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Good News on May Day.
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Memory - Four Items Max.
Commentary, Biofuels: running on empty.
A tendência da devastação.
Part 1: Harnessing the Saharan Sun.
Part 2: Making the Switch.
TREC - Clean Power from Deserts.
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Memory - Four Items Max, Hayley Mick, April 29, 2008.
Um ... what was I supposed to tell you again?
Oh, right. New research suggests our capacity to remember things is lower than previously thought.
Our working memories may max out at three or four items, according to a study published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earlier research had pegged that number at about seven. But the study by University of Missouri researchers suggests the true number is lower when people are not allowed to use memory aids, such as grouping items together or repeating them over and over.
"There are around three or four slots in which basic information can go," said University of Missouri psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-authored the study. For example, people tend to be able to remember 10-digit numbers, but they're helped because those 10 digits are often presented in groups, he said.
Similarly, if someone tells you a story, you won't remember it word for word. But you can recall the gist of it because you've grouped all those words into a few basic ideas, he said.
Definitions for working memory vary, but it is generally defined as a more active form of short-term memory. Working memory relates to information we can pay attention to and consciously manipulate.
The study adds more ammunition to the theory that our working memories have finite capacities.
"This has many applications to real life," Dr. Cowan said. For example, when drivers get into traffic accidents while talking on their cellphones, that may have more to do with cognitive overload than a physical inability to juggle a phone and grip the steering wheel at the same time.
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Commentary, Biofuels: running on empty, Margaret Wente, April 29, 2008.
So what if there's a global food crisis? John Baird, our Environment Minister, is sticking by his guns -- er, corn. The Chrysler minivan he drives is powered by fuel that's 85-per-cent ethanol. "My car is a great one," he says proudly, "and I am not planning on changing it."
In order to prove their greenness, politicians have stampeded to embrace biofuels. Biofuels are the main plank in Stephen Harper's environmental platform, and the Tories have pledged $1.5-billion in subsidies to stimulate production. Ontario's Liberal government is spending $520-million to make sure gasoline sold in the province contains lots of lovely ethanol -- 5 per cent today, with more to come. Dalton McGuinty, the Premier, says there are no plans to reconsider.
Only yesterday, biofuels were supposed to be the virtuous alternative to fossil fuels and the answer to energy self-sufficiency. But now, they've been fingered as a culprit in the global food crisis. As governments demand higher biofuel content, farmers around the world have switched from growing food to growing fuel. And that makes all food crops more expensive. Britain's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, warns that the rush to biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions. Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has called for a major re-evaluation. The head of the United Nations World Food Program cautions that the growing use of biofuels is driving up its operating costs and hurting its "capacity to respond to hunger."
The new alliance against biofuels is an unlikely mix of environmentalists, aid agencies, scientists and economists from all across the ideological spectrum. The numbers they cite are astonishing. This year, about 100 million tons of grain - enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year - will be converted from food into fuel. Around 30 per cent of the U.S. corn crop now goes to fuel. But the environmental payoff from corn-based ethanol is small. Even with maximum production, by the year 2030 it will still meet only 6 per cent of the U.S. demand for transport fuel.
Not everyone has cooled to biofuels. Farmers love them. So do agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland, which are harvesting a bumper crop of profits from taxpayers' money. Government subsidies are so enormous they could amount to half or more of ethanol's cost of production. We're talking billions. Meantime, the UN food program has cut back food aid because its costs have gone up 40 per cent since last June.
The switch to biofuels could even speed up global warming. Many researchers argue that if the full environmental cost is factored in, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels. Countries like Indonesia are razing forests to produce palm oil. And there's a domino effect. As more land is converted to biofuels in North America, agriculture to meet food demand expands in other parts of the world. "And that's done in a significant part by burning down forests and plowing up grasslands," says Princeton researcher Tim Searchinger. He figures that when you add in all the global effects, over a 30-year span biofuels will end up creating twice as much carbon dioxide as the same amount of gasoline would.
Biofuels aren't the only villain behind soaring food prices, of course. But they're a great example of the law of unintended consequences, which tends to work overtime whenever politicians try to come up with politically attractive, simplistic solutions to horrendously complex problems. I'm pretty sure that starving the poor, plowing the Amazon, and enriching agribusiness weren't exactly what John Baird, Dalton McGuinty and the European Union had in mind when they set out to save the planet and court the green vote. Time for a rethink, guys. This cure is worse than the disease.
