رابطه علی بین منابع انرژی و رشد اقتصادی در برزیل

This study investigates the causal relationship between clean and non-clean energy consumption and economic growth in Brazil over the period of 1980–2009. Clean energy consumption at aggregated level of total renewable energy consumption and disaggregated levels of hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy consumption are tested within a production function framework. A cointegration test reveals a long-term equilibrium relationship between real output, capital, labor, and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption at aggregated level, and a long-term equilibrium relationship between real output, capital, labor, and hydroelectric/new renewables/nuclear and fossil fuel energy consumption at disaggregated level. The capital, labor, and new renewables elasticities of real output are positive and statistically significant, other energy consumption item's elasticities are insignificant. The results from error correction model reveal the interdependencies between new renewables, nuclear, fossil fuel, and total non-renewable energy consumption and economic growth, the unidirectional causality from hydroelectric/total renewable consumption to economic growth, the substitutability between new renewables and fossil fuel consumption, and the substitutability between new renewables and nuclear energy consumption. Additionally, nuclear and new renewables energy consumption responds to bring the system back to equilibrium. Overall, aggregated analysis may obscure the relationship between different types of clean energy consumption and economic growth.

According to the 2010 International Energy Outlook released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), worldwide renewable energy consumption has been increasing at a rate of 2.6% per year. In 2008, approximately 19% of the global energy consumption was from renewable sources, 13% of which was from traditional biomass (mainly used for heating), 3.2% from hydroelectricity, and the remaining 2.7% from rapidly growing ‘new renewables’ (e.g., small hydro, modern biomass, wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels). Renewable energy power generation makes approximately 18% of the global electricity, with 15% from hydropower and 3% from other new renewable energy sources. ‘New renewables’ technologies are befitting for local electricity generation in rural and remote areas, where the transportation costs for crude oil or natural gas and the transmission costs of electricity are often prohibitively high. Globally, 3 million households are estimated to receive power from small solar PV systems. Micro-hydropower systems configured into village-scale or county-scale mini-grids are emerging in many areas. More than 30 million rural households use family-sized biogas digesters for lighting and cooking. Biomass cookstoves have been used by 160 million households (Wikipedia, 2011). In addition, expected increases in oil prices, increased awareness of the environmental damage caused by fossil fuel consumptions, and government incentives for new renewables energy development will continue to foster the global usage of new renewables energy. These ‘new renewables’ can provide approximately 6% of worldwide electricity by 2030. Although environmentalists have warned that catastrophic climate change is a real and imminent danger, we still need a large-scale source of around-the-clock electricity to meet our energy needs. Nuclear energy can generate electricity with no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and it is the only effective option in order to supply the large demand for clean electricity on a global scale. Currently, nuclear power plants supply approximately 6% of the global energy and 14% of the global electricity needs. Nuclear power and new renewables will be urgently needed as partners if the world's enormous demand for clean energy is to be met (World Nuclear Association (WNA), 2011). The use of new renewable energy and nuclear energy is critical to the development of global clean energy economy in the future, due to the continuous depletion of reserve of earth's fossil fuel as well as global warming. The topic of causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has been well-studied in energy economics literature such as Ozturk (2010) and Payne, 2010a and Payne, 2010b. However, the empirical results may be varied and even conflicted, due to the difference in country′ characteristic, time period, econometric methodology, or proxy variables for energy consumption and income. The causality between energy consumption and economic growth in different directions may have different policy implications. Under the assumption of positive correlation between energy consumption and economic growth, the presence of unidirectional causality from energy consumption to economic growth or bidirectional causality between them would suggest that energy conservation policies that reduce energy consumption may lead to decline in economic growth. In contrast, unidirectional causality from economic growth to energy consumption or no causality in either direction suggests that energy conservation policies will have little or no impact on economic growth (Apergis and Payne, 2013). Among the literature of energy consumption and economic growth nexus, some studies also examined the relationships between different types of clean energy consumption (renewable or nuclear) and economic growth (Pao and Fu, 2013). Recent researches by Apergis and Payne, 2011b and Apergis and Payne, 2011c focus on the link between both renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and economic growth for sustainable economic development. This paper extends recent works on the energy consumption–growth nexus to analyze the relationships between both the clean and non-clean energy consumption and economic growth in sustainable countries such as Brazil. Brazil is one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, with an annual growth rate of GDP of approximately 5%, and is expected to become one of the world's top five economies in the future. In the past 2 decades, Brazil has achieved a development model that combines social inclusion with sustained economic growth and balanced use of natural resources. This model can maintain high levels of renewable energy to stimulate economic growth and lift millions of people out of poverty, while protecting the country's forests and biodiversity ( Secretariat of Social Communication (SECOM), 2012). According to the 2009 EIA, Brazil's renewable energy consumption reached 97% of its total domestic electricity generation, and the growth rate of different types of energy consumption are varies. During the 1980–2009 period, new renewable energy consumption (i.e., non-hydroelectric renewable energy consumption, NHREC) with a very high annual average growth rate of 8.72% accounted for 2.89% of the total renewable energy consumption (TREC), while hydroelectric energy consumption (HEC) with an annual average growth rate of 3.66% accounted for 97.11% of TREC. Additionally, nuclear energy consumption (NUCEC), with the highest annual average growth rate of 19.65%, accounted for 1.20% of the total non-renewable energy consumption (TNREC), while fossil fuel consumption (FFC) with the lowest annual average growth rate of 2.85% accounted for 96.67% of TNREC. Currently, Brazil is one of the world's cleanest energy matrices. A country with high growth rate or high proportion of clean energy consumption may imply an interdependent relationship between economic growth and clean energy consumption or substitutability between the clean and non-clean energy sources to achieve sustainable economy. Due to the greatly different growth rates of the various types of energy sources, this study focuses on the disaggregated analysis of the causal relationship between clean energy (hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear) consumption and economic growth in Brazil over the period of 1980–2009 since aggregated analysis may well mask the differential impact of hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy consumption on economic growth. The results are compared with the aggregated analysis of the causal relationship between total renewable energy consumption and economic growth. The simultaneous use of clean and non-clean energy consumption in the production function framework intends to distinguish the relative influence of each type on economic growth and to analyze the substitutability between the different types of energy sources. The neo-classical one-sector aggregated production model is adopted where capital, labor, clean energy consumption, and non-clean energy consumption are treated as separate inputs. Within this framework, a vector error-correction model (VECM) is employed to test for multivariate cointegration and Granger causality. This study is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a brief literature review. Section 3 describes the analytical model and econometric methodology. Section 4 presents relevant energy and economic data and also presents the cointegration and Granger causality results. Section 5 presents the conclusions.

