After fourteen hours of air travel, including a layover spent entirely in Charlotte's security checkpoint, I finally arrived in Philadelphia Sunday morning. There really is no place like home, even if you have to travel through customs, immigration, and security to get there.
I truly enjoyed my six months in Brazil. It wasn't always easy to adapt to the culture or to take care of things at home while abroad, but with every challenge, I grew wiser, more resourceful, and usually more flexible. Six months was just the right amount of time to complete a fair bit of my dissertation research, delve into the Portuguese language, and begin to understand Brazilian culture.
Now it is time for me to finish my dissertation in Pittsburgh. I will miss all the friends I made during my stay in Rio, but I know that many of us will stay in touch. I will also miss walking to the beach, taste-testing all the different tropical fruits, and of course, I will miss the tropical sun. (Pittsburgh could use some of that sun!) I will not miss Rio's public transit, or lack thereof, nor the 4am street-sweepers or 10pm trash-collectors. It all balances out in the end.
This blog is now finished. You can page through old entries by clicking the "Older Posts" link at the bottom of the screen. You can also view my photos from Brazil (and other trips I've taken) on my Picasa homepage. Feel free to leave comments on both sites.
Thank you all for joining me along this journey.
Até a próxima vez. Until next time.
Briana
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Sugarcane & Ethanol in Avaré
May 15, 2011
I am still pinching myself to make sure I didn't just dream this past week. It took me a month of e-mails to seven different contacts to arrange this visit to Avaré, but looking back on the experience, I can say that every minute of preparation was completely worth it.
The purpose of the trip was to learn firsthand how sugarcane ethanol is produced in Brazil. Therefore, I arranged a tour of an ethanol plant and of the adjacent sugarcane fields. However, sugarcane fields are notoriously out in the middle of nowhere, so I needed a place to stay. That's [partly] where the organic fruit farm comes in. The farm's director, Luciano Bopp, graciously offered me free lodging and board at the farm's guest house, pictured at the top of this entry. More than "just" a place to stay, Luciano also gave me a tour of the organic fruit farm and a tour of the sugarcane fields, which the farm rents out to the ethanol factory that I visited the next day.
My schedule was approximately as follows:
Friday, April 29: Take bus from Rio to São Paulo (Tiête station, 6 hours). Take Metrô to hostel in São Paulo and spend the weekend in the city.
Monday morning: Take bus from São Paulo (Barra Funda station, 3.5 hours) to Avaré. Meet Luciano at the bus station and travel 45 minutes by car to the farm.
Monday afternoon & evening: Explore farm (fruits + sugarcane) with Luciano.
Tuesday, all day: Tour ethanol factory in Cerqueira César, a municipality near Avaré, and have lunch with Director José Meyer.
Wednesday: Take bus from Avaré to São Paulo (Barra Funda station). Transfer to Tiête station in São Paulo. Take bus from Tiête station to Rio. (15 hours total)
Wednesday, midnight: Arrive in Rio. Collapse in bed in Gávea for a few hours before returning to campus and class Thursday morning.
Looking at this summarized schedule, it does seem like a lot of travel for two full days of tours. It was. However, there wasn't really a shorter way to do it (aside from the weekend in São Paulo, of course). There is no direct bus from Rio to Avaré, so a transfer between bus stations in São Paulo is required. Additionally, Avaré doesn't have any public transportation--none that goes out to the farms, anyway--so a car was required there, too. Furthermore, flying wouldn't have made any sense at all, so in the end, I just took the opportunity to enjoy the road trip to the fullest.
But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind a bit and talk about Avaré:
Luciano (below) is the current director of the organic farm in Avaré, Fazenda Takaoka, and is one of the people that made the entire trip possible. Our tour of the farm started out in the fruit fields, where he explained to me the basics of organic farming and the details of how organic farming works at Fazenda Takaoka. One of the points he stressed was that production on an organic farm functions basically the same way that it does on conventional industrial farm -- just without the chemicals. For fertilizer, they use compost and occasionally some other natural fertilizer product, and for insecticides/pesticides, they use pheromones from butterflies and moths, which just keep bugs away from the crops instead of killing the bugs altogether. The farm does occasionally allow other groups to carry out experiments on the fields. Below, Luciano was showing me an insecticide experiment from a local NGO.
There are six different types of fruit grown on the farm: peaches, plums, nectarines, guavas, lychees, and atemoyas. This year, insects and especially caterpillars have been attacking the guavas. Nearly every guava has had some sort of damage, so the white bags shown in the tree below were designed to protect the guavas while they ripen on the tree.
After touring the fruit fields, we continued onto two other fields: corn and royal palm (the latter of which I had coincidentally tasted in a pastry for the first time before I left for Avaré). Luciano insisted that the corn grown for people was the same corn that was fed to livestock; the livestock corn was just harvested later. I'm almost positive that this is not the case in the U.S.--that two distinctly different types of corn are grown--but apparently, in Brazil, growing just one type works perfectly fine.
