Peru offers an alternative to gas

Water cascading from Peru’s Andes mountains toward the Amazon could be harnessed into electricity for power-hungry Brazil, freeing Latin America’s largest nation from natural gas producers like Bolivia and Venezuela, Peruvian President Alan García said yesterday.

Addressing some of Sao Paulo’s most influential business and industry executives, García said Brazil and Peru should boost bilateral energy and economic ties even though the two nations are members of separate South American economic blocs.

Without mentioning Bolivia and Venezuela by name, García suggested the far-left governments of both nations represent a threat to Brazil’s future economic growth because of their tight state-imposed control over vast natural gas resources that will eventually go dry anyway.

‘‘The gas can run out or they can turn off the tap,’’ García said in a speech to members of the Sao Paulo Federation of Industries. But, he added, ‘‘water never stops flowing.’’

Brazil meets 50 percent of its natural gas needs for power generation from Bolivia, but Bolivian President Evo Morales is nationalizing the industry, pushing for higher prices from Brazil and Bolivian control of natural gas installations owned by Brazil’s state-owned oil company.

While Brazil doesn’t get any natural gas now from Venezuela, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez wants to supply Brazil through the construction of a US$20 billion pipeline through the Amazon that experts say could cost much more.

Environmentalists also call it a potential ecological disaster.

Venezuela has South America’s largest petroleum and natural gas