|
With the objective of developing a cleaner solution for urban public transportation in Brazil, the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Metropolitan Company of Urban Transport of São Paulo (EMTU) launched the project "Energetic-Environmental Strategy: Hydrogen Cell Powered Bus."
The initiative is a partnership with the United Nations Development Program (PNUD), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Projects Funding Body (FINEP). The project was officially launched on Tuesday, November 14, in São Bernardo do Campo, in the Greater São Paulo, in southeastern Brazil. The first bus powered by a hydrogen cell will be 12 meters long, with three doors, capacity for 90 passengers, and will have air conditioning and low floor for greater passenger comfort and safety. The bus will have hybrid electric traction - cell plus battery - and autonomy for 300 kilometers. The project, with US$ 16 million worth of investment, consists of the purchase, operation and maintenance of up to five vehicles and a station for hydrogen production and fuel supply for the buses, which will be used on the São Mateus/Jabaquara line in São Paulo, for four years. The buses will start running in and experimental phase next year. "The Metropolitan Area of São Paulo concentrates the world's largest bus fleet, with great impact on the environment, and this was crucial for the choice of Brazil by PNUD/GEF as the center for development of clean passenger transportation technologies," said Márcio Schettino, Development Manager at EMTU, who said that the São Paulo fleet is estimated to include 30,000 buses. "Imagine a city without car and bus noise, with fresh air and an improvement of living conditions for all the population. These are the direct benefits that hydrogen powered vehicles can offer the society, because they use extremely clean fuel, which may be obtained from many renewable sources, such as solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric energy and biomass (ethanol)," he said. According to Schettino, the equipment for hydrogen production will be installed in the garage of the Metra Concession holder, in the city of São Bernardo do Campo, with technical support from Petrobras. The hydrogen will be produced by means of water electrolysis to separate oxygen and hydrogen molecules. The former is going to be released into the atmosphere, and the hydrogen is going to be compacted in order to supply fuel to the bus. This fuel is totally clean, because it releases water vapor. Electrolysis was the technique chosen for obtaining hydrogen because it is a clean process, a well-known technology that is commercially available. Another relevant factor for the choice of electrolysis was the fact that Brazil has a great capacity for generating electric energy by means of hydroelectric plants, which account for 92% of all Brazilian electricity. Consortium The project features the participation of a consortium made up of eight companies: AES Eletropaulo, Baallard Power Systems, EPRI International, Hydrogenics, Marcopolo, Nucellsys, Petrobras and Tuttotrasporti, worldwide leading companies in their segments. "An important aspect of this project is to make the hydrogen fuel cell accessible for large-scale production and consumption, therefore the Brazilian project will have singular, pioneering technical features," says Mônica Saraiva Panik, project manager for the consortium. Experiments with hydrogen-powered vehicles are being carried out worldwide. The great advantage of the Brazilian project is the use of fuel cells applied to automobiles - which are in an advanced development stage, and are currently quite compact and light, along with a bank of batteries, thus making the vehicle hybrid (cell/battery). This system enables a reduction in hydrogen consumption by making use of energy used for braking the bus. Expected average hydrogen consumption is 14 kilograms of hydrogen for every 100 kilometers. "One of our goals is to make the hydrogen powered bus into a commercially competitive vehicle compared with the diesel fuelled ones," claims Schettino. In diesel fuelled buses, energy efficiency is 30%, which means that, for every three liters of fuel, only one is effectively applied into vehicle traction. In the hydrogen bus, on the other hand, efficiency is 50%, with zero pollutant emission.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose.