Abel Manto with a rainwater tank and the beans he is growing despite two years of continuous drought. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
RIACHÃO DO JACUIPE, Brazil, Jul 4 2013 (IPS)

The first surprise on arriving at Abel Manto’s farm is how green it is, in contrast with the dry brown surroundings. His beans and fruit trees seem oblivious to the persistent drought in the semi-arid hinterland of northeast Brazil, the worst in 50 years.

An “underground reservoir” made out of plastic sheets spread below ground to contain water keeps the soil moist, allowing beans to be grown on some 1,000 square metres in spite of the drought.

Various techniques for collecting and storing rainwater, including ponds, tanks, connected reservoirs and concrete surfaces, collect nearly 1.9 million litres of water in normal rainfall years on his 10-hectare property, according to Manto.

He and his wife and small daughter use 277,000 litres for drinking and cooking. The rest is used to raise small livestock and irrigate the orchards and crops. But this year the drought has reduced his water reserves and he has had to set priorities. Manto chose to save crops that require less water, such as passion fruit and watermelon.

Another surprise is the breadth of knowledge Manto displays; he calls himself a “family farmer in transition toward agroecology.” At the age of 40 he has become well-known for his inventive solutions for coping with the periodic droughts of Brazil’s semi-arid northeast.

His greatest success is the hydraulic pump he calls “Malhação” (Workout) because it is manual and requires physical effort. About 80 centimetres high, it is made of inexpensive parts, such as plastic tubes and bottles, marbles and even disposable ballpoint pens.

Each pump costs just 116 reals (53 dollars), including pipes for drip irrigation, or 70 percent more if the client prefers a metal handle to make it easier to operate. In this case it loses up to 40 percent of the flow, which in the ordinary model, the T-shaped handle pumps 1,233 litres per hour.

The pump is capable of lifting water from a depth of four metres and irrigating at distances of hundreds of metres, depending on the slope. “One buyer told me he could irrigate 600 metres away,” Manto said.

The farmer-inventor said he had sold more than 2,000 pumps in the northeast of Brazil and some in South Africa, with interest also being expressed in Europe. He employs 15 people to manufacture them.

Now he is trying to adapt a biodigester that he saw in India, using local materials. He is already producing biogas for his kitchen stove, but he is not self-sufficient yet.

Since he was a young man, Manto has tried to make rural labour more productive and less tiring. “They called me ‘crazy’ or ‘lazy’ and said I was inventing things so I would not have to work,” he said.

Today his innovations have won recognition and his farm is a laboratory and showcase for technologies to develop family farming in the semi-arid region. The many visitors help spread the word about his successful experiments.

“Our life has improved 100 percent,” said his wife, Jacira de Oliveira, showing the stronger blue flame on her stove when it burns biogas.

“A few years ago it was hard for me to buy a bicycle, even on credit. Now we have a car and two motorbikes,” Manto said.

His productive activity is based on precise figures. The drought, which has lasted 27 months so far, caused the loss of 60 percent of his 147 fruit trees of different varieties, such as custard apples, oranges and guavas. “The most mature specimens with the deepest roots survived,” he said.

To feed his 38 goats and sheep he turns everything he can find into fodder, even plants considered weeds. And he knows their nutritional qualities.

The leaves of the local “catingueira” tree contain 14 percent protein, the same as Gliricidia sepium, a recognised forage tree. “Mata-pastaria,” a brush growth despised by local people, has even more protein at 20 to 22 percent.

“Many species are regarded as harmful,” and their nutritional potential is lost due to traditional beliefs, he said, pointing out the 11 species he has turned into forage in the shed that serves as his silo.

The old ways hinder innovation, with the argument that “this is how my father always did it,” he complained. Even within his own family there is resistance from his seven siblings who live on neighbouring farms.

His hope, he says, lies in the children. He is currently teaching environmental education to 27 children from his rural community. He would like to have his own school to expand the initiative with an ecology project he has named “The Life of the Soil.”

