Oil and Indigenous Communities
On a drizzly morning in late February, a boat full of silent Kukama men motored slowly into the flooded forest off the Marañón River in northern Peru. Cutting the…
Category: Energy: Oil, Gas and Beyond
Mexico’s Energy Reform
The small, white-washed classroom at the University in Minatitlán, Veracruz, was packed with a couple dozen people who, although neighbors, had never met…
Geothermal Energy in Central America
When we think about global technology leaders, Central America does not typically come to mind. But Central American countries have indeed been in the…
Building Bridges with Cuban Libraries
Since the beginning of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba in the 1960s, the Harvard Libraries have been unable to purchase materials directly from Cuban…
Energy: Editor’s Letter
I was waiting for the ship to come in. In fact, so was everyone else in Nicaragua. Gas lines stretched around the block. The supermarket shelves were nearly bare. Lights went out again and again, plunging the country into frequent darkness…
Peruvian Oil Production
English + Español
The petroleum sector I know best is Peru’s, where I recently served as Minister of Energy and Mines. Because of the recent drop in prices, oil-producing…
In the Shadows of the Extractive Industry
English + Español
A telltale detail gave away the changing way of life for the indigenous Machiguenga women living around Peru’s most important gas project in the…
Wind Energy in Latin America
English + Español
Carlos Rufín is Associate Professor of International Business at the Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School, and a consultant on energy matters to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank…
Brazil’s Oil Scandal
When I moved to Brazil in the giddy days of 2011, many people were voicing that phrase. After all, the economy seemed to be sizzling after posting 7.5 percent…
Routledge Handbook of Latin America and the World
On December 17, 2014, after U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro simultaneously announced the decision to move towards…
What Powers Latin America?
Between the Rio Grande and the Strait of Magellan lie the world’s largest crude oil reserves, giant natural gas reservoirs, plentiful mineral deposits, massive…
Solar Energy in Chile
For several decades, Chile has struggled to have a stable and reliable mix of energy sources to satisfy its growing needs. In the 1980s, the country relied…
The Power of the Brazilian Wind
Back in 1992, the first wind turbine in Brazil was about to be installed. The chosen place was also one of the most beautiful places in the country…
The People’s Poet
The day Rafael Cortijo’s remains were put to rest in Puerto Rico in 1982, his admirers came out in full force to honor their tropical music hero one last time…
Life in a Venezuelan Oil Camp
I grew up in a Venezuelan oil camp. Ever since I can remember, I have heard both Spanish and English spoken all around me or conveyed through music or…
The Impact of Falling Oil Prices
International oil prices have declined by 40% recently. Some of the region’s oil producers have been better than others at adjusting to this reality. In more…
A Review of Child Migration & Human Rights in a Global Age
The two boys walked up the road to the top of a levee and then sat down in the gravel and weeds. In the near distance overhead, the Anzalduas Bridge spanned…
Forests for Energy?
In 2008, I was conducting fieldwork on the edges of a recently established large-scale oil palm plantation: Palmas del Shanusi. My investigations took me to…
First Take: Latin America’s Oil and Gas
Mexico has recently opened up its oil industry, which had been under exclusive state control for the past 75 years, to private investment: a move that will very…
Energy and Politics in Brazil
With Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras engulfed in a massive corruption scandal, the government looks poised to introduce an energy sector overhaul…
