According to the article by Jaqueline Mendes, in ISTOE Dinheiro, the BNDES and Mercadante team has no doubts that, under Campos Neto’s management, BACEN will continue to pressure investors to bet on high interest rates and not on economic growth.
And much less, in the generation of new jobs.
Mercadante and the team realized that, among all sectors of the economy, renewable energy, in particular, is one of the most affected by high interest rates so far. They also realized that if renewables grew, this would bring with it four highly favorable consequences, but highly undesirable according to Campos Neto.
The first “undesirable” consequence would be to reduce the consumption of petroleum derivatives, today entirely imported from the United States through a “Club of 462 Friends” of the former president. The same one who had the brilliant(!) idea of selling refineries for half their real price, reducing by 50% the production of those that still belong to Petrobras.
The second “bad” effect of renewable energies would be to lower electricity tariffs, as generating energy with sun, wind and waterfalls is eight times cheaper than generating with thermoelectric plants, which are moved with derivatives of oil supplied by the “Club” of importers, many of whom own this type of plant.
The third “undesirable” consequence of renewable energies would be to reduce not only the cost of living for families, but the production of Brazilian industries, increasing their competitiveness. And all of this, of course, would reduce unemployment and undermine any plan by former President Bolsonaro.
The fourth “bad” consequence of lowering interest rates for investments in renewable systems manufactured here would be the reduction to zero of greenhouse gas emissions. And given that this commitment assumed by Lula at the UN and in the campaign, Campos Neto insists on not allowing it to be carried out, as it would bring unacceptable worldwide recognition.
High interest rates are undoubtedly an “efficient” way to prevent more Brazilians from participating in the renewables sector.
That is why, today, only highly qualified international giants are able to compete, as they raise funds at much lower interest rates and acquire huge equipment imported in huge quantities worldwide.
This needs to improve.
Regardless of political preferences, the reconstruction of our economy must continue and its resumption necessarily involves reducing the costs of renewable generation. Not just using the sun and wind, but the very important freshwater reservoirs of hydroelectric plants.
Because in addition to generating energy, they supply cities like Salvador, make fish farming viable, as in Itaipu, fruit growing and food production in the Northeast, river transport, tourism and the protection of riparian forests. And it still has the advantage of doing all this during the night and at dawn. Not just by day.
Let us not forget, President Mercadante, that the entire production chain of the hydroelectric generation equipment industry and all the project and construction technology is already 100% national. Although they tried to destroy it, claiming to fight corruption.
But for it not to disappear and with it, – also the technology that we have mastered with decades of work and investment – this source can no longer continue to be discriminated against and even demonized in an irrational and apparently biased way.
Let us also not forget that if the world’s lithium reserves, which add up to 14 million tons, of which Brazil has 8%, were transformed into batteries, overnight, they would not be enough to store even for just 3 seconds the burden that the entire world places on electrical power systems.
Thinking strategically, in Brazil, China, India, Congo and Russia are 50% of the remaining hydroelectric potential in the world, leaving our country with 10%. Nor that the annual report of the International Energy Agency shows that after six years of decline, new hydroelectric plants grew in one year, more than 18 GW (Itaipu has 14 GW) in projects in China, India, Laos, Nepal, Vietnam, Turkey and Indonesia.
Therefore, we must not only encourage this hydroelectric renewable energy equipment industry to produce for domestic consumption, but export this technology, these services and this production to the entire world. Because it seems that after the solar race, the world realized that we need hydroelectric plants at night and at dawn, if we don’t want to depend on fossil thermoelectric plants.
There is no reason for prejudice and discrimination against investments in hydroelectric generation to govern the BNDES and the MME, ANEEL, EPE, as long as they are designed and carried out according to socio-environmental sustainability criteria.
It is important to remember that in addition to the resources raised in the market, to finance new hydroelectric, solar, wind and biomass plants at low interest rates, we must add the resources obtained from the export of oil and derivatives from the old and new “Pre Salt” of Alagoas, Sergipe and the “Brazilian Equatorial Margin” from Amapá to Rio Grande do Norte.
That would be the true dream of humanity, with fossil resources financing renewable sources, an idea that Gilberto Estrella Ildo Sauer, former Petrobras directors, defended and practiced for several years.
It has always been from creativity and necessity that the true advances of humanity have emerged. And both, in these bitter and challenging times, are present in Brazil.
The central question is: are we going to use them or are we going to continue to collect defeats?
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