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Sentence of the week
regarding the position taken by the Brazilian
Foreign Affairs Department: |
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Mind your own
business. (Não te metas onde não és chamado). |
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As if we did not have enough
problems to solve here in Brazil, our Foreign
Affairs Minister now has a putrefied corpse to
get rid of in the Brazilian Embassy in
Tegucigalpa. |
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And Captain Chaves, our
“beloved” communist leader, certainly will not
help us to get rid of this lemon (abacaxi) which
he forced Brazil to embrace. The S.O.B. is dead;
his copse is stinking and nobody has told Zelaya
about his putrefied condition. And who pays for
their mistakes? Of course, you and I (Brazilians
in general).Since we have mentioned Captain
Chavez, allow me to continue the comments made
last week based on an article published in the
New York Times. |
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“The nationalization (of
power plants) effectively halted
renewable-energy projects, like a plan by the
AES Corporation, which used to control the main
electricity company in Caracas, for a wind farm
on the Paraguaná Peninsula. Despite Venezuela’s
large wind and solar potential, renewable energy
there remains negligible. Most significant,
though, may be the government’s failure to use
its
immense natural gas reserves,
the second largest in the Western Hemisphere
after those of the United States, to fuel
existing power plants. |
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Venezuela’s gas is
technically hard to extract because almost 90
percent of it is associated with oil, but major
projects have languished even as Venezuela’s
neighbor, Trinidad, taps adjacent gas reserves
with ease. Venezuela relies on Colombia, with
which ties are increasingly tense, for gas
imports. |
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As a result, there is a
disconnection between Venezuela’s energy
potential and its ability to keep the lights on.
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Billboards (Brazilians do not
understand the word BILLBOARD – the wrong word
that we use is OUTDOOR) in Caracas extol (verbo
enaltecer) a “natural gas revolution” and the
prowess (substantive: proeza) demonstrated by a
satellite put
into orbit last year
with China’s assistance, while daily blackouts
plague poor areas where the satellite was
supposed to help provide phone and Internet
services. |
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“The problem isn’t a lack of
money,” said Victor Poleo, a former Energy
Ministry official under Captain Chavez. “It’s
the irresponsible and corrupt militarism that
has replaced the professionalism of the
industry.”
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Meanwhile, homes and
businesses across the country are adapting to
the erratic supply of power and in Caracas, of
water. Sales of small generators, candles and
water storage tanks are increasing suddenly and
powerfully..
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Reflecting the unease of the
already strained industrial base, which
developed around access to ample and cheap
power, Sidor, a steel maker in Ciudad Guayana,
said it was shutting down its furnaces five
hours a day because of the cuts.
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“If this crisis teaches us
something,” said Fernando Branger, an energy
expert at the Institute of Superior
Administration Studies, a Caracas business
school, “it is that the immensity of our energy
reserves means nothing if we cannot even get
them out of the ground.” |
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The text above was based in
an article written by Maria Eugenia Diaz. |
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WORDS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW,
now that the Brazilian subsalt layers that may
contain oil are the talk of the town: |
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1. CAMADA:
LAYER |
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2. SAL:
SALT
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3. PRÉ-SAL:
(petróleo que talvez possa ser obtido de uma
camada localizada abaixo de uma camada de sal
localizada abaixo do chão do oceano. A camada,
chamada de pré-sal (em inglês, nós nos referimos
a esta camada como PRESALT BASINS) sem dúvida
alguma existe. Porém, a existência de petróleo
nesta camada, em quantidade suficiente para
tornar a sua extração economicamente viável, é
outro assunto, pois as dificuldades para atingir
7.000 metros abaixo do nível do mar se
assemelham às dificuldades de avançar 300.000 km
(distância da Terra à lua) no espaço
interplanetário, sem mencionar o fato que o
homem já chegou à lua, porém nunca chegou a
profundidades significativas, tanto em
terra firme como no mar). Porém tal fato é
apenas uma marolinha segundo as autoridades do
momento, opinião amplamente difundida entre nós.
Em inglês fala-se em PRESALT
BASINS, ou seja,
bacias localizadas abaixo da camada de sal,
enquanto que em português, pré-sal
refere-se a um possível petróleo a ser
encontrado e extraído de tais bacias. |
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É importante lembrar que a descoberta de que a
camada subsal poderia conter petróleo data da
década de 70 do século 20 (aproximadamente 40
anos atrás) época em que o Brasil ainda não
havia sido “fundado”. |
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Para terminar:
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OUTDOOR é um adjetivo.
Significa EXTERNO, AO AR LIVRE. |
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O que nós, em português, chamamos de OUTDOOR, em
inglês é BILLBOARD.
Naturalmente,
BILLBOARD é um
substantivo. |
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Outra palavra que nós inventamos foi NOBREAK.
Que fique claro que tal palavra não existe em
inglês formal. O que existe é
BREAK
(pausa); COFFEE
BREAK (pausa para o
café).
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O conjunto formado por uma bateria, um
carregador mais um software de administração de
energia elétrica, em inglês, não tem um nome
específico. Nós nos referimos a tal aparelho
como um fornecedor de energia para emergências,
a saber, EMERGENCY POWER
SUPPLY. Existem
outras maneiras para se referir a tal aparelho. |
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That will be all for today.
Have an excellent week. |
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