Theme: Energy

Heart of Coal

A laminated picture of the Sacred Heart hangs from a naked light bulb in Floresmiro Olaya’s prefab home. It seems that the Christ, with its heart on fire like a burning coal, stares at him out…

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The Mining Boom in Colombia

English + Español Back in the 1930s, the famed tango composer Carlos Gardel warned us in a lovely musical arrabal that “twenty years is nothing….” But in the area of mineral and mining, the tune is somewhat different. For more than twenty years, until

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Water, The Energy Sector and Climate Change in Brazil

As a Brazilian, I am very proud of the rich natural resources of my country, in particular water resources. As an engineer who had worked in the Brazilian energy sector for the last fourteen years, I am very proud of the infrastructure built over the last seventy years that has allowed the use of water resources responsibly and intelligently. But as a hydrologist and doctoral student in water resources,…

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First Take: The Political Geography of Water In a Changing Brazil

“One must begin with water,” wrote the historian Fernand Braudel, because the provision of water services is one of the foundations for civilization. People and societies want protection from floods and droughts; they want water to drink, to irrigate their crops and to produce clean energy. Brazil is a case in point for how one country has used water as a platform for economic development, …

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Climate Change and the Amazon

Most have heard so many times that hydropower is “clean” or “green” energy that they are surprised to learn otherwise. Unfortunately, the reality is much more complicated. Dams, especially those in the tropics, emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, and to categorically call them “clean” is a mistake.

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