Este trabalho analisa a capacidade inovadora da indústria petroquímica brasileira com base na noção de competências para inovar. Partindo da visão da firma baseada em recursos (VBR), as competências para inovar são examinadas por meio de um questionário que procura identificar e avaliar o nível de desenvolvimento das competências da indústria em questão. Os resultados são analisados considerando-se as competências em quatro grupos: técnicas, organizacionais, relacionais e de meios. Os resultados indicam que a indústria detém níveis aceitáveis de competências em termos técnicos, mas nos demais grupos as competências existentes não parecem ser suficientes para que as empresas, e conseqüentemente o setor industrial que elas representam, possam ser consideradas inovadoras. As deficiências parecem ser particularmente acentuadas no grupo das competências organizacionais.

The Brazilian Policy foresees the waste management hierarchy, according to which energy reuse from waste is preferred to final disposal. However, less than 0.2% of the country’s waste goes to energy production. This paper proposes sustainability indicators to support the decision to choose the best process to treat municipal solid waste (MSW) through bioenergy generation technologies. Then, we conduct a case study for Rio de Janeiro. Incineration and gasification were not economically feasible—despite TRL 9 and 8. However, the projects presented a null net present value by increasing the gate fee to 94.69 and 255.39 USD/ton of MSW, respectively. The social indicators (job creation, salary increase with the absorption of waste pickers, population served, reduction in MSW sent to landfill) did not indicate the best technology. The results of the environmental indicators for incineration and gasification were, respectively, 0.45 and 0.37 t CO_2eq/t_MSW for GWP, 1.49 and 1.23 MWh/t_MSW for energy intensity, 1.24 and 6.14 m³/t_MSW for water intensity, 39.3 and 27.9 m²/t_MSW for land use and 0.135 and 0.088 t SO_2eq/t_MSW for acidification. Gasification presented better results on 60% of the environmental indicators. However, incineration scored better in the important ones, water and energy intensities, in addition to the technical–economic aspect.

Entre os instrumentos de política pública disponíveis, encontra-se o apoio direto com recursos públicos a projetos de pesquisa e desenvolvimento executados no âmbito das empresas. Tais instrumentos, denominados comumente por grants ou subvenção econômica, exigem capacidade do poder público para especificar o foco temático de apoio, bem como para selecionar os projetos de interesse e acompanhá-los. A efetividade de programas públicos desta natureza depende do modo como as instituições públicas responsáveis pela administração dos recursos realizam suas escolhas, o que é reflexo dos processos instaurados internamente nestas organizações. Este artigo propõe um quadro analítico para comparação dos programas públicos de apoio, com foco nos processos de formulação, seleção e acompanhamento de projetos. Para tanto, são caracterizados três casos recentes de apoio desta natureza: o Biomass Program, nos EUA; o Paiss, no Brasil; e o NER300, na Comunidade Europeia. Verifica-se que o efeito de disparo de corridas tecnológicas está relacionado com maior empenho de conteúdo tecnológico e de engenharia aos processos, por parte da administração pública.

Our argument revalidates and advances the idea of learning that is central to literatures on economic development, innovation and industrial policy. Global shifts where developing countries are advancing and innovating at the technological frontier challenge the conventional view of learning that focused on adapting existing technologies from advanced economies to build domestic firms’ capabilities. Our research contributes to capture new dynamics of innovation, emerging technologies and government industrial policy, crucial in the learning perspective. Our field study of Brazilian government programmes in the bio-based industry illustrates how industrial policy is reinvented to catalyse firm innovation at the technological frontier.

The Brazilian Policy foresees the waste management hierarchy, according to which energy reuse from waste is preferred to final disposal. However, less than 0.2% of the country's waste goes to energy production. This paper proposes sustainability indicators to support the decision to choose the best process to treat municipal solid waste (MSW) through bioenergy generation technologies. Then, we conduct a case study for Rio de Janeiro. Incineration and gasification were not economically feasible – despite TRL 9 and 8. However, the projects presented null net present value by increasing the gate fee to 94.69 and 255.39 USD/ton of MSW, respectively. The social indicators (job creation, salary increase with the absorption of waste pickers, population served, reduction in MSW sent to landfill) did not indicate the best technology. The results of the environmental indicators for incineration and gasification were, respectively, 0.45 and 0.37 t CO2eq/tMSW for GWP, 1.49 and 1.23 MWh/tMSW for energy intensity, 1.24 and 6.14 m³/tMSW for water intensity, 39.3 and 27.9 m²/tMSW for land use and 0.135 and 0.088 t SO2eq/tMSW for acidification. Gasification presented better results on 60% of the environmental indicators. However, incineration was better in important ones, water and energy intensities, besides the technical-economic aspect.