation, established by MPX, which includes EBX, belonging to Eike Batista, and EDP Energy Brazil, controlled by the Portuguese EDP- Energias de Portugal.
The new plant should start operating in 2012. It should have a capacity for generation of 720 megawatts (MW) of energy. The project also counts on financial investment by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), equivalent to 1 billion reais (US$ 490 million).
According to information disclosed by the BNDES, the new thermal electric mill should adopt technologies for clean production, using coal as a fuel, with the objective of reducing environmental impact and emission of polluting gas.
According to a press statement by MPX, the company also plans to turn "a significant share of investment to the development of carbon capture technologies".
The technology is being developed by MPX and EDP Energies Brazil in partnership with Energo, from Ceará, and the Seambiotic Institute, of Israel. The plan is for the gas generated to be turned to a tank, where it will serve as food for micro algae. The project is a pioneer project in Brazil.
MPX informed, through its press department, that projects for social development of communities residing in the area surrounding the mill should be promoted, as should plans for environmental protection and preservation in the region.
ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.