This dream is closer now that he is and official with the municipal secretariat for social and economic development and the environment in Riachão do Jacuipe, headed by 23-year-old Esaú da Silva who saw in Manto someone with the necessary knowledge to develop local agriculture with an environmental perspective.

The main problem is not lack of water, but “the lack of technical assistance” for the farmers of the municipality, 40 percent of whose 33,000 people live in rural areas, Silva said.

The Jacuipe, the local river, is very polluted, but it flows all year round, which is an advantage in the northeast of Brazil where most rivers dry up completely during the dry season. And “we have lots of dams,” Silva added. Spreading Manto’s experience would lead to making better use of this water, he concluded.

But collecting rainwater is key for small farmers throughout the semi-arid region. In Riachão do Jacuipe, in the state of Bahía, rainfall is low with an average of 590 to 660 mm a year, and in 2012 it was only 176 mm, Manto said.

Manto uses the social technologies that have been promoted for the past 14 years by Articulação Semiárido Brasileiro (ASA), a network of more than 800 organisations. The network is halfway to the goal of distributing one million 16,000-litre cisterns.

The Brazilian government of leftwing President Dilma Rousseff decided to speed up and overtake this target by distributing 750,000 cisterns in 2013 and 2014. But it opted for industrial mass production of plastic tanks, which subverted ASA’s programme.

The new government plan sidelined the traditional concrete slabs that cost half the price of plastic cisterns, and excluded the community from participating in building the tanks on a do-it-yourself basis, which trains people in their use and strengthens the local economy and sense of citizenship.

The experience of ASA and Manto also stands in contrast to the project to reroute the São Franciso river, by means of which the government aims to improve water supply for 12 million people in the northeast.

This mega-project is delayed by at least four years, and its cost has reached the equivalent of four billion dollars, nearly twice the original budget.

In any case, it will not serve the pòorest rural families dispersed throughout the semi-arid region who are the most vulnerable to drought. This is where the cisterns and the government’s social programmes have now been decisive in averting the popular rebellions that took place during previous droughts.

Tiago Maranhão Alves with a strip of the newly developed solar plastic. Credit: Courtesy of CSEM Brazil/Rafael Motta - Agência Nitro

By Alice Marcondes
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Mar 12 2013 (IPS)

As part of the country’s growing emphasis on green tech research, Brazilian scientists have developed plastic solar panels that could revolutionise power generation from this clean, renewable energy source.

What looks like a thin, flexible sheet of regular plastic is actually a solar panel printed with photovoltaic cells, which convert sunlight into electricity. This new material, totally unlike the heavy and costly silicon-based panels commonly used to generate solar power today, was created by scientists at CSEM Brasil, a research institute based in the southeast Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.

Made by incorporating organic photovoltaic cells into common polymers, the new panels resemble transparent sheets of plastic with stripes where they have been printed with carbon-based organic polymers.

The technology to produce these organic photovoltaic cells has been studied in Europe and the United States for a number of years, and has now been further developed in Brazil.

According to its inventors, the new “solar plastic” could represent a minor revolution in the way clean energy is produced from sunlight.

“While the capacity for power generation is almost the same, its small size means that it can be given uses that are almost impossible for silicon panels,” said the chairman of CSEM Brasil, Tiago Maranhão Alves, a physical engineer who participated directly in the research.

The lightweight, flexible new material can be used to power the electrical components of automobiles and in electronic devices like mobile phones and wireless computer keyboards and mice.

But the Brazilian researchers are concentrating on the production of solar panels, which can be used to cover relatively large areas, like windows. “A panel with a surface area of two or three square metres could be sufficient to generate the energy needed in a house lived in by a family of four,” Alves told Tierramérica*.

“Because of its good cost-benefit ratio, it could also be an option for bringing energy to remote areas without electric power service. In Brazil (with a population of over 192 million) there are still close to a million places in this situation,” he added.