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A tendência da devastação, Gustavo Faleiros, 30.04.2008.
A estratégia do governo federal de mobilizar grandes efetivos do Exército, Polícia Federal e do Ibama para conter o desmatamento na Amazônia parece ainda não surtir efeito. Desde janeiro, mês em que a megaoperação Arco de Fogo chegou aos municípios campeões em devastação, a derrubada de árvores não cessou. Pelo contrário, a destruição recrudesceu. De acordo com Instituto do Meio Ambiente e do Homem da Amazônia (Imazom), no primeiro trimestre, apesar das chuvas, imagens de satélite revelaram que no Pará e Mato Grosso o total de áreas desmatadas foi mais do que o dobro do mesmo período do ano passado.
O Imazon, através de seu Sistema de Acompanhamento do Desmatamento (SAD), indicou que a soma das áreas devastadas nos dois estados passou de 77 km2 no ano passado para 214 km2 em 2008. O Mato Grosso responde por boa parte deste total, ou 149 km2. Apesar disso, no acumulado desde agosto (mês em que se inicia a contagem anual do desmatamento) o estado apresenta redução de 16% em comparação ao mesmo período (agosto-março) de 2007.
No Pará a situação é mais complicada. Embora o tamanho dos polígonos de desmatamento seja inferior ao vizinho Mato Grosso, o ritmo da devastação está claramente acelerado. Nos três primeiros meses, o estado atingiu um total de 65 km2, índice duas vezes maior do que no ano passado. Já no acumulado de agosto a março, o salto é de 76%, ou 1362 km2 devastados. A razão para tanto é que o combate à ilegalidade no Pará tem sido bastante focado no setor madeireiro. Todos os planos de manejo no estado foram suspensos pelo Ibama. Isso, entretanto, só deve trazer resultados no médio prazo. “Se o governo quiser resultados no curto prazo, tem que enfrentar a pecuária”, analisa o pesquisador do Imazon, Adalberto Veríssimo.
Outro ponto lembrado por ele é a dimensão territorial do Pará: equivalente a toda região Sudeste do país. Portanto, ações localizadas do governo em municípios como Tailândia e Paragominas podem até ter “efeito psicológico”, mas não vão resolver o problema do estado. “Ainda é cedo para avaliar os impactos das operações do governo, mas eu diria que eles não estão agindo nos municípios críticos”, pondera Veríssimo. A lista do Imazon identifica São Felix do Xingu e Cumaru do Norte como as cidades paraenses que mais desmataram nos últimos oito meses, locais em que a Arco de Fogo ainda não apareceu. A projeção do Imazon para os dados consolidados do desmatamento, que são divulgados pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) em julho, é de que as taxas no Pará serão bem maiores do que no ano passado.
No Mato Grosso, a perspectiva é de que o índice final indique estabilidade em relação a 2007. Ainda assim o quê chama atenção no levantamento do Imazon é o dado de que 94% dos desmatamentos ocorridos são ilegais e em terras privadas, indicação da falha do sistema de licenciamento do governo do estado. De acordo com os dados do SAD, alguns dos municípios que mais desmataram no primeiro trimestre no Mato Grosso foram alvos de ações do governo federal. Entre eles Querência e Marcelândia.
O secretario de Meio Ambiente do Mato Grosso, Luiz Henrique Daldegan, acha que a discussão sobre os números do primeiro trimestre é inócua. Para ele o dado importante é que no acumulado o Mato Grosso teve uma redução de 16%. “Temos que lembrar que o desmatamento caiu de 25 mil km2 para 11 mil km2 nos últimos anos. Não adianta fazer barulho com qualquer dado novo que sai. Vamos discutir o desmatamento quando houver o número do Prodes”, diz o secretário em referência ao monitoramento do INPE que usa imagens de melhor definição e consolida a taxa de desmatamento.
Daldegan afirma que as informações divulgadas pelo Imazon serão checadas em campo, assim como foram feitas com as informações do Sistema de Detecção em Tempo Real do INPE (Deter), anunciadas em janeiro. Em sua avaliação, se o avanço do desmatamento for confirmado no estado, será prova de que o governo federal errou em sua estratégia. “Só comando e controle não vai resolver, todo mundo está fiscalizando e ainda assim aumenta. Cadê a agenda da sustentabilidade do Ministério do Meio Ambiente, a agenda positiva de recuperação de área degradadas, de pagamento de serviços ambientais, sem isso não vamos resolver”, reclama.
