Welcome — how to navigate my site

To find stories on specific topics, check out the handful of categories I have created on the right side of your screen. With each story, you’ll have the option of reading text on this blog, following a link back to the newspaper’s Web site (some may expire), or viewing a pdf of the print page. These pdfs can be found at the end of each story’s text.

I tried caldo de cana (fresh sugarcane juice) on the side of a desolate country road in Sertãozinho, Brazil, in August 2007, and loved it. Today, I have it every Saturday morning at our local street market.

To read my 14-story series on sugar cane and ethanol (álcool) in Brazil, choose the “Louisiana/Brazil” category. These stories were published in a thoughtful order over a series of four days. To read them in that order, scroll below, where the “Day 1″ story appears, and work your way down. All of the stories from “Day 3″ focus on Brazil, specifically in São Paulo state.

If you’d like digital copies (pdf) of the actual news pages from the Louisiana/Brazil series or any story, you should be able to download one for yourself from the Scribd-hosted pdfs I have within this blog. Any problems, please contact me at: bobmoser333 [at] gmail [dot] com .

Brazil’s airports — in private hands

This article was published in the December 2011 issue of Brazil’s Speak Up magazine (www.speakup.com.br). View the pdf below:

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Macondo aftershocks: P&A contractors face increased liability in 2012

(Read this article at www.decomworld.com)

By Bob Moser, Americas correspondent
Dec. 14, 2011

Relationships between contractors and operators in the Gulf of Mexico may undergo fundamental changes in 2012, and could even make some think twice about work in the region, now that US regulators will hold contractors liable for accidents in a way not accounted for in common contracts known as Master Service Agreements (MSAs).

Twenty Incidents of Noncompliance (INC) notices have been issued since October to the “Macondo trio” of contractors involved with the 2010 well blowout. The Macondo response was the first time the Department of Interior had issued INCs directly to a contractor that wasn’t the well’s operator.

The move was long overdue, officials now say. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) will regulate contractors along with operators from now on, said Michael R. Bromwich, former BSEE director who was replaced by James Watson on Dec. 1.

Contractors held accountable

“I believe in a system of legal and regulatory accountability, and the issuance of those INCs (to BP, TransOcean and Haliburton) reflects my view that such accountability is not limited to operators,” Bromwich told contractors during a speech to the International Association of Drilling Contractors in November.

“I know it is a new view for this industry, but I am convinced it is the right view”, he said.

Challenges ahead for Brazilian, South American ports in 2012

This series of articles on growth challenges for the ports in Brazil and the east coast of South America appeared in the November 2011 issue of Port Strategy magazine (www.portstrategy.com). View the pdf below:

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More cachet for cachaça

This article was published in the November 2011 issue of British magazine The Drinks Business (www.thedrinksbusiness.com). View the pdf below:

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CSP faces choppy waters in private lending sea

(Read this story at csptoday.com)

Government aid will end soon, and CSP will have to prove its technology and profitability to risk-averse banks and private financiers.

By Bob Moser, Americas correspondent
Nov. 18, 2011

With key government aid programs likely to expire at year’s end, concentrated solar power (CSP) developers will have to turn to a private investment market that may be too risk-averse to back the relatively unproven technology over renewables like PV and windpower, which are also aggressively competing for lender attention.

Of 103 CSP plant locations on CSP Today’s 2011 US CSP projects map, 17 are currently operational, eight are under construction, and around 78 in various stages of planning. But across the industry, a recent rash of bankruptcies and major shifts in tech-commitment may be overshadowing the positive groundwork many firms are laying.

Policing favelas in Rio de Janeiro

This article appeared in the October 2011 issue of Brazil’s Speak Up magazine (www.speakup.com.br). View the pdf below:

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Brazil’s plastics recycling rate lags output

(This was one of a handful of stories I wrote for U.S. publication Plastics News, during freelance coverage of the industry convention Brasilplast held in São Paulo in May 2011. Visit PlasticsNews.com to read the story as well.)

By Bob Moser
Published June 7, 2011

Brazil’s recycling rate hasn’t risen in step with its plastics consumption, and while municipal collection expands each year, the market is ripe for private collection companies to invest, according to analysts at Chemical Market Associates Inc.’s one-day Latin America Petrochemicals and Polymers Conference, held in conjunction with Brasilplast in São Paulo.

Selective collection in Brazil’s cities has grown slowly but steadily during the last 15 years, from 81 municipalities in 1994 to 443 in 2010. But informal collection by Brazil’s poor and homeless still accounts for more than 60 percent of all plastic collected. It’s roughly the opposite in the U.S., where 66 percent of PET recyclate comes from curbside or other voluntary collection.