Ease of transport is one of the main advantages of the new panels over silicon panels. “Because they are easy to transport, logistical costs are lower. In addition, people can take them with them when they move to a new home,” he said.

The plastic can also be used to cover buildings and venues like airports and sports stadiums, avoiding the need to set aside an area for the installation of conventional solar panels.

Some ten million dollars were invested in developing the formula for the new Brazilian-made material, and investment is expected to double in the coming year. “We are now going to study the best way to scale up the product. In its current state it could already be launched on the market, but the price should be analysed on a case-by-case basis,” said Alves.

The resources invested, which also enabled the creation of CSEM Brasil, were provided through a partnership between the venture capital firm FIR Capital and the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM).

The project has also received support from the Minas Gerais State Research Foundation (FAPEMIG).

The method has not been made public, since it is still classified as a trade secret. “This is a multi-billion-dollar market, and there are a lot of research centres after this technology,” commented Alves.

The breakthrough announced by the researchers in Minas Gerais reflects a growing trend in Brazil: investment in clean technologies.

Last year, the Studies and Projects Financing Agency (FINEP), a public company administered by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, launched the Sustainable Brazil Programme, which will distribute some 10 million dollars in lines of credit for initiatives aimed at the preservation of natural resources.

According to FINEP, the programme responds to a demand perceived by the agency, which over the last eight years has provided 2.3 million dollars in financing for projects with a “green” component. One quarter of these projects have involved clean energy production.

André Pereira de Carvalho, a business administration professor, believes that the increase in funding for this type of research is a result of the fact that both private investment funds and public institutions view green tech as a lucrative field.

“These organisations primarily evaluate whether the product is a good one, with a formula that is difficult to copy and the potential for large-scale production. This applies to any investment, whether it is in an information technology company or a green technology initiative,” said Carvalho, who has coordinated studies on innovation for sustainability.

Compared to the United States, Japan or Germany, Brazil is still “in diapers” when it comes to the green tech industry, but it has the potential to learn to walk very quickly, Carvalho told Tierramérica.

“A few years ago, an entrepreneur who wanted to invest in this sector would run into many more obstacles. Today there is still a degree of mistrust towards what is commonly viewed as a more costly niche market, but it has already become much easier to obtain financing,” he added.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

By Keya Acharya
SHIVGANGA, India, May 30 2012 (IPS)

Valli, 50, and Sarasu, 60, have been working with Energy Plantation Projects India (EPPI) since inception in 2007, the income they earn forming an integral part of their household budgets. “We easily manage household work and a salary-paying job,” they tell IPS.

Around 20 women take care of daily maintenance work while another 45 work seasonally. The women come in at daybreak and leave at two pm, earning a decent Indian rupees 150 (approximately three dollars) for half-a-day’s toil.

“We devised the timings to suit the women, as we found them to be sincere workers,” says Sam Venkatesan, director of EPPI. “They are free to go home in the afternoon and also graze their goats on lands we have set aside for the purpose.”

The women, who form over half the company’s entire workforce, are happy to have an assured income in return for planting and tending saplings, making shade-nets and taking care of other nursery essentials.

Grown with seven indigenous biomass-producing plant species, the plantation is “one of the first of its kind in the world,” says Venkatesan, who once worked as an executive with Motorola, the United States-based cell phone giant.

Venkatesan explains that the plantation is biometrically calculated for calorific value, rate of growth and yield per acre to supply its own two megawatt gasification power plant with the assured biomass supply that is essential for a successful gasification system.

Gasification converts organic- or fossil-based carbonaceous material, by controlled heating, into syngas (synthetic gas), and the power derived from burning the gas is considered to be renewable energy.

EPPI’s 300-acre biomass plantation now has trees that stand seven metres tall on degraded lands that have been contoured for watershed conservation with reservoirs constructed to enable drip irrigation.
“The groundwater has risen from 300 feet in 2007, when we started the plantation, to 80 feet now,” says C. Lalrammawia who manages technology at the plantation. “Rainfall has similarly increased from 250 mm annually in 2007 to over 800 mm in 2011.”

