Few subject matters appear more in the media of our time than the energy issue. The whole world is debating the energy matrix, the issue of sustainability, the impact on the environment of different ways of producing energy and so on and so forth. This ought not be any different in Brazil, with the distinguishing factor that here the debate takes place in the context of exacerbated nationalism.

In fact, especially under the current government, we started to boast not only about the diversity of our energy matrix (a long-time reality) but also to place bets on which may be the best energy alternative for the future. It appears that concerns about possible effects on the environment caused by the energy produced are less enticing to the debate.

In what resembles a return to the time of exacerbated nationalism during the military governments, public authorities became engaged in launching program after program and in every now and then announcing new paths to prosperity. Not satisfied only with ethanol – truly a Brazilian accomplishment – the debate encompasses sugarcane bagasse, wind energy, biodiesel and other forms of energy.

There was even a governor - who, in view of presidential laughter and the happiness of castor-oil plant pickers, pricked his tongue with the plant’s thorns -, that discovered the solutions for the country’s energy problems. After that, silence: nobody knows what became of Petrobras’ biofuel plants. But, since God is Brazilian, the discovery of what used to be known as deep oil fields was renamed so that even if the pre-salt oil doesn’t make the country’s day, it will offset Brazil’s shortage of oil and hard currency, in the opinion of the blessed land enthusiasts.

New legislative bills were quickly submitted to the Congress to change the oil exploration system, setting up a new state-owned company entrusted with controlling the new system and defining how to capitalize companies created to explore and market the pre-salt oil – actually, one company, because, since there is so much wealth, it’s better to return to a monopoly...

In the haste to rename everything, bringing about “impact projects” like in the old days of authoritarian governments, the balance of oil wealth partitioning among the states is done away with by the government, wherein lies the reason  for the matter having gotten stuck in the Congress. To avoid the entire project from getting blocked, it was decided to divide it in four, with the priority on Petrobras’ capitalization, in exchange for the delivery, by the Federal Union, of 5 billion barrels to be extracted from as yet unexplored oil fields.

Even so, the capitalization endeavors got delayed, so now with Petrobras having lost about one third of its value, in a market weakened by the international crisis, one must fear that this great company may be rated down in its solvency evaluation. It may have to incur debt in excess of 35% of its equity to obtain the funds needed for the pre-salt undertaking.

Energy is a too serious matter to be left to the swaying resulting from electoral propaganda and precipitations. Brazil, I reiterate, has a balanced energy matrix. Hydroelectricity, notwithstanding the instability of rainfall (which has been remedied by the gas or diesel generators put in place after the energy shortage of 2001) continues to be the basis of our system.

Its complementation through ethanol is necessary and has shown to be feasible. Experiments with wind power are being conducted at a modest pace, albeit persistently. Finally, let us not forget what one almost always forgets, i.e., the increase in energy efficiency and savings in consumption. I don’t say this to diminish the importance of exploring the pre-salt oil or because I believe that oil, no matter how polluting it is, will be thrown out as an energy alternative in the foreseeable future. No.

I say this because the back-and-forths of the matter show the lack of the essential: a true energy policy. Rather than boast about what we haven’t yet accomplished, it would be better to consolidate what we have already achieved: increase the production of ethanol and create conditions to make it an export commodity; implement energy efficiency and consumption saving programs, value the diversity and cleanness of our energy matrix and not neglect its impact on the environment.

It would also be worthwhile to better evaluate whether it is more convenient to go ahead with the existing oil production in less deep waters until techniques for exploring in more difficult areas are perfected, and more importantly, as long as safety norms are not created to avoid environmental disasters. More important than doing financial gymnastics to hastily explore deep oil fields using technology of unknown risk, would be to make the regulatory agencies more efficient and above all, to untie them from their links to political parties.

Only with political independence and technical competence the regulatory agency (currently “ANP” – the National Oil Agency -, tomorrow, who knows, perhaps a single energy agency) will be capable of offering the country and even the world what most is expected of it: reliability in a truly existent energy policy and certainty that collective interests in preserving the environment will be respected.