Veríssimo, do Imazon, aponta que a restrição do crédito aos proprietários e empresas que cometeram crime ambientais, conforme aprovado no Conselho Monetário Nacional, no mês de março, é um instrumento de controle mais efetivo adotado até o momento pelo governo federal. “Operação policial pode até causar efeito psicológico, mas tem impacto local”, pondera.
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Part 1: Harnessing the Saharan Sun, April 30, 2008, Jens Lubbadeh.
Is Desert Solar Power the Solution to Europe's Energy Crisis?
A tiny fraction of the sun's energy that shines upon the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East could meet all of Europe's electricity demands. The technology to harness the energy already exists. So why is hardly anyone investing in it?
The oil of the 21st century is not buried deep within the earth. Instead, it falls on its surface -- as sunshine.
"The sun is the hidden asset of North Africa and the Middle East," says Gerhard Knies, a spokesman for the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), a network of scientists and politicians from various countries who have taken it upon themselves to solve Europe's energy problem.
Their vision, which they call Desertec, is to turn desert sun into electricity, thereby harnessing inexhaustible, clean and affordable energy.
"We don't have an energy problem," says Hans Müller-Steinhagen, of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). "We have an energy conversion and distribution problem."
Müller-Steinhagen has been commissioned by Germany's Environment Ministry to check the feasibility of Desertec in several studies. His conclusion is that Desertec is a real possibility.
In his studies, he has scrutinized the energy situation in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of the post-oil era. Out of all the alternative energy sources, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: "No energy source even comes close to achieving the same massive energy density as sunshine," Müller-Steinhagen says.
And no other energy source is available over such a large area. Every year, 630,000 terawatt hours in the form of solar energy falls unused on the deserts of the so-called MENA states of the Middle East and North Africa.
In contrast, Europe consumes just 4,000 terawatt hours of energy a year -- a mere 0.6 percent of the unused solar energy falling in the desert.
Powering Europe from the Desert
Europe needs a lot of electricity, but gets little sun. The MENA countries, on the other hand, get a lot of sun, but consume little electricity. So, the solution is simple: The south produces electricity for the north. But how would the enormous energy transfer work? And how do you turn desert sun into electricity?
It's actually relatively easy. Desertec is low-tech -- no expensive nuclear fusion reactors, no CO2-emitting coal power plants, no ultra-thin solar cells. The principle behind it is familiar to every child who has ever burnt a hole in a sheet of paper with a magnifying glass. Curved mirrors known as "parabolic trough collectors" collect sunlight. The energy is used to heat water, generating steam which then drives turbines and generates electricity. That, in a nutshell, is how a solar thermal power plant works.
Energy can be harnessed even at night: Excess heat produced during the day can be stored for several hours in tanks of molten salt. This way the turbines can produce electricity even when the sun is not shining.
Should the Sahara, therefore, be completely covered with mirrors? No, says Müller-Steinhagen, producing a picture by way of an answer. It shows a huge desert in which are drawn three red squares. One square, roughly the size of Austria, is labelled "world." "If this area was covered in parabolic trough power plants, enough energy would be produced to satisfy world demand," he says.
A second square, just a fourth of the size of the first one, is labelled "EU 25," in a reference to the 25 member states the European Union had before Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007. This area could produce enough solar energy to free Europe from dependence on oil, gas and coal. The third area is labelled "D," for Germany. It is merely a small dot.
A Win-Win Situation
Under the plan, the sun-rich states of North Africa and the Middle East would build mirror power plants in the desert and generate electricity. As a side benefit, they could use residual heat to power seawater desalination plants, which would provide drinking water in large quantities for the arid countries. At the same time they would obtain a valuable export product: environmentally friendly electricity.
"The MENA countries are in a three-way win situation," says Müller-Steinhagen. But Europe also wins: it frees itself from its dependence (more...) on Russian gas, rising oil prices, radioactive waste and CO2-spewing coal power plants.
For countries such as Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan and especially Middle Eastern states, the solar power business could be the start of a truly sunny future. It could create jobs and build up a sustainable energy industry, which would bring money into these countries and enable investment in infrastructure.
In fact, Desertec is no futuristic vision -- the technology already exists and is tried and tested. Since the mid 1980s, solar thermal power plants have been operating trouble-free in the US states of California and Nevada. More plants are currently being built in southern Spain. And building work has started on solar thermal power plants in Algeria, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
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Part 2: Making the Switch, Jens Lubbadeh.
