Speaker 1: Pushkin. In twenty eleven, Bruce Rastetter headed down to Brazil.
Speaker 1: He was not just another Midwest tourist headed to the Amazon.
Speaker 1: Bruce had pioneered factory farming in Iowa and then done
Speaker 1: the same for biofuels in this thing called carbon capture.
Speaker 1: He's a big Republican donor too, so he went to
Speaker 1: Brazil looking for land.
Speaker 2: So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went
Speaker 2: from Bahia to Tokatines to Mannagros.
Speaker 1: And he flew down with a team of executives. They
Speaker 1: said they were going to help the country get in
Speaker 1: on a gold rush.
Speaker 2: Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the
Speaker 2: next great commodity that the globe is in to trade.
Speaker 3: It's a huge opportunity, but we won't qualify unless we
Speaker 3: lower carbon asasity scores.
Speaker 1: Over the last couple of decades, climate regulators have worked
Speaker 1: hard to incentivize green energy solutions, and Bruce rest Etter
Speaker 1: knows better than anyone how to take advantage of something
Speaker 1: like that. He's gotten huge government kickbacks by pivoting from
Speaker 1: growing corn to making corn ethanol, and now he's helping
Speaker 1: the ethanol industry get paid for capturing their carbon emissions.
Speaker 2: So this Republican king maker is planning on this get
Speaker 2: rich scheme of US paying him to capture CO two
Speaker 2: at ethanol plants and then shipping it across private land
Speaker 2: and public land and then disposing of it somewhere many
Speaker 2: states away.
Speaker 1: For the last ten years, Bruce and his Brazilian company
Speaker 1: FSBO Energia have been pushing corn ethanol and carbon capture
Speaker 1: in Brazil, even helping to raft Brazilian regulations around it.
Speaker 1: This fs is promoting regulations, pioneering, prospecting, and even drawing
Speaker 1: on the experience of its partners in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: corn ethanol production and carbon capture are so big in
Speaker 1: Brazil they're the top competitor to the US. But trouble
Speaker 1: back home is threatening to topple Bruce's whole carbon empire.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. Corn ethanol has never been a
Speaker 1: climate solution, and the idea of capturing carbon it's kind
Speaker 1: of a joke.
Speaker 3: It's a waste stream first and foremost, and any policies
Speaker 3: that incentivize it's uptake and use risk incentivizing an increase
Speaker 3: in its production.
Speaker 1: Once that carbon gets captured, oil companies send most of
Speaker 1: it underground to extract even more oil so we can
Speaker 1: burn even more fossil fuels and create more emissions. They
Speaker 1: get paid to get the CO two. They earn a
Speaker 1: profit and getting CO two on the ground, and then
Speaker 1: they can use it to you to get well out
Speaker 1: of the ground and earn a prophet on the oil too.
Speaker 1: By the time Bruce got to Brazil, the people of
Speaker 1: Iowa were on to him. The rank and file folks
Speaker 1: on the ground in the Midwest's one big scam, and
Speaker 1: the love of every bone also on the ground.
Speaker 3: And I also think it's a scam.
Speaker 1: Today, Bruce and the world are at a tipping point.
Speaker 1: Will carbon be a commodity traded on the markets, divorced
Speaker 1: entirely from its role as a pollutant? Or will we
Speaker 1: choose a different path? Welcome to Season fifteen of Drilled
Speaker 1: Carbon Cowboys, the story of the ethanol kingpin of Iowa
Speaker 1: who became the king of corn in Brazil, and what
Speaker 1: it tells us about the limits of technology and markets
Speaker 1: to solve the climate crisis. This season is a collaboration
Speaker 1: between Drilled and the Intercept Brazil. You can get the
Speaker 1: Portuguese version over on the Intercept Brazil's feed. Subscribe wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.