ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Photosynthesis Will Move the World

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 2001 (IPS) - The energy of the future will be obtained from photosynthesis, the mechanism by which plants get energy from sunlight – which is the great wealth of tropical countries that also have abundant land and water, like Brazil.

That, at least, is the conviction held by José Bautista Vidal, the engineer and physicist who directed the implementation of Brazil’s National Alcohol Programme (Proalcohol), the fuel alcohol project created in 1970 to help Latin America’s giant weather the oil crisis.

The sun, “an eternal generator that runs on nuclear fusion,” blasts down on Brazil the equivalent of 4.5 billion megawatts of energy, Vidal told IPS.

Although the earth consumes two-thirds of that in the form of heat and water evaporation, one-third could still be tapped – a proportion that is equivalent to around 22,000 times Brazil’s installed capacity for generating electricity, the expert explained.

Since solar energy is disperse, directly capturing it would be too expensive. But plants “store it in the form of sugar, starch, oils and cellulose,” said Vidal.

Nature thus takes care of capturing the energy, through photosynthesis, the mechanism by which green plants use sunlight to transform carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates and oxygen.

That is an advantage enjoyed by sunny tropical countries – although it is useless if they do not also have plentiful land and water.

Brazil not only has those natural resources, but it has also accumulated more technology and know-how on obtaining energy from vegetable sources than any other country, after developing its programme to run cars on fuel alcohol.

During part of the 1980s, more than 90 percent of new cars manufactured in Brazil ran exclusively on fuel alcohol. Since then, all local gasoline carries a fuel alcohol additive, currently set at 22 percent.

Research has also been carried out on a wide range of vegetable oils as possible fuel substitutes for diesel engines, since alcohol did not turn out to be efficient for heavier vehicles like buses or trucks.

“We identified nearly 180 promising oils,” derived from “dende” (the fruit of the African palm), soy, sunflower, the castor-oil plant, and coconuts from several kinds of palm trees, all of which constitute “spectacular potential wealth” for Brazil, said Vidal.

However, the programme that developed substitutes for petroleum by-products was unsuccessful in its bid to promote the use of vegetable oil in place of diesel fuel, despite the fact that the new products were submitted to lengthy tests in buses and were found to be more efficient than the traditional fuel.

In addition, the Proalcohol programme has waned since the late 1980s, due to the government’s suspension of credit to small sugar cane growers, and the consequent scarcity of fuel alcohol, which destroyed the programme’s credibility, said Vidal.

He added that the recovery of Proalcohol depended solely on the government’s political will, as did the exploitation of the immense energy potential of vegetable oils, sugar cane bagasse or waste, and other sources of biomass.

The problem, he argued, is the Brazilian government’s submission to big oil interests.

Vidal described the decision to import natural gas from Bolivia as “stupidity,” because the price is subject to major swings, as it is tied to petroleum and the dollar, which causes external dependence.

Brazil’s current energy crisis has exposed the errors committed, and has opened the door to debate, thus favouring the development of alternative sources of electricity, said Vidal, who has published 10 books on renewable energy.

Argemiro Pertence, spokesman for the Association of Engineers of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, commented that one element playing in biomass’ favour is the fact that humanity will have to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to curb global warming.

Fuel alcohol is an environmentally-friendly solution, because it not only pollutes less, but its emissions are compensated by the absorption of greenhouse gases by the sugar cane used to produce fuel alcohol, he pointed out.

Pertence mentioned a few problems, however. Sugar cane depletes soil that should be used to produce food, and those involved in the sugar cane agribusiness are “large, conservative landowners with no commitment to society,” who fail to respect the basic rights of their workers.

But, the engineer added, fuel alcohol has been found to work efficiently in car engines, which are “wasteful, generate much heat and little work,” and are of interest mainly to the big oil companies and the car-making industry.

The use of biomass energy is of crucial importance for humanity, and merits much more attention and research, said Pertence.