Müller-Steinhagen has calculated what the energy switch would cost: To generate 15 percent of Europe's electricity demand, around €400 billion ($623 billion) would be needed by 2050 to pay for the construction of solar thermal power plants. The power plants would cost €350 billion, while €50 billion would have to be spent on an electricity grid network to transport electricity from North Africa to Europe.
This would require a network of high-voltage direct current transmission lines -- also a technology which exists and is tried and tested. It is the only way to transport electricity for thousands of kilometers with relatively little energy loss.
But if it is all so simple, then why do countries with enough solar radiation build expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants, instead of investing in this simple technology? Are there not deserts in the US? Why are Americans not freeing themselves from their oil dependence through solar power? And why has no one really started to exploit the technology?
"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
Cheap oil has stood in the way of a solar thermal breakthrough. Although sunshine abounds in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other countries, so does oil. However these rich countries could also afford to build solar thermal power plants. "In Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, electricity costs half a cent per kilowatt hour," Müller-Steinhagen says. "This makes it hard to convince people of the benefits of solar thermal power."
Lack of Awareness
"There is a lack of awareness in MENA countries about what this technology can do," says Samer Zureikat, founder of the Frankfurt-based renewable energy company MENA Cleantech. "If you talk to people there about solar power, they think of small solar panels that power street lamps. They don't think of enormous power plants that can supply enough electricity for a whole country."
For Zureikat, the switch to solar thermal energy is an inescapable necessity: "Europe needs energy. North Africa and the Middle East need water -- and fast."
Müller-Steinhagen agrees with him. In a different study, he investigated the region's future need for water and the possibility of desalinating sea water with solar thermal-produced energy. The study's conclusion was that water shortages in the MENA region would triple by 2050.
The interest in solar thermal power is slowly growing. Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based firm which invests in alternative energy, is a partner in a project constructing three solar thermal power plants in Spain. It also wants to build them in its own country.
Admittedly, solar thermal-produced power is still not competitive. However, conventionally generated energy is getting more and more expensive -- and solar thermal power gets cheaper with the construction of every new power plant. By 2020 at the latest, Müller-Steinhagen predicts, solar-thermal electricity will be the same price as fossil fuel-generated energy. On top of that, solar thermal has greater price stability as the sun yields unlimited and free energy, which does not require elaborate and costly raw material extraction.
Solar Sarko
Müller-Steinhagen wants people to take another look at the technology -- and quickly. Now is the right time, he says: Europe's old power plants are coming to the end of their operational lives and new ones have to be built. These investments will decide the future of our power, given that the operational lives of power plants extend into decades.
And politicians are starting to take an interest in the idea. The German government is supporting it. On the European level, German members of the European Parliament such as the Green Party's Rebecca Harms and Matthias Groote from the center-left Social Democratic Party are throwing their weight behind Desertec.
Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also suddenly discovered solar energy, despite his recent sales of nuclear power plants to North African states. "We are being inundated with enquiries from France," says Müller-Steinhagen. Sarkozy wants to promote solar energy within his controversial Union for the Mediterranean (more...), a proposal for a loose alliance of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and other EU states.
SPD politician Groote is hoping for "new initiatives when France takes over the EU presidency in the second half of the year." However, his Green Party colleague Harms warns against too much optimism: "There is still only a minority in the European Parliament promoting solar thermal power. We are still a long way from a unified energy policy."
Too many questions remain unanswered. Who will pay for the electricity network? Who would own it? Could the various stakeholders agree on a collective guaranteed price for solar thermal electricity fed into the grid?
The latter issue is especially important for investors and industry. Wolfgang Knothe, a board member of MAN Ferrostaal, an industrial services provider, says: "We need political security to get going."
A lack of money is not the problem. "Renewable energy is in," says Nikolai Ulrich of HSH Nordbank. "It is relatively easy at the moment to get investment for renewable energy projects."
Desertec is still only a vision. But visions are needed, says Knothe: "Without Kennedy's dream, there wouldn't have been a moon landing."
Then, the will to make the vision reality existed, although the technology did not. With Desertec, it is exactly the reverse: The technology is available -- but the will is missing.
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TREC - Clean Power from Deserts.
Down.
Good News on May Day.
Clipping:
Memory - Four Items Max.
Commentary, Biofuels: running on empty.
A tendência da devastação.
Part 1: Harnessing the Saharan Sun.
Part 2: Making the Switch.
TREC - Clean Power from Deserts.
*************************************************************
Memory - Four Items Max, Hayley Mick, April 29, 2008.