After the corn debate, we moved onto the sugarcane (below).
When Luciano and I visited, most of the sugarcane field was muddy due to irrigation activities. The fields are irrigated using what is essentially a giant portable hose, the reel of which is what I'm sitting on in the picture below. This portable setup allows the fields to be irrigated semi-automatically with water and fertilizing nutrients, such as recycled vinasse (a byproduct of ethanol production), being supplied through the pipelines on either side of the base.
After touring the sugarcane fields, I visited the combined sugar mill and ethanol factory, Usina Rio Pardo, pictured below.
"Usina" in Portuguese means "mill," "factory," or "refinery." "Rio Pardo" is the name of a nearby river, where "Rio" means "river" and "Pardo" means "brown" or "mulatto." The river unfortunately holds up to its name: its water is a muddy brown due to eroded sediment along its banks and run-off from nearby farm fields and factories. It should be noted, however, that Usina Rio Pardo takes special care to minimize contamination of the river and other waterways, and actually recycles much of the water used throughout the factory.
I had two guides for my tour of Usina Rio Pardo. Marta (left) was my main guide. An architect by training and accountant by day, Marta was my English-language translator. I am proud to say I did most of the tour in Portuguese, but there were parts where I had no idea what the person was describing or how to phrase a question, and for these parts, Marta's translations were absolutely critical. Since Marta lived in the U.S. for 13 years, we also reminisced about things we missed from the States. At the top of the list were: Girl Scout cookies (Samoas for Marta), Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. Our conversation made me start thinking about everything else I miss ... oops. My second guide for much of the day was one of the plant's engineers. He guided us through the actual machinery portions of the plant, once we donned our hard hats, of course. Some of the main pictures from the tour are below. The sugarcane arrives from the fields in what looks like a series of boxcars. Each car of cane is dumped onto a huge conveyer belt (with sides) and is transported through the various processing stages.
People at the plant always know how much sugarcane is being harvested and processed, and where each batch is currently located, thanks to a sophisticated GIS system of real-time data, field maps, and video images. Each computer screen below shows a different type of information being collected: amount of sugarcane harvested per hour (top center), descriptions of the harvesting equipment and their real-time locations (bottom left), and hourly precipatation data plus real-time video images (bottom right).
Once the sugarcane is harvested, it can begin to be processed into ethanol. First, sugarcane juice is extracted from the stalks. The juice is the base for the ethanol. The outer fibrous material of the stalks is burned to produce electricity for the rest of the factory and for a nearby town. Through a series of filtration, evaporation, and fermentation processes, a molasses-like substance is produced. At this point, about half of the product is separated to produce table sugar and the other half continues to be manufactured into ethanol.
Below is a sample of the liquid before it is fully fermented (8 hours required). Antibiotics are added to the liquid to kill the bacteria and other microorganisms present at this stage.
The sugarcane that is not processed into ethanol is made into table sugar. Below are trays of pre-crystallized sugar and a sample of the almost-crystallized molasses. Unsurprisingly, this was the sweetest smelling segment of the tour. I had a chance to taste the sugar earlier in the day and it tasted exactly as it smelled.
In addition to producing ethanol and table sugar, Usina Rio Pardo also carries out its own laboratory testing, mainly to control the quality of its product. The pictures below are from the plant's lab. Most of the testing deals with microbiological control and variations in composition. The Brazilian government requires very little, if any, of this information to be reported, so the testing conducted at the lab is primarily for internal knowledge and to find ways of improving the product.
After touring the lab, the indoor departments, and the plant itself, it was time for lunch! Marta and I joined the Director José Meyer and about eight other employees and visitors in a private dining room, where we had a chance to share conversation, learn more about each other's work, and simply enjoy one another's company.
And ... that was the day! After lunch, I sat down and filled in all the gaps in my notes while I waited for Luciano to pick me up and drive me back to the farm. (The only trouble with being without a car and/or public transportation is that you always have to rely on someone for everything!) I was exhausted at the end of the day, but extremely grateful for the tour. I went to bed that night infinitely more knowledgeable about sugarcane and ethanol production than I had been when I woke up that morning.
