Brazil’s bonus to Greenwood Management
Now I know I said this blog wasn’t all going to be about forestry, but forgive me for a moment as I draw to your attention some pretty exciting forestry news from Brazil. The reason for breaking out into full forestry mode so early in the blog is simple. It’s great news!
Several of Greenwood Management’s forestry projects are based on Eucalyptus plantations in Brazil. Well, that’s all going nicely to plan, when the Brazilian President announces that Brazil will stop making steel in any other way than by using charcoal produced from planted exotic forestry such as eucalyptus. All the fossil fuels used before to manufacture the steel will have to be replaced by charcoal, by law!
That’s alot of charcoal needed, and there’s isn’t enough being produced even before this new demand kicks in.
The news is on Brazilian Government website here:
http://www.cop15brasil.gov.br/en-US/?page=noticias/green-steel-for-the-brazilian-steel-industry
Some highlights below:
“The proposal presented by the Ministry of Environment aims to produce the “green steel”, which uses charcoal from afforested areas, instead of coal, to produce the pig iron (steel with impurity). As a result of the Brazilian proposal, the iron and steel industries will commit to use only charcoal in their high temperature furnaces”
“….the timber used in the charcoal…will only involve exotic species like eucalyptus. This will ensure the preservation of the native vegetation. It is worth mentioning that one ton of pig iron produced from coal emits 1.9 tons of CO2, while the production of 1 ton of green steel removes 1.1 ton of gas from the atmosphere.”
“For the steel industry, we want to adopt the green steel and stimulate the utilization of charcoal from reforestation” (Suzana Kahn, The Secretary for Climate Change and Environmental Quality at the Ministry of the Environment).