Um ... what was I supposed to tell you again?
Oh, right. New research suggests our capacity to remember things is lower than previously thought.
Our working memories may max out at three or four items, according to a study published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Earlier research had pegged that number at about seven. But the study by University of Missouri researchers suggests the true number is lower when people are not allowed to use memory aids, such as grouping items together or repeating them over and over.
"There are around three or four slots in which basic information can go," said University of Missouri psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-authored the study. For example, people tend to be able to remember 10-digit numbers, but they're helped because those 10 digits are often presented in groups, he said.
Similarly, if someone tells you a story, you won't remember it word for word. But you can recall the gist of it because you've grouped all those words into a few basic ideas, he said.
Definitions for working memory vary, but it is generally defined as a more active form of short-term memory. Working memory relates to information we can pay attention to and consciously manipulate.
The study adds more ammunition to the theory that our working memories have finite capacities.
"This has many applications to real life," Dr. Cowan said. For example, when drivers get into traffic accidents while talking on their cellphones, that may have more to do with cognitive overload than a physical inability to juggle a phone and grip the steering wheel at the same time.
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Commentary, Biofuels: running on empty, Margaret Wente, April 29, 2008.
So what if there's a global food crisis? John Baird, our Environment Minister, is sticking by his guns -- er, corn. The Chrysler minivan he drives is powered by fuel that's 85-per-cent ethanol. "My car is a great one," he says proudly, "and I am not planning on changing it."
In order to prove their greenness, politicians have stampeded to embrace biofuels. Biofuels are the main plank in Stephen Harper's environmental platform, and the Tories have pledged $1.5-billion in subsidies to stimulate production. Ontario's Liberal government is spending $520-million to make sure gasoline sold in the province contains lots of lovely ethanol -- 5 per cent today, with more to come. Dalton McGuinty, the Premier, says there are no plans to reconsider.
Only yesterday, biofuels were supposed to be the virtuous alternative to fossil fuels and the answer to energy self-sufficiency. But now, they've been fingered as a culprit in the global food crisis. As governments demand higher biofuel content, farmers around the world have switched from growing food to growing fuel. And that makes all food crops more expensive. Britain's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, warns that the rush to biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions. Britain's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has called for a major re-evaluation. The head of the United Nations World Food Program cautions that the growing use of biofuels is driving up its operating costs and hurting its "capacity to respond to hunger."
The new alliance against biofuels is an unlikely mix of environmentalists, aid agencies, scientists and economists from all across the ideological spectrum. The numbers they cite are astonishing. This year, about 100 million tons of grain - enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year - will be converted from food into fuel. Around 30 per cent of the U.S. corn crop now goes to fuel. But the environmental payoff from corn-based ethanol is small. Even with maximum production, by the year 2030 it will still meet only 6 per cent of the U.S. demand for transport fuel.
Not everyone has cooled to biofuels. Farmers love them. So do agribusiness giants like Archer Daniels Midland, which are harvesting a bumper crop of profits from taxpayers' money. Government subsidies are so enormous they could amount to half or more of ethanol's cost of production. We're talking billions. Meantime, the UN food program has cut back food aid because its costs have gone up 40 per cent since last June.
The switch to biofuels could even speed up global warming. Many researchers argue that if the full environmental cost is factored in, almost all the biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels. Countries like Indonesia are razing forests to produce palm oil. And there's a domino effect. As more land is converted to biofuels in North America, agriculture to meet food demand expands in other parts of the world. "And that's done in a significant part by burning down forests and plowing up grasslands," says Princeton researcher Tim Searchinger. He figures that when you add in all the global effects, over a 30-year span biofuels will end up creating twice as much carbon dioxide as the same amount of gasoline would.
Biofuels aren't the only villain behind soaring food prices, of course. But they're a great example of the law of unintended consequences, which tends to work overtime whenever politicians try to come up with politically attractive, simplistic solutions to horrendously complex problems. I'm pretty sure that starving the poor, plowing the Amazon, and enriching agribusiness weren't exactly what John Baird, Dalton McGuinty and the European Union had in mind when they set out to save the planet and court the green vote. Time for a rethink, guys. This cure is worse than the disease.
*************************************************************
A tendência da devastação, Gustavo Faleiros, 30.04.2008.
