Fracking and the “seven cheap things” in developing countries: an analysis from the case of Paraná-Brazil

Abstract

In the capitalist mode of production, alternatives that make it possible to reduce costs and maintain production processes in times of crisis are essential. In this sense, there is an increasing search for cheap energy sources, such as the controversial leaf gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). In Brazil, the possibility of implementing fracking occurred in 2013 with the 12th Bidding Round, which provided 240 exploration blocks available, of which 11 were located in the state of Paraná. In this state, the method has suffered one of the strongest resistance in the country, due to its high potential for environmental, social and economic impacts. In July 2019 the activity was definitively banned in Paraná. In this article, from the perspective of Cheap Nature by Patel and Moore (2018), we discuss general aspects of the conditions that involve the acceptance or not of fracking as a cheap energy option in developing countries, in the view of the global capitalist expansion that this technology materializes. We emphasize in the case of Paraná, based on exploratory and documentary research, the different positions and dynamics of public actors and civil society that (re) configured the relations of forces that culminated in the success of resistance to fracking. Capitalism seeks new frontiers for the exploration of nature and labor, conditions that present themselves in abundance in Brazil, making it a potential target of its need for expansion. However, the ban on fracking in Paraná, although subject to reversal in the future, shows that capitalist expansion through new technologies and cheap energy can find significant resistance in specific contexts. This, above all, when confronting and threatening, economically and environmentally, coalitions strongly rooted in the State and in regional civil society, therefore, representatives of traditional capitalist economic structures, such as, in  in the state, of agribusiness.