O carvão mineral como complemento na matriz energética brasileira: segurança energética vs. sustentabilidade

Abstract

The concerns about the energy sector have grown dizzily in the last decades. The stable energy supply has proved essential to economic growth and for the quality of life and investments in the sector are made since then. Increasing demand for energy caused the Brazilian energy matrix became quite diverse to take advantage more efficiently its energy resources. When dealing with natural resources, it is essential to take into account that, besides being e exhaustible, can be conditioned to the nature’s action. Thus in Brazil several blackouts occurred in the 2000s, due to characteristic of its energy matrix, which set a change in the posture of a country the prioritizes the use of renewable resources, but finds itself obliged to raise the use of energy non-renewable in order to restore the energy supply. Among these resources whose level of production was raised is the coal, a resource that implies low extraction costs, besides not being susceptible to climate action. This way, the present study aims to examine whether in the period of 2000-20014 the coal can be considered an effective complement to the generation of electricity in Brazil within the National Interconnected System. To this, makes a historical-quantitative ransom in order to understand the structure of the electricity sector and to examine the implications that the use of coal generates using as a basis the Microeconomic Theory, Economics of Environment and data National Energy Balances for the period. As a result, it is found that the share of coal in the domestic energy supply is still in a period of recovery after a fall, bus it is noteworthy that the externalities that their use generates are quite expressive and deserve special attention.