A estratégia do governo federal de mobilizar grandes efetivos do Exército, Polícia Federal e do Ibama para conter o desmatamento na Amazônia parece ainda não surtir efeito. Desde janeiro, mês em que a megaoperação Arco de Fogo chegou aos municípios campeões em devastação, a derrubada de árvores não cessou. Pelo contrário, a destruição recrudesceu. De acordo com Instituto do Meio Ambiente e do Homem da Amazônia (Imazom), no primeiro trimestre, apesar das chuvas, imagens de satélite revelaram que no Pará e Mato Grosso o total de áreas desmatadas foi mais do que o dobro do mesmo período do ano passado.
O Imazon, através de seu Sistema de Acompanhamento do Desmatamento (SAD), indicou que a soma das áreas devastadas nos dois estados passou de 77 km2 no ano passado para 214 km2 em 2008. O Mato Grosso responde por boa parte deste total, ou 149 km2. Apesar disso, no acumulado desde agosto (mês em que se inicia a contagem anual do desmatamento) o estado apresenta redução de 16% em comparação ao mesmo período (agosto-março) de 2007.
No Pará a situação é mais complicada. Embora o tamanho dos polígonos de desmatamento seja inferior ao vizinho Mato Grosso, o ritmo da devastação está claramente acelerado. Nos três primeiros meses, o estado atingiu um total de 65 km2, índice duas vezes maior do que no ano passado. Já no acumulado de agosto a março, o salto é de 76%, ou 1362 km2 devastados. A razão para tanto é que o combate à ilegalidade no Pará tem sido bastante focado no setor madeireiro. Todos os planos de manejo no estado foram suspensos pelo Ibama. Isso, entretanto, só deve trazer resultados no médio prazo. “Se o governo quiser resultados no curto prazo, tem que enfrentar a pecuária”, analisa o pesquisador do Imazon, Adalberto Veríssimo.
Outro ponto lembrado por ele é a dimensão territorial do Pará: equivalente a toda região Sudeste do país. Portanto, ações localizadas do governo em municípios como Tailândia e Paragominas podem até ter “efeito psicológico”, mas não vão resolver o problema do estado. “Ainda é cedo para avaliar os impactos das operações do governo, mas eu diria que eles não estão agindo nos municípios críticos”, pondera Veríssimo. A lista do Imazon identifica São Felix do Xingu e Cumaru do Norte como as cidades paraenses que mais desmataram nos últimos oito meses, locais em que a Arco de Fogo ainda não apareceu. A projeção do Imazon para os dados consolidados do desmatamento, que são divulgados pelo Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) em julho, é de que as taxas no Pará serão bem maiores do que no ano passado.
No Mato Grosso, a perspectiva é de que o índice final indique estabilidade em relação a 2007. Ainda assim o quê chama atenção no levantamento do Imazon é o dado de que 94% dos desmatamentos ocorridos são ilegais e em terras privadas, indicação da falha do sistema de licenciamento do governo do estado. De acordo com os dados do SAD, alguns dos municípios que mais desmataram no primeiro trimestre no Mato Grosso foram alvos de ações do governo federal. Entre eles Querência e Marcelândia.
O secretario de Meio Ambiente do Mato Grosso, Luiz Henrique Daldegan, acha que a discussão sobre os números do primeiro trimestre é inócua. Para ele o dado importante é que no acumulado o Mato Grosso teve uma redução de 16%. “Temos que lembrar que o desmatamento caiu de 25 mil km2 para 11 mil km2 nos últimos anos. Não adianta fazer barulho com qualquer dado novo que sai. Vamos discutir o desmatamento quando houver o número do Prodes”, diz o secretário em referência ao monitoramento do INPE que usa imagens de melhor definição e consolida a taxa de desmatamento.
Daldegan afirma que as informações divulgadas pelo Imazon serão checadas em campo, assim como foram feitas com as informações do Sistema de Detecção em Tempo Real do INPE (Deter), anunciadas em janeiro. Em sua avaliação, se o avanço do desmatamento for confirmado no estado, será prova de que o governo federal errou em sua estratégia. “Só comando e controle não vai resolver, todo mundo está fiscalizando e ainda assim aumenta. Cadê a agenda da sustentabilidade do Ministério do Meio Ambiente, a agenda positiva de recuperação de área degradadas, de pagamento de serviços ambientais, sem isso não vamos resolver”, reclama.
Veríssimo, do Imazon, aponta que a restrição do crédito aos proprietários e empresas que cometeram crime ambientais, conforme aprovado no Conselho Monetário Nacional, no mês de março, é um instrumento de controle mais efetivo adotado até o momento pelo governo federal. “Operação policial pode até causar efeito psicológico, mas tem impacto local”, pondera.