In light of the economic and societal growing concerns over global warming caused by fossil fuel, high volatility of energy prices, and high growth of energy needs, clean energy (e.g., hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear) has become an important alternative energy source for fossil fuel. Currently, hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy supply respectively make up approximately 15%, 3%, and 14% of the global electricity needs. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the causal relationship between clean and non-clean energy use and economic growth in Brazil over the period of 1980–2009. Aggregated level of total renewable energy consumption as well as disaggregated levels of hydroelectric, new renewables, and nuclear energy consumption are tested. The simultaneous use of clean and non-clean (e.g., fossil fuel) energy consumption in the production function framework intends to distinguish the relative influence of each type on economic growth and to analyze the substitutability between the different types of energy sources. The Johansen cointegration tests reveal that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between real GDP, real gross fixed capital formation, labor force, and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption at aggregated level, as well as a long-term equilibrium relationship between real GDP, real gross fixed capital formation, labor force, hydroelectric/new renewables/nuclear and fossil fuel energy consumption at disaggregated level. The real gross fixed capital formation, labor force, and new renewables energy consumption elasticities of real GDP are statistically significant at a 1% level and higher than 0.35, 0.48, and 0.08, respectively, while total renewable and total non-renewable energy consumption at aggregated level and hydroelectric, nuclear, and fossil fuel energy consumption at disaggregated level are statistically insignificant at a significance level of 5%. This suggests that in the long term, increases in real gross fixed capital formation and labor force are major drivers behind real GDP and that new renewables energy consumption has a lesser and positive impact on real GDP, while total renewable, total non-renewable, hydroelectric, nuclear, and fossil fuel energy consumption do not seem to have a very strong impact on real GDP. Aggregated analysis may obscure the relationship between renewable energy consumption and real GDP. The results from the vector error correction models show that (1) for the aggregated analysis of renewable energy consumption, the result of long-run interdependence between non-renewable energy consumption and economic growth (TNREC↔ΔY) affirms the importance of traditional energy sources in the design of energy policy for a more sustainable energy future, although clean energy sources are increasingly important in Brazil. The result of positive unidirectional causality from TREC to economic growth (TREC→ΔY) suggests that limiting total renewable energy use would hamper economic growth. This causal relationship is to be expected because over 97% of Brazil's total electricity generation comes from total renewable electricity generation. (2) For the disaggregated analysis of clean energy consumption, the results of bidirectional causality between new renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuel energy consumption and economic growth in the long-run support their mutual interdependence (NHREC↔ΔY, NUCEC↔ΔY, and FFC↔ΔY), suggesting that these three kinds of energy resources are important for the future development of the clean energy economy. The result of positive unidirectional causality from hydroelectric consumption to economic growth (HEC→ΔY) suggests that limiting hydroelectric use would hamper economic growth. In fact, after a drought crisis in early 2000, Brazil's government actively diversified in order to reduce the country's reliance on hydropower, such as the use of wind power to supplement water power in dry seasons and the development of the four largest nuclear reactors to be online by 2025. Furthermore, the share of HEC in Brazil's TREC was approximately 94.35% in 2009. Thus, there is no reverse causality from HEC or TREC to economic growth. Yet, to facilitate the expansion of the new renewables energy sector, economic growth is vital to provide the resources for further research and development of new renewables energy technologies and corresponding infrastructure. Additionally, to increase nuclear energy supply investment, the right balance should be struck between the quest for economic growth, nuclear safety, clean energy, and the drive toward making the country relatively energy independent. (3) In the short-run dynamics, nuclear energy consumption's impact on economic growth is positive and the impacts of economic growth on nuclear, new renewables, and fossil fuel energy consumption are negative. These findings suggest that limiting nuclear energy use would hamper economic growth. Economic growth may improve energy infrastructure and energy efficiency, and therefore lead to a lower energy consumption while reducing different types of energy consumption. (4) The presence of substitutability between new renewables and fossil fuel energy consumption provides an avenue for the continued use of government policies that enhance the development of the new renewable energy sector as well as encourage the effective development of carbon markets in Brazil to reduce fossil fuel use. Finally, (5) the presence of substitutability between new renewables and nuclear energy consumption suggests that the establishment of partnerships between these two types of clean energy sources would be an urgent need in order to meet the greener low carbon economy in Brazil. In fact, new renewables technologies are suitable for local electricity and nuclear power is the only effective option to provide for a large demand for clean electricity at a national scale. To continue the development of new renewables energy sources and renewable energy markets, the Brazilian government should introduce more preferential policies, such as investment subsidies or tax rebates, tax incentives, sales tax, and green certificate trading, to promote the development of a clean energy economy. In order to ensure energy security and stability, minimize the impact of high oil price volatility on macroeconomics, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the development of nuclear power is a means, but economic necessity should not outweigh the risk involved. After all, nuclear safety is a global concern that calls for a global solution.