According to the National Commission on Agriculture, India has 60 million hectares of degraded non-forest and forest lands available for tree growing, including biomass plantation.

The ‘side effects’ of planting for energy are already visible at EPPI and these include improvement in the microclimate of the region with a regeneration of biodiversity. The reservoirs have becoming watering holes for deer and birds now flock to the once degraded, arid lands.

“We discovered that a small forest of this size, with its two Mw power plant, can power several of the cell phone transmission towers in the area, said Venaktesan. Cell phone transmission towers currently consume two percent of India’s subsidised diesel and so that is a huge saving.”

The plantation costs 400 dollars per acre for all-inclusive maintenance annually and yields 50 tonnes of biomass per acre annually on average.

EPPI has received four million dollars as venture capital to begin its two Mw power plant running on biomass gasification using its own energy plantation. But, there are plans to scale it up to six Mw by tapping leasehold energy forests.

India’s ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) after inspection and approval granted EPPI’s energy plantation 272,000 dollars towards reimbursement of equipment costs for every Mw of power produced.

Deepak Gupta, who inspected the plantation during his tenure as secretary (topmost official) at MNRE, believes small biomass gasification power plants are ideal for providing local power, jobs, natural regeneration and availability of biomass supply to nearby industries.

“A dedicated biomass power plant, able to work on its own 24-hour supply, is the answer to India’s local needs,” Gupta told IPS.

As per Indian government regulations, EPPI can upload power into the national grid. But, the company has opted to distribute power to the local grid to ensure power supply to villages close to where its lands are situated.

“We can’t guarantee electricity to each household because we don’t control the grid, but this will surely ensure local benefit. Social inclusion for us is not just corporate social responsibility, it is our business model,” says Venkatesan.

At a calculated 26.4 tonnes of biomass needed to produce one Mw of power daily, the company envisages a ‘plant load factor’ (PLF), or running capacity, of 80-85 percent, which is better than average.

“We can safely calculate this PLF because we own the plantation and have control over supply,” says Jayanth Ganapathy, who manages the company’s business operations.

EPPI managers say the plantation’s predicted growth rate has included factors like extreme weather or slower climatic change events by increasing the contingency scale of each management need.

“Which means, for instance, that we need more land per megawatt, or we calculate an increased buffer amount for each necessity,” says Venkatesan. “This is our management technique.”

“If I were to accept all factors such as climate change, pests and weather vagaries, I’d have to give up,” said Venkatesan. “But EPPI has shown the world that an energy plantation company is more than possible.”

(END)

Rare earth-bearing rock from Argentina displayed in the Mineralogy Museum at the University of Buenos Aires. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS

By Marcela Valente
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 21 2011 (IPS)

Argentina could meet part of the rising world demand for “rare earth” metals, required for a variety of green technologies, advanced electronic devices and medical diagnostic equipment. The challenge lies in mining them in a sustainable fashion.

Considerable expectations have been created in the South American country around this group of 17 metals, called “rare” because they are found in relatively low proportions in rock and sediment and rarely exist in pure form.

Rare earth elements (REEs) like dysprosium, lanthanum and neodymium are key components in the manufacture of widely used devices such as mobile phones, laptop and tablet computers, MP3 players and digital cameras, as well as green tech innovations including wind turbines and hybrid cars.

The world’s biggest producer of rare earths is China, which accounts for 97 percent of the global supply of these metals. But the Chinese government’s decision to restrict production and exports to favor domestic manufacturers has driven up prices and fueled a search for alternative sources.

Rare earths are sometimes found in proportions of just a few parts per million in rock and sediments, and scarce concentrations like these make their extraction economically unviable, explained geologist Diana Mutti, director of the department of mining geology at the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.

The highest concentrations of these metals are found in certain regions of China, the United States, Canada and Russia, Mutti told Tierramérica. But there are also significant deposits in some provinces of Argentina.