Ease of collection has proven to be the key for recycling participation in the U.S., and remains the main challenge for Brazilian recycling agencies to implement in local infrastructure. The fact that few consumers want to do more than the absolute minimum in recycling is a universal concept, said Andrew Sampson, CMAI global relations manager.

Plastics machinery competition heats up in Brazil

(This was one of a handful of stories I wrote for American industry publication Plastics News, during freelance coverage of the major plastics convention Brasilplast, held in early May 2011 in São Paulo. Click here to read the story at PlasticsNews.com)

By Bob Moser
Published June 7, 2011

Brazilians’ consumption of plastics jumped by more than a million tons in 2010 and domestic production followed, prompting more than 50 percent growth in sales for plastics machinery manufacturers in Brazil compared with the year prior.

But Brazil’s manufacturing sector for blow molding machines has become increasingly competitive in recent years, with more foreign players establishing sales or production subsidiaries in the country. A rapidly growing economy is boosting consumer purchasing power, but market leaders at Brasilpast 2011, held May 9-13 in São Paulo, said they’re facing short-term saturation in domestic sales, and an overvalued currency that’s limiting their export potential.

Capitalizing on cane waste

(This article appeared in the American publication Pellet Mill Magazine’s spring 2011 issue)

Read the article online by clicking this link, or view the pdf below:

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Latin American provides humanitarian aid to Japan

This story was published on March 31, 2011, online by the U.S.-based publication Dialogo. Read the story at their web site through this link, or see the text below:

By Bob Moser

Seventeen Latin America countries offered Japan humanitarian aid and manpower following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that so far left nearly 10,000 dead and thousands more missing.

Others are deferring to Japanese officials to request clean-up aid when their country is ready for it. It’s the favored course of action, not only out of respect for the Japanese’s organization of the response, but also because uncertainty exists whether soldiers and volunteers should be sent into northern Japan when the threat of nuclear radiation remains unclear.

Brazil will donate US$500,000 for humanitarian emergency aid, and per orders of the Japanese government, will give the money to the Red Cross. The non-profit organization plans to use it to buy food, water, medicine, clothing and temporary shelter.

“The Japanese government prefers money at this point, and asked that it goes directly to the Red Cross. They have said they don’t need any help with people, or (specialists),” said Alessandra Vinhas, spokeswoman with Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations.

More Brazilians shopping in the U.S.A

(This article appears in the December 2010 issue of Speak Up magazine in Brazil, issue no. 280. View the pdf below)

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Will Brazil take the lead on wind energy in the Americas?

(Read this story at WindEnergyUpdate.com)

Blessed with a strong, consistent wind resource that rivals the blustery coasts of Europe and the United States, Brazil is on track to increase its wind energy capacity fivefold by 2013, further establishing the ethanol and hydroelectric giant as Latin America’s green energy leader.

By Bob Moser, Brazil correspondent
Nov. 12, 2010

For multinational firms taking a toe dip in the Brazilian market, and for those on the outside peering in, significant questions remain over the country’s ability to solve logistical transport issues, develop a regional supply chain and spur public policy that will unleash a steady stream of investment. But with an estimated 350 GW of onshore capacity alone, combined with large unpopulated land areas and a coastline of 9,650 km, Brazil’s wind energy market is difficult to ignore.

Brazilian shoes take on China in growing domestic and export markets

(A shorter version of this story was originally published in February 2010 by U.S. magazine Footwear News. The version below will appear in the April 2010 issue of Brazil’s Speak Up magazine)

By Bob Moser

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – In an international footwear market increasingly dominated by China, Brazilian shoe producers are confident they’ll gain ground on the Red Giant in 2010, keeping their main competitor at arm’s length domestically, while hooking China’s growing middle and upper classes on stylish Brazilian shoes.

Vendors sell Brazilian shoes to buyers from around the world at the Couromoda Fair in Sao Paulo. (photo courtesy of Abicalcados)

At Couromoda, Latin America’s largest footwear expo which was held in Sao Paulo in January, trade was brisk amidst optimism that the Brazilian government would extend an anti-dumping tariff against Chinese shoe imports. As the world economic crisis unfolded two years ago shoe inventories built up in China, and Brazil was a main outlet for those reserves because it’s one of the few countries where local industry is relied on to support the domestic shoe demand.

A basketball adventure in Brazil

(This article appeared in the May issue of Speak Up magazine in Brazil, no. 273. View the pdf here, and full text of the story below)

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By Bob Moser

With less than a minute to go in overtime at Club Athletico Paulistano in Sao Paulo, Tony Stockman steps to the free throw stripe with a chance to win the game. A native of Ohio in the United States and now star guard for one of Brazil’s best basketball clubs, Franca/Vivo, Stockman is surprisingly calm considering the challenges he has faced throughout the night.

