In 18 seconds in the lower house and five in the Senate, Brazil decided that coal still has a place in its future. Provisional Measure 1304/25, passed symbolically and with virtually no debate, rewrites the country’s power-sector rules and extends the operation of coal-fired plants until 2040 — including Candiota III, owned by J&F’s energy arm Âmbar, whose operating license expires next year.
A nation that markets itself as a clean-energy powerhouse now subsidizes fossil megawatts at R$600, three times the distributors’ average cost. The government calls it “energy security.” Taxpayers will call it a surcharge. Drafted by Senator Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM), the bill dropped mandatory purchases of gas-fired plants but kept coal under the banner of job protection in southern Brazil — ironically on the same day the Energy Ministry created a department for “clean cooking” policies to discourage households from burning coal and firewood.
The irony is that Brazil, a global leader in renewable energy, has chosen to prolong the coal era in the name of its “energy transition.” PM 1304/25 formalizes the contradiction: instead of burying the dirtiest fuel in its matrix, the country has extended its life — calling the 19th-century symbol of the industrial revolution a form of modernization.