Source: environmentalresearchweb
In Brazil, the smell of petrol is particularly sweet. The vast majority of the country's vehicles run on a fuel mixture of petrol and 20–25% sugar cane ethanol.
In response to the 1973 global oil crisis, the federal government launched the ProAlcool policy for energy security. This relied on regulation, subsidies, tax breaks and innovative research in bioenergy from sugar cane and soybeans – two prized crops in the agricultural economy – to gradually wean the country off fossil fuels.
Today, Brazil is, with the US, the leader in biofuels production, with research in sugar cane ethanol leading the way. Bioenergy research remains a top environmental priority, along with climate science and biodiversity conservation.
In many ways, Brazil has a natural tendency towards environmental stewardship and research. Its historically fluctuating economy has pushed people to conserve and make do with available resources, as they did during the oil crisis.
Yet the population of close to 200 million faces an uncertain future. Most of the nation’s land mass falls between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn, meaning that the country will carry a heavy burden if temperatures rise. Every year, deserts in the north-east encroach a little bit more on arable land. Since the Portuguese first landed in the 16th century, 95% of the country's forests have vanished. Ecosystems in Brazil are reaching their limits and the continual stress on resources is worrying the country's leaders.
The solutions to these problems drive environmental research priorities: innovation in bioenergy; climate-change modelling; sustainable development and biodiversity.
The rapid development of Brazil that designated the country as one of the BRICs – the fast-growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – owes much to the agricultural sector. Agronomic research into productive food systems has, since the turn of the 20th century, been a national priority.
"When you start with agriculture as an important part of your economy, you end up finding out that you have to think about the environment," said Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of the São Paolo Foundation for Scientific Research (FAPESP).
FAPESP is one of the pre-eminent research foundations in the country. Located in the economic and intellectual powerhouse that is the state of São Paolo, the foundation supports research and development through a variety of projects – both academic and industrial. Three of its 12 industry projects are in environmental research. These include BIOEN for bioenergy research, BIOTA for biodiversity research and the Research Programme on Global Climate (PFPMCG), directed in partnership with regional research universities, state institutes and national institutes.
"All three are interrelated," said Cruz. "The research of one helps the research of the other." This relationship draws in part on the region’s landscape. São Paolo is the country’s largest producer of sugar cane, which has become a catalyst for much of the region’s environmental research. More than 70% of BIOEN’s ethanol research is dedicated to plant productivity and sustainability – collecting the greatest yield of sugar cane with minimal inputs and impacts on the environment.
In turn, much of BIOTA’s work centres on biodiversity, with research focused on the same sugar cane fields that dominate BIOEN's research. "Biodiversity has intrinsic value by itself, but when it comes to working with sugar cane farmers, you need to figure out the services so that you can get allies to restore biodiversity," said Carlos Joly, professor at the University of Campinas and chief coordinator for BIOTA.
Even climate research, which includes FAPESP's PFPMCG project, has a sweet tooth. The Brazilian research institute for agriculture, EMBRAPA, for example, has developed a programme that studies new zoning patterns for sugar cane and other crops in Brazil. Researchers map which crops will need to migrate away from their previous habitat as climate affects the agricultural limits of different regions.
21st century oil
In January 2010, Brazil opened its $40 m National Laboratory for Bioethanol Science and Technology (CTBE) in Campinas, São Paolo State. Inside this testament to the country's commitment to bioethanol, Marcos Buckeridge, scientific coordinator of the laboratory, oversees the BIOEN-funded projects.
CTBE is only the tip of the sugar stalk for bioethanol research. In all, Buckeridge directs more than 40 projects across Brazil, with about $20 m in investments over four years. (Bioenergy as a whole in Brazil has received funding of more than seven times this figure – $150 m over four years – from the state and national government, plus investment from private companies.)
Researchers at CTBE observe the growth and development of new varieties of sugar cane for bioethanol, as well as researching the ethanol fermentation and hydrolysis process that turns sugar into fuel. Soon Buckeridge plans to conduct a “mega-experiment” with all of the centre's findings. "We would test all [the] science we have, choosing the best possible sugar cane, the best process for hydrolysis, then bring the data to scientists to crunch and see what is working," he said.
Most sugar cane is grown in the south-east of Brazil but Buckeridge hopes to apply the laboratory's successful research findings to other parts of the country. "Today, the percentage of arable land and forest in São Paolo is increasing," he said. "If other states start planting sugar cane in [the] same way, we would have the same results." With partnerships with BIOTA and other ecology institutes, he expects to set up programmes to introduce diverse vegetation within sugar cane crops, breaking the tradition of monocultures.
On the fuel side of the reaction, researchers at CTBE are working towards increasing bioethanol production by using the intermediary and final waste products from sugar-cane processing, in what is known as cellulosic ethanol production. Using bagasse – the fibrous pulp by-product – and other wastes, along with the first-stage sugar cane extracted juice, ethanol productivity could theoretically increase three-fold, said Buckeridge. Alternatively, the sugar cane by-products can be left in the field to enrich the soil.
In addition to being used as a fuel, the by-products of ethanol can also be found in food additives, such as artificial sweeteners and in cosmetics. "If we could use all [of] this production, industries surrounding the business of ethanol would look like what we have now for oil," he added, citing an industry tied to the products people use on a daily basis, from plastics to paraffin wax.
While ethanol has a strong research history in Brazil, biodiesel from soybeans – and more recently, algae – has received little attention, according to Buckeridge. Gasification and thermal energy are also fields that are relatively under-represented.
CTBE and its partner institutes collaborate primarily with the US, followed by Canada, the UK and Germany. Elsewhere in Latin America, Colombia and Argentina are beefing up their bioenergy research as well. Mexico, meanwhile, has delved into studying the energy potential of agave, the notorious fibrous plant from which tequila is made.