Tony Stockman, a native of Medina, Ohio, stars for Franca/Vivo in the NBB. (photo by Marcos Limont/Franca)

His coach keeps screaming at him to do something important, but Stockman can’t always understand the man’s Portuglês. Stockman also hits a language barrier with referees, and sometimes thinks they favor Brazilian players over foreigners when choosing how to call fouls.

With ball in hand, Stockman’s feet steady and arms raise, while the crowd hurl obscenities that bounce off the gymnasium walls. He exhales, makes the shot, and turns downcourt with a smile as Franca seals another win this year in Brazil’s national basketball league, Novo Basquete Brasil (NBB).

Ele é frio, Paulistano fans grumble, upset their catcalls couldn’t shake the Gringo and NBB All-Star.

If only they knew how easy clutch free throws can be when you don’t understand what the crowd is shouting.

Tens of thousands of miles from home, Stockman is one of 13 Americans playing in Brazil’s NBB this season, raising the level of competition for a league that’s trying to recapture the passion Brazil once had for basketball. They came chasing the promise of a paycheck and expecting “everything to look like the Amazon,” but these Americans say they’ve fallen in love with Brazil like countless foreigners before them.

Turbine Failure: Fine-tuning turbine gearbox performance

(Click here to read the story at WindEnergyUpdate.com)

With many turbines now coming out of their warranty phase, the industry is holding its breath to see whether research and design breakthroughs have resolved gearbox failure issues that have dogged the turbine industry to date.

By Bob Moser, US Correspondent
April 15, 2010

Innovation has radically changed wind energy. Turbines are subject to Galileo’s square cube law, and as they get larger and heavier they should face the common economic struggle of costs growing faster than performance.

But that hasn’t been the case in wind turbines. As turbines scale up, designers have become smarter, introducing changes like more aggressive control of loads, adding strategic flexibility in the system, and changing the solidity of rotors to lower weight.

As to what’s behind gearbox failure, the answer is not straightforward. “There’s no one thing causing all the problems,” said Sandy Butterfield, a 34-year veteran of the wind power industry, former chief engineer of the NREL’s Wind Program and lead of the Gearbox ReliabilityCooperative, and current CEO of Boulder Wind Power.

Public bidding for Chilean CSP pilot imminent

(Read this story at CSPToday.com)

As the public bidding process for Chile’s first CSP plant approaches, national investors and analysts say concentrated solar power could be a perfect fit in the country’s northern desert region, and solve national problems like energy security and clean water needs.

By Bob Moser in Sao Paulo
April 23, 2010

Chile’s huge potential for CSP technology lies in its excellent environmental conditions in the high-altitude northern Atacama desert area, and the demand in that area from some of the world’s largest mining companies, which have struggled for years with inconsistent power sources.

“This could be a great help to our energy security because we really have a lack of power, and need to develop alternatives. The mining industry doesn’t have enough energy security, and needs to become independent of energy sources from (neighboring countries),” said Gerardo Valle, CEO of Solar Energy Chile, a developer of photovoltaic solar systems that is also exploring CSP options in Chile. “CSP can represent a great alternative for the north of Chile, maybe more than photovoltaic ever could.”

Pdf of Louisiana/Brazil series front pages

View below an interactive pdf of the newspages for days 1, 2 and 4 of the Louisiana/Brazil ethanol series in The Daily Advertiser.

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Pdf of 8-page special section from Louisiana/Brazil series

View below the 8-page special section from Day 3 of the Louisiana/Brazil series. This section included stories solely from Brazil.

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Ethanol’s growing pains (Day 1 of 4)

Past failures cast shadow over future of biofuel

(A link to this story at The Daily Advertiser)

Bob Moser
The (Lafayette) Daily Advertiser
Nov. 1, 2007

It was 1986, and Louisiana’s ethanol future looked bright.

We made ethanol with sugarcane molasses — 32 million gallons worth — and mixed it to make 319 million gallons of “gasohol,” more than any year before. The state was expected to lead the nation’s budding ethanol industry.

Burned by the world oil crunch in the 1970s, the United States gave tax breaks to an ethanol industry in its infancy, hoping to eliminate the country’s reliance on foreign oil. Farmers considered it a saving grace, and six plants across the state were planned to turn corn and cane into fuel. Up to 18 more were expected within the decade.

But that was then.

In the long run, Louisiana and the nation began backing away from the promise of renewable fuels as soon as oil got cheaper — and let a wobbly-kneed ethanol industry fall before it could find its legs. Louisiana erased its subsidies in 1989 that convinced investors to roll the dice, and the state’s ethanol future was gone.