Anytime you go on a tour or learn something new, there is always more to learn. The tour of Usina Rio Pardo was no exception and I now find myself reading various outside sources to make sure I understood everything exactly right. Below, as a bonus for those of you who understand Portuguese, are two short YouTube videos about Usina Rio Pardo (Part I & Part II), featuring Director José Meyer:
On Wednesday morning, I returned to the bus station in Avaré and settled in with my notebook and some snacks for the trip back to Rio, via São Paulo. The bus arrived in São Paulo on time (at the Barra Funda station), but after I transferred to the Tiête station to catch the bus to Rio, there was just one problem: the bus to Rio never arrived. After speaking with various officials at the Tiête bus terminal, we finally figured out what was wrong: I was waiting for a bus arrival, not departure. That is, somehow I ended up with two tickets from Rio to São Paulo and no tickets from São Paulo to Rio! It wasn't a catstrophe--I just went upstairs and exchanged the ticket for the next bus leaving for Rio--but it did mean that I had to wait an extra three hours at the bus terminal and didn't get back to Rio until 2:30 in the morning. It wasn't fun, but it could have been worse: I could have been forced to spend the night at the Tiête station!
Despite the minor transportation mishap, I am so glad I had the opportunity to visit Avaré. I learned about the agro-industrial sector that drives Brazil's economy, I met some incredibly knowledgeable and friendly people, and I had a chance to relax for a few days on an organic farm. I couldn't have asked for anything more! If any of you happen to ever find yourself in São Paulo or Brazil and would like to see some of these places for yourself, just ask me. I heartily recommend visiting Fazenda Takaoka and Usina Rio Pardo and would be delighted to make the connections!
First day at UFRJ
March 15, 2011
Today was my first day at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). I'll admit, I've been a bit nervous because none of the previous students from my program in Pittsburgh attended UFRJ; they all did their research rotations at either the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) or at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC). Although UNICAMP is located among the sugarcane fields, making data collection for my sugarcane research super simple, and PUC is literally down the street from where I'm living, UFRJ offers the perfect combination of energy-based engineering and life cycle assessment research for my needs.
The only less-than-optimal UFRJ issue is transportation.
Every time I've told a Brazilian that I am a university student. They ask me: "Oh where? At PUC?" After I tell them, "No, at UFRJ," their next question, without fail, is: "Oh, where do you live?" Rio de Janeiro is divided into two "zones": the North Zone (Zona Norte) and the South Zone (Zona Sul). UFRJ is in the North Zone, about as far north as you can go, since it's on the island of Ilha do Fundão (marked as "Ilha do Governador" on the linked map at the top of this page). Gávea, where I live, is way in the South Zone. It's not as far south as you can go, but it's pretty close. So, why am I living in the South Zone if I'm going to school in the North Zone? Well, as the bus ride confirmed for me today, I wouldn't feel safe living far enough north in the North Zone to make the commute significantly shorter. Parts of the North Zone are perfectly fine, but past a certain point, favelas (shanty towns run by drug lords) dominate the landscape and crime becomes a serious issue. Therefore, it is not uncommon for people at UFRJ to live 30+ minutes by bus from the university. This morning's bus ride, including a transfer, took me an hour and a half from Gávea. (I've heard that there may be a shorter route and am trying to find the details.)
When I arrived at UFRJ's engineering institute, COPPE (pictured below), any doubts I had about the university were immediately put to rest. After being welcomed by one of my advisors--she was running out of the office to teach her first class--I was given a space to work, complete with a computer and two wonderfully helpful office mates, who are also PhD students in the department.
Discussion quickly developed in the office. The topic? Life cycle assessment, Design for Environment, industrial symbiosis, and sustainability systems. I breathed a sigh of relief as a wide smile spread across my face. I'd ended up in the right place after all. Life cycle assessment is the bread and butter of my research and the other topics are major areas of the broader sustainable engineering discipline.
We talked for at least an hour and then I went with another student to the graduate student orientation. Most of the session focused on administrative issues, such as the number and type of course credits required for each degree -- pretty typical stuff. The discussion of dissertation issues was more interesting, and two details in particular. First, PhD students are required to propose their thesis topic within six months of passing their qualifying exam (the exam that allows the Masters student to continue onto the PhD). This seems like a reasonable rule. What I like about it is the deadline of six months; without the deadline, the proposal can be delayed, which then delays the dissertation defense. As they say, time is money. Second, all of the incoming graduate students are required to sign a consent form to formally allow the university to publish any work they do for any of their classes and to publish their theses. The students also sign a form acknowledging copyright law, i.e. promising they won't plagiarize anything, and that they will acknowledge the university and university funding in any presentations and publications. Some of these points are givens at most U.S. universities, but it made quite the impression to see that consent form on the very first day.
After the orientation sessions, the day was already half over. In the afternoon, I was given a schedule of classes so that I could choose one for the semester. The class schedule listed the titles of about 15 classes--some graduate and some undergraduate--with no times, no room numbers, and no descriptions. Apparently you're supposed to be able to fill in the missing information on your own. I think I will take the class, "Renewable Energy Sources." (It's a PhD-level class, but you'd never know from the title. Perhaps the syllabus will be more enlightening.) It will be interesting to see how much Portuguese I actually understand in a native Portuguese-speaking classroom. I also wonder what the test format will be and if the professor will be at all understanding about my lack of language ability. We'll see.