The environmental payback of this research and its exploitation was measured last year by UNICA, the Brazilian sugar cane growers association. The 20–25% ethanol mixture in vehicular fuel has prevented the release of 83.5 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide since 2003. Buckeridge hopes to eventually boost the percentage to 100.
"It would really be wonderful, environmentally speaking," he said.
Calculating the climate
Sometimes, changes in federal law hinge simply on the national solidarity of a feeling. On 27 December 2009 – days after the close of the COP15 summit on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark – Brazilian president Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva enacted a national policy on climate change, stating a commitment to reduce projected greenhouse-gas emissions by 7% by 2020.
"In general, Brazilians believe [that] climate change is caused by human actions," said Carlos Nobre, senior scientist with the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the largest institute for climate change research in Brazil. "However, the scientific literacy of the Brazilian population is not as high [as in Western Europe]. They can't really interpret or understand what is causing climate change. It's a big diffuse feeling that's caused by their interest in the environment."
This policy set the nation a step above its counterparts, most of whom simply set greenhouse-gas emission-reduction targets without any enforceable laws to ensure compliance. “A year ago, we didn’t have a climate plan or emissions goals, even though Brazil is the fifth or sixth largest emitter,” said Carlos Minc, Brazil’s Minister of Environment, after the law was passed.
In 2009, Nobre and his colleagues set up a nationwide group effort to develop a global climate-system model. The model is composed of blocks representing the ocean, land, ice, the biogeochemical cycle and the carbon cycle. Together the pieces form a framework that will be used to make projections on climate up to 300 years into the future. The 45 scientists involved hope to procure a supercomputer to carry out an estimated 15 trillion calculations per second.
The team plans to create scenarios for low, medium and high emissions up to the year 2300. The researchers will also make short-term projections up to 2035, giving community leaders information to start planning adaptation to climate change.
Unfortunately for those responsible for creating adaptation plans, research in this field is scant, said Nobre. "There is a slow awakening of the scientific community regarding the needs of adaptation research to develop quickly," he added. EMPRABA's research into zoning schemes for agriculture and identification of new growing regions is an example. Scientists are also investigating how to make individual crops more resilient to extreme conditions and reduced water supply.
INPE is collaborating in the creation of a global climate-system model with the UK Meteorological Office’s Hadley Centre, along with institutes in India and South Africa. Within its own continent, INPE has joined with Argentina, Chile and Uruguay to help form a Latin American climate-research centre.
"We need to make sufficient progress to convince our governments that it would be a good idea to have one modern research centre," said Nobre. "There's a concern that we haven't been able to fully develop a network in South America."
Focus on biodiversity
There are a few images that define Brazil: a dancer in a shimmering sequined bikini during Carnaval; the blast of green and yellow cradling a blue globe on the flag; and the endless density of the Amazon rainforest, a region where even today, the only mode of transport between cities is by boat.
For hundreds of years the Amazon was taken for granted. But rampant deforestation to make way for soybean plantations and cattle ranches has cleared hundreds of square kilometres. Now, the coming heat of climate change is adding another stress.
Maintaining a high rate of biodiversity and stalling the extinction rate of species is crucial. It also protects resources that could have an important use for humans, such as plants for pharmaceuticals or micro-organisms to promote healthy soil and reliable agriculture. While the bulk of such research is conducted in the Amazon region, biodiversity projects are conducted throughout the country.
The birth of the modern sustainable development movement took place at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, when the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was signed. A legally binding treaty, the CBD for the first time recognized biodiversity conservation as "a common concern of humankind".
The meeting also served as a turning point in environmental research, said BIOTA’s Joly. "It brought biodiversity conservation out of the romantic phase, where it was sort of a nature lovers' science," he continued. "It became an important science that could have a strong tradition of setting policies and bring more young people into doing research in this area."
The National Institute of Amazon Research (INPA), operating under the Ministry of Science and Technology, is the primary adviser to the federal government on Amazon issues. INPA is the largest postgraduate training institution in the Amazon basin, and attracts students and researchers from around Latin America. The centre employs 200 researchers, plus nearly 100 post-doctoral students and close to 500 postgraduate students.
Yet, numbers of researchers continue to be low – less than half that of any major university – a problem that the organisation tries to compensate by forming many networks with other academic institutions.
"Basically, INPA focuses on how to make things better for people in the Amazon," said Bill Magnusson, a senior researcher in ecology for the Institute. Fields of importance include bioprospecting, fisheries biology, estimating forest carbon stocks and avoiding deforestation.
Magnusson works on the PPBio project, an effort to organize a taxonomic database of Amazonian species. The work includes the development of standardized surveys and data collection for long-term studies, as well as the creation of strategies to maintain the sustainable growth of bioprospecting.
The Ministry of Environment has said that it would like to reduce deforestation in the Amazon by 80% by 2020. To achieve this goal, it created a model for exploitation of resources and land called the Amazon Ecological-Economic Macrozoning model, with the aim of slowing down the expansion of agriculture and focusing the economy on biodiversity products, aquaculture, certified timber extraction and ecotourism.
Timber extraction is, somewhat counter-intuitively, one of the best ways to prevent deforestation while supporting the local economy, said Magnusson. "The only industry that does not require you to clear cut is forestry," he explained. This maintains forest cover as well as carbon stocks. And most importantly, forestry’s income-generating properties are in the local communities' best interest.
Magnusson sets his first priority on human welfare. "We cannot afford economically or morally to make this place a giant [protected] park," he said. "There are 20 million people living in the Amazon basin – the same population as Australia. Those are 20 million people who would like to have a standard of living similar to Australians."