Brazil's Petrobras to open ethanol fuel stations in Japan
Japan currently imports half a billion liters of ethanol per year, and about 380 million of those come from Brazil. The Brazilian energy giant Petrobras thinks that this business can be expanded, so besides a refinery that it has just bought in Okinawa, the company is planning to open ethanol fuel stations in Japan and hopes that it will sell a substantial part of the 12 billion liters of ethanol that are expected to be sold in Japan in 2019. Petrobas already operates in Japan thanks to a joint venture created two years ago with Nippon Alcohol Hanbai KK. The Brazilian giant expects to use Japan as a starting point for further operations in the Asian continent.
[Source: Efe via Econoticias]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 11:36AM (12/31/2008)
Japaneses are managed by internationnal ressources cartel like any countries since 1945 where u.s.a won the war and the only idea of u.s.a since then was to monopolyse each natural ressources on earth by corruption and treat to anyone not buying petrol, platinum, helium, gold, etc. All the automotive inventions since 1945 have been done by germans then copied the next year by japaneses then adopted 10 years later by gm. Only jesus since 1945 and a couple of rockers from the 1967-1973 era have invented something worth mentionning. I remember the deep purple record of 1970 ' deep purple in rock' as one of the best inventions of all time.
Japanese have their own hydrogen technology but they decided themself to not use it and still rely and trust for business and internationnal security and financing the old bush cartel that re-started in 1945 in the world trading of toxic gas.
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Carney 1:40PM (12/31/2008)
Maybe that bizarre and incoherent rant came from imbibing too much ethanol at your local watering hole.
Anyway, as for the Japanese "having their own hydrogen technology" - I'd be fascinated to know what that is, because it would have to violate the laws of physics and chemistry to be economically and practically viable, as you imply it is.
Have they figured out how to make hydrogen a liquid at normal temperatures and pressures, rather than needing ultra-cryogenesis at near absolute zero?
How to prevent hydrogen gas from leaking through the tiniest seals and joints, even straight through solid steel (thus making it and all metals brittle)?
How to prevent hydrogen from being explosively combustible at an extremely wide range of vapor concentrations and needing only a tiny energy input to set it off?
How to electrolyze it from water economically, without needing a massively expensive energy input that dwarfs the energy content of the hydrogen itself? Or, failing that, how to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons such as natural gas, without it being a pointless waste compared to easier and cheaper conversion of natural gas to methanol fuel, which is in convenient liquid form, and far safer? Or, failing that, how to mine free molecular hydrogen from the surface of the Sun?
Let me know.
Carney 1:32PM (12/31/2008)
As Latin American energy companies go, we're completely crazy to be using Venezuela's Citgo gasoline and funneling money to Hugo Chavez's narco-Marxists and Hezbollah buddies, rather than Brazil's ethanol, which goes to peaceful farmers.
We should drop our idiotically counter-productive tariffs on Brazilian ethanol ASAP, ensuring that the price of ethnaol plummets, and then make sure drivers can take advantage of it by mandating that all new cars sold in America (not just made here) are flex fuel capable. That's only a $100 per car expense, and in 3 years we'd have 50 million alcohol capable cars on the road. Those drivers will demand methanol or ethanol rather than the more expensive gasoline, if only for price reasons - and will thus unwittingly be benefiting the economy, the environment, and the world situation.
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gorr 2:42PM (12/31/2008)
It's not difficult to see the state traders acting here on this green site almost everyday. It's ' forget your green technologies and products and you have to trade with us with our toxic and expensive products' .
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gorr 2:45PM (12/31/2008)
All these traders are proposing endless tax on everything because they are professionnal incompetants in anything, including energy.
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