On Monday, Todd Sullivan at Seeking Alpha informed us that ADM (NYSE:ADM) was planning on entering the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol market. It’s no mystery that Brazil is an ethanol powerhouse and will be looking, in the years ahead, to export much of its output to the lucrative US and European markets. There is a lot of talk about China becoming an emerging market cleantech powerhouse, but don’t forget about Brazil! On Monday, Mark Gongloff at the WSJ’s Energy Roundup reported that Shell (NYSE:RDS-B) CEO Jeroen van der Veer was a big believer in energy efficiency, but not much else. Efficiency will play a large part, but I am a lot more sanguine than Mr. van der Veeron on the capacity of humans to innovate their way out of problems. On Wednesday, Xavier Navarro at AutoblogGreen informed us that Petrobras wanted Brazil to become the Saudi Arabia of ethanol. See above… On Thursday, the Biopact Team informed us that Suez (NYSE:SZE) was going to build a sugarcane biomass plant in Brazil…and try to monetize the carbon credits thus generated. Brazil again. Another interesting thing about this project is the carbon credit angle. The potential of the credit income stream to add to normal ROI for these sorts of projects is becoming a lot more tangible to investors. On Friday, Climateer Investing told us that the US Futures Exchange would offer renewable energy futures, beginning with wind power. The interesting thing with alternative energy is that it is emerging at a time of tremendous innovation in financial markets. This confluence creates a lot of opportunities for people passionate about both.