*************************************************************
Part 1: Harnessing the Saharan Sun, April 30, 2008, Jens Lubbadeh.
Is Desert Solar Power the Solution to Europe's Energy Crisis?
A tiny fraction of the sun's energy that shines upon the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East could meet all of Europe's electricity demands. The technology to harness the energy already exists. So why is hardly anyone investing in it?
The oil of the 21st century is not buried deep within the earth. Instead, it falls on its surface -- as sunshine.
"The sun is the hidden asset of North Africa and the Middle East," says Gerhard Knies, a spokesman for the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), a network of scientists and politicians from various countries who have taken it upon themselves to solve Europe's energy problem.
Their vision, which they call Desertec, is to turn desert sun into electricity, thereby harnessing inexhaustible, clean and affordable energy.
"We don't have an energy problem," says Hans Müller-Steinhagen, of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). "We have an energy conversion and distribution problem."
Müller-Steinhagen has been commissioned by Germany's Environment Ministry to check the feasibility of Desertec in several studies. His conclusion is that Desertec is a real possibility.
In his studies, he has scrutinized the energy situation in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from the point of view of the post-oil era. Out of all the alternative energy sources, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: "No energy source even comes close to achieving the same massive energy density as sunshine," Müller-Steinhagen says.
And no other energy source is available over such a large area. Every year, 630,000 terawatt hours in the form of solar energy falls unused on the deserts of the so-called MENA states of the Middle East and North Africa.
In contrast, Europe consumes just 4,000 terawatt hours of energy a year -- a mere 0.6 percent of the unused solar energy falling in the desert.
Powering Europe from the Desert
Europe needs a lot of electricity, but gets little sun. The MENA countries, on the other hand, get a lot of sun, but consume little electricity. So, the solution is simple: The south produces electricity for the north. But how would the enormous energy transfer work? And how do you turn desert sun into electricity?
It's actually relatively easy. Desertec is low-tech -- no expensive nuclear fusion reactors, no CO2-emitting coal power plants, no ultra-thin solar cells. The principle behind it is familiar to every child who has ever burnt a hole in a sheet of paper with a magnifying glass. Curved mirrors known as "parabolic trough collectors" collect sunlight. The energy is used to heat water, generating steam which then drives turbines and generates electricity. That, in a nutshell, is how a solar thermal power plant works.
Energy can be harnessed even at night: Excess heat produced during the day can be stored for several hours in tanks of molten salt. This way the turbines can produce electricity even when the sun is not shining.
Should the Sahara, therefore, be completely covered with mirrors? No, says Müller-Steinhagen, producing a picture by way of an answer. It shows a huge desert in which are drawn three red squares. One square, roughly the size of Austria, is labelled "world." "If this area was covered in parabolic trough power plants, enough energy would be produced to satisfy world demand," he says.
A second square, just a fourth of the size of the first one, is labelled "EU 25," in a reference to the 25 member states the European Union had before Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007. This area could produce enough solar energy to free Europe from dependence on oil, gas and coal. The third area is labelled "D," for Germany. It is merely a small dot.
A Win-Win Situation
Under the plan, the sun-rich states of North Africa and the Middle East would build mirror power plants in the desert and generate electricity. As a side benefit, they could use residual heat to power seawater desalination plants, which would provide drinking water in large quantities for the arid countries. At the same time they would obtain a valuable export product: environmentally friendly electricity.
"The MENA countries are in a three-way win situation," says Müller-Steinhagen. But Europe also wins: it frees itself from its dependence (more...) on Russian gas, rising oil prices, radioactive waste and CO2-spewing coal power plants.
For countries such as Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan and especially Middle Eastern states, the solar power business could be the start of a truly sunny future. It could create jobs and build up a sustainable energy industry, which would bring money into these countries and enable investment in infrastructure.
In fact, Desertec is no futuristic vision -- the technology already exists and is tried and tested. Since the mid 1980s, solar thermal power plants have been operating trouble-free in the US states of California and Nevada. More plants are currently being built in southern Spain. And building work has started on solar thermal power plants in Algeria, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
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Part 2: Making the Switch, Jens Lubbadeh.
Müller-Steinhagen has calculated what the energy switch would cost: To generate 15 percent of Europe's electricity demand, around €400 billion ($623 billion) would be needed by 2050 to pay for the construction of solar thermal power plants. The power plants would cost €350 billion, while €50 billion would have to be spent on an electricity grid network to transport electricity from North Africa to Europe.
