Economy
& Energy |
Dollar Exchange Rate and Commercial Balance Are the New Nuclear Safeguards Safe?
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The substitution of the economy based on fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas) by the economy based on hydrogen arouses optimistic expectations. However, hydrogen, like electricity, is not a primary energy source, since it does not exist in a free state in large quantity. Obtaining hydrogen means extracting it from some natural substance using some form of primary energy. The Brazilian Dollar "Black" Market The expression dollar black market became politically incorrect. The so called free or parallel dollar became a legal or almost legal activity. It is an important indicator, sometimes anticipating the changes of the official exchange rate. The historical monthly behavior of this indicator is presented. Dollar Exchange Rate and Commercial Dollar A “compound” (45% of the parallel and 55% of the commercial) exchange rate is used to project the Commercial Balance as a function of the exchange rate. The real GDP expressed in the 1969 exchange rate and corrected by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of the United State is used. The values of the Brazilian international trade are expressed in dollars corrected by the American CPI. Except for exceptional periods, there is a strong correlation between the commercial balance value and imports as a function of the exchange rate. Surprisingly, the values of exports relative to the GDP do not significantly depend on the exchange rate. Are the New Nuclear Safeguards Safe? The non-declared nuclear activities of Iraq and North Korea had the merit of reminding the political objective of nuclear safeguards, namely prevent nuclear proliferation. The safeguards practice has been transformed into a bureaucratic application of accounting principles and the verification is based on strict criterion. Theoretically nuclear safeguards have been reinforced. In practice the modifications that have been adopted make me doubt their efficiency in several aspects. For download: The benemis_e Program The benemis-e program uses annual spreadsheets data from BEN, denominated Annexes that consolidate for each year the balance of energy production, transformation and use in Brazil and emission coefficients supplied by the staff that elaborates the Brazilian inventory of the greenhouse effect. These coefficients are based on international recommendations and data gathered in Brazil that take into account, whenever available, the Brazilian peculiarities. The program is available for download. benemis-e for download (zipped Program in Excel)
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Graphic Edition/Edição Gráfica: |
Revised/Revisado:
Tuesday, 11 November 2008. |