“There is potential for rare earths in the mountains of Córdoba, San Luis (in central Argentina), Salta and Catamarca (northwest). They may be found in the rock there in larger proportions, but not necessarily enough to constitute a mining reserve,” she noted.

For the moment, the province of San Luis is where the country’s largest concentrations of rare earths have been found.

Early this year, Canadian mining company Wealth Minerals acquired 6,000 hectares in the Rodeo de los Molles region of San Luis province, based on promising test results for rare earth exploration potential.

“Following China’s recently announced REE export quota cutback, the second cut in concurrent years, we are extremely pleased to have secured a large, unexplored land package in a region that is known to host very significant rare earth element concentrations,” said Wealth Minerals‘ president and CEO, Henk Van Alphen, when the land purchase was announced.

According to Mutti, in the northern Argentine province of Santiago del Estero “there are similarities with the rock in the mountains of Córdoba, but the threshold for concluding that there is potential has yet to be crossed.”

“There are indications, but not a manifestation,” she specified.

Mutti was alluding to the expectations raised over activities in the mountains of Sumampa in Santiago del Estero undertaken by subsidiaries of another Canadian company, U308 Corp., which were confirmed by an industry association.

Julio Ríos Gómez, president of the Exploratory Mining Companies Group of Argentina, declared that international companies have placed the country “among the richest areas in the world in terms of the availability of this resource.”

Ríos Gómez reported that requests for authorisation of rare earths exploration have been submitted by companies from Australia and Canada, largely as a result of China’s cuts in export quotas since 2010.

In the Sumampa region in southern Santiago del Estero, he told a press conference, “there are companies exploring for rare earths, and there is a plan to reactivate the entire mining industry in the province, where there are no laws that limit extraction.”

Neither Ríos Gómez nor the Foundation for the Development of Mining in Argentina – which claimed to have “little information” about rare earths – responded to requests for an interview with Tierramérica.

But not everyone welcomes exploration for these rare metals.

According to residents of Jasimampa, a community near the mountains of Sumampa, individuals who said they work for Gaia Energy Argentina SA tried to convince them of the benefits of mining activity in the region.

Gaia Energy is fully owned by U308 Corp. of Canada, which specialises in uranium mining.

“The company forced its way onto lands that are collectively used by the whole community, with the assistance of the police, and the community resisted. There were even arrests,” reported Adolfo Farías, a leader of the Campesino (Peasant Farmer) Movement of Santiago del Estero (MOCASE).

“Gaia went in trying to confuse people, talking about the progress that mining brings and the employment it creates, they claim, but they were met with mobilisation and resistance, and the project was halted,” Farías told Tierramérica.

And the indigenous peoples and small farmers in the area “will continue their resistance,” said Farías. “Our goal is food sovereignty and the protection of our natural resources from plundering,” he stressed.

“We know that there are rare earths in Sumampa, and that the company has a strategy to exploit them, but we are opposed, because we know it will contaminate the water and it won’t create jobs like they say it will,” he added.

Another subsidiary of U308 Corp., South American Rare Earth Corp., has also acquired property in Jasimampa for rare earth exploration.

Mutti explained that the method used to extract the metals depends on the rock containing them. If it is exposed, they are usually extracted through strip or open-pit mining. But since the rock formations in question are no larger than 50 by 10 metres, they would entail small-scale operations.

Underground mining is also a possibility, but given the bigger investment required, the operation would have to be highly profitable, she noted.

In her opinion, rare earth mining “is fairly sustainable in general, but we know that any activity has an impact on the environment.”

“In this case they would not use cyanide and there would be no production of acid water. But there would be some impact on the landscape, on the flora and fauna of the area, and on soil movement,” she said. There could also be explosions, landslides and collapses, she added.

Mutti recommended evaluating how these impacts would be mitigated, and whether the extraction of these resources generates more sustainable alternatives and cleaner development in the production chain.

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.