The proposed joint venture, which still requires regulatory approval, will produce and commercialize ethanol and power from sugar cane and distribute a variety of industrial and transportation fuels through a combined distribution and retail network in Brazil. It will also explore business opportunities to produce and sell ethanol and sugar globally.

“The proposed joint venture is set to pool our complementary businesses, enhance our growth prospects in ethanol production globally and support our growth platform for our retail and commercial fuels businesses in Brazil,” said Mark Williams, Shell Downstream Director. “Over the next 20 years, sustainable biofuels are one of the most realistic commercial solutions to reduce CO2 emissions from transport”.

“While there is still plenty of integration planning to do before we launch the proposed joint venture, this is an important milestone in our effort to create one of the world’s most competitive sustainable biofuels companies,” said Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello, Cosan’s Chairman of the Board and non-executive Chairman-elect of the proposed joint venture.

With annual production capacity of over 2 billion litres, the proposed joint venture will be one of the world’s largest ethanol producers. The inclusion of Shell’s interests in Iogen Energy and Codexis would enable the joint venture to deploy next generation biofuels technologies in the future.

The company will also generate electricity from sugar cane bagasse in cogeneration plants at all sites. Ten cogeneration plants are already operational. With total annual sales of about 18 billion litres of fuels, the proposed joint venture will have a competitive position in the Brazilian fuels distribution market built upon a network of about 4,500 retail sites.

Today’s agreement follows the signing in February of a non-binding memorandum of understanding. With the transaction terms agreed, Shell and Cosan, which remain as competitors, will now focus on securing regulatory approvals and starting integration planning before launching the new company.”

Source: Press Release

John Hofmeister

Former Shell gas man John Hofmeister has a new gig, and it’s not trying to sell you gasoline at $5 a gallon. Besides touring the country on a speaking tour, Hofmeister has created a non-profit organization called Citizens for Affordable Energy. (http://www.citizensforaffordableenergy.org)

While it may seem ironic, that a man who has worked for General Electric and an executive for Shell Oil would find affordable energy important, Hofmeister has been trying to get a grassroots effort started to force the politicians in Washington to make serious energy decisions. During the fast rise of the price of gasoline in the not so distant past, Hofmeister was the head of Shell Oil. This raises the question, why does a man who was a part of the gas price hike want affordable energy?

The answer is a bit more complicated than one might originally think. While oil and gas is certainly an important part of daily life, Hofmeister is more concerned about the general state of the U.S. ability to produce energy. According to Hofmeister, “Energy time is not the same as political time. Energy time happens in periods of tens of years, while political time happens in a matter of at most 6 years.” This quite clearly creates a problem, one that has not been checked, or solved. If the ability to produce and create new energy exists on a time frame that relies on research, and production that takes decades to produce, there is a problem rising that has not yet hit Washington but soon will in a huge way. Politicians are for the most part unwilling to think in terms of decades, as they need to consider their re-election campaigns. For the most part, the country runs on a 2 year political system, as that is the amount of time a member of the house is granted until they need to be re-elected. With this 2 year perspective, it is hard to see ten years down the road for the changes that need to be made today that will help ensure the future. It is for this reason that Hofmeister thinks that an “energy abyss” may happen in the United States, where blackouts and brownouts are an everyday occurrence.

Citizens for Affordable Energy has been founded to ensure that citizens of the United States are sold affordable energy, plain and simple. Due to a tarnished history involving energy crises and scares, there is a desire for cheap and affordable power. Recently the renewable energy conversation has begun to have an effect on the way that people think about power. In terms of amounts of renewable energy that feeds the grid, the numbers are very small. Nearly all the power in the United States still comes from brown-energy burning power plants. These include coal, gas and nuclear. With the threat of global warming, and the moral need for greener energy, many of plants and the refineries that feed them are being shut down. The question now is, will green energy be enough to power all of America when the brown-energy stops?