This would require a network of high-voltage direct current transmission lines -- also a technology which exists and is tried and tested. It is the only way to transport electricity for thousands of kilometers with relatively little energy loss.
But if it is all so simple, then why do countries with enough solar radiation build expensive and dangerous nuclear power plants, instead of investing in this simple technology? Are there not deserts in the US? Why are Americans not freeing themselves from their oil dependence through solar power? And why has no one really started to exploit the technology?
"After the solar thermal power plants were built in California and Nevada, people lost interest in solar thermal power because fossil fuels became unbeatably cheap," says Müller-Steinhagen. Solar power was neglected even though the US was in the advantageous position, compared to the MENA region, of being a single political entity rather than a conglomerate of countries with differing interests. The US could achieve energy self-sufficiency through solar thermal power plants in the sunny south-west. But it was only recently that scientists writing in the respected magazine Scientific American unveiled a "Solar Grand Plan" for the US.
Cheap oil has stood in the way of a solar thermal breakthrough. Although sunshine abounds in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other countries, so does oil. However these rich countries could also afford to build solar thermal power plants. "In Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, electricity costs half a cent per kilowatt hour," Müller-Steinhagen says. "This makes it hard to convince people of the benefits of solar thermal power."
Lack of Awareness
"There is a lack of awareness in MENA countries about what this technology can do," says Samer Zureikat, founder of the Frankfurt-based renewable energy company MENA Cleantech. "If you talk to people there about solar power, they think of small solar panels that power street lamps. They don't think of enormous power plants that can supply enough electricity for a whole country."
For Zureikat, the switch to solar thermal energy is an inescapable necessity: "Europe needs energy. North Africa and the Middle East need water -- and fast."
Müller-Steinhagen agrees with him. In a different study, he investigated the region's future need for water and the possibility of desalinating sea water with solar thermal-produced energy. The study's conclusion was that water shortages in the MENA region would triple by 2050.
The interest in solar thermal power is slowly growing. Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based firm which invests in alternative energy, is a partner in a project constructing three solar thermal power plants in Spain. It also wants to build them in its own country.
Admittedly, solar thermal-produced power is still not competitive. However, conventionally generated energy is getting more and more expensive -- and solar thermal power gets cheaper with the construction of every new power plant. By 2020 at the latest, Müller-Steinhagen predicts, solar-thermal electricity will be the same price as fossil fuel-generated energy. On top of that, solar thermal has greater price stability as the sun yields unlimited and free energy, which does not require elaborate and costly raw material extraction.
Solar Sarko
Müller-Steinhagen wants people to take another look at the technology -- and quickly. Now is the right time, he says: Europe's old power plants are coming to the end of their operational lives and new ones have to be built. These investments will decide the future of our power, given that the operational lives of power plants extend into decades.
And politicians are starting to take an interest in the idea. The German government is supporting it. On the European level, German members of the European Parliament such as the Green Party's Rebecca Harms and Matthias Groote from the center-left Social Democratic Party are throwing their weight behind Desertec.
Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also suddenly discovered solar energy, despite his recent sales of nuclear power plants to North African states. "We are being inundated with enquiries from France," says Müller-Steinhagen. Sarkozy wants to promote solar energy within his controversial Union for the Mediterranean (more...), a proposal for a loose alliance of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and other EU states.
SPD politician Groote is hoping for "new initiatives when France takes over the EU presidency in the second half of the year." However, his Green Party colleague Harms warns against too much optimism: "There is still only a minority in the European Parliament promoting solar thermal power. We are still a long way from a unified energy policy."
Too many questions remain unanswered. Who will pay for the electricity network? Who would own it? Could the various stakeholders agree on a collective guaranteed price for solar thermal electricity fed into the grid?
The latter issue is especially important for investors and industry. Wolfgang Knothe, a board member of MAN Ferrostaal, an industrial services provider, says: "We need political security to get going."
A lack of money is not the problem. "Renewable energy is in," says Nikolai Ulrich of HSH Nordbank. "It is relatively easy at the moment to get investment for renewable energy projects."
Desertec is still only a vision. But visions are needed, says Knothe: "Without Kennedy's dream, there wouldn't have been a moon landing."
Then, the will to make the vision reality existed, although the technology did not. With Desertec, it is exactly the reverse: The technology is available -- but the will is missing.
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TREC - Clean Power from Deserts.
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