As I was leaving UFRJ this afternoon, I was walking through the atrium and stopped in my tracks when I saw the barrel in the picture below.
They're collecting used vegetable oil for biodiesel! I know that there is a biofuel lab on campus, but I think the collection may be a student- or administration-run effort. I definitely plan to learn more about it and will post here when I do.
After my biofuel-barrel discovery, I took the buses back to Gávea. Before collapsing in bed from an exhausting first day, I happened to look out the window. In the distance was a rainbow -- just barely there, but unmistakable. I thought to myself, "What a perfect ending to the day." What a perfect beginning to the semester.
Preamble
January 4, 2011
The mission: 6 months of research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: February 1 to July 30, 2011. I will be working at the federal university to gather and analyze data, take a relevant engineering class, and improve my Portuguese skills along the way.
The research: measuring land use impacts of sugarcane plantations in the Brazilian cerrado (savannah). Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol, which it uses primarily for transportation fuel. All Brazilian cars run on flex-fuel, which means that their engines can operate on both gas and ethanol. Since ethanol is such a major industry in Brazil, it is profitable for the country to grow as much sugarcane as possible. However, to meet this demand, sugarcane farmers have been expanding their plantations further and further west into the cerrado, which is one of the most critically biodiverse regions of the world. The cattle that once grazed the cerrado are now migrating into the Amazon Rainforest, which cannot support this influx of cattle. Cattle degrade the fragile soils of the forest and produce excess methane emissions, both of which can contribute to global warming. The latest climate talks in Cancún show some hope for slowing the destruction caused by cattle, but a total reversal may no longer be possible. Therefore, we must examine how to best minimize the impacts of both the cattle and the sugarcane. Two useful tools to aid in this examination are life cycle assessment and geographic information systems (explained below).
The tools:
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Geographic information systems (GIS)
LCA is a scientific method used to calculate the environmental impacts of a particular product or process throughout the duration of its lifespan, i.e. from raw material extraction through processing and production, the use phase, and any recycling or disposal. This research looks at the life cycle of sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.
GIS is a set of computer programs, some proprietary and some freeware, that allow the user to display data on geographic maps. Each category of data can have its own layer in GIS and each layer can be turned on and off to create different thematic maps. The power of GIS lies in its geoprocessing capabilities, or the ability to perform complex computations on large amounts of data to create new results. Adding a GIS-component to LCA allows the user to regionalize data collection and calculate environmental impacts for specific geographic areas.
The blog: I plan on using this blog mainly to report about what I'm doing in Brazil and to create a written record to save for the future. You can expect stories about conducting research at the university, cultural events, and of course, the trials and tribulations of living abroad in a new country. If you'd like to read about anything in particular, feel free to leave me a comment. If you enjoy a particular entry, hate it, or have suggestions, leave me a comment, too. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Now let's get this thing started!
The research: measuring land use impacts of sugarcane plantations in the Brazilian cerrado (savannah). Brazil uses sugarcane to produce ethanol, which it uses primarily for transportation fuel. All Brazilian cars run on flex-fuel, which means that their engines can operate on both gas and ethanol. Since ethanol is such a major industry in Brazil, it is profitable for the country to grow as much sugarcane as possible. However, to meet this demand, sugarcane farmers have been expanding their plantations further and further west into the cerrado, which is one of the most critically biodiverse regions of the world. The cattle that once grazed the cerrado are now migrating into the Amazon Rainforest, which cannot support this influx of cattle. Cattle degrade the fragile soils of the forest and produce excess methane emissions, both of which can contribute to global warming. The latest climate talks in Cancún show some hope for slowing the destruction caused by cattle, but a total reversal may no longer be possible. Therefore, we must examine how to best minimize the impacts of both the cattle and the sugarcane. Two useful tools to aid in this examination are life cycle assessment and geographic information systems (explained below).
The tools:
Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Geographic information systems (GIS)
LCA is a scientific method used to calculate the environmental impacts of a particular product or process throughout the duration of its lifespan, i.e. from raw material extraction through processing and production, the use phase, and any recycling or disposal. This research looks at the life cycle of sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil.
GIS is a set of computer programs, some proprietary and some freeware, that allow the user to display data on geographic maps. Each category of data can have its own layer in GIS and each layer can be turned on and off to create different thematic maps. The power of GIS lies in its geoprocessing capabilities, or the ability to perform complex computations on large amounts of data to create new results. Adding a GIS-component to LCA allows the user to regionalize data collection and calculate environmental impacts for specific geographic areas.
The blog: I plan on using this blog mainly to report about what I'm doing in Brazil and to create a written record to save for the future. You can expect stories about conducting research at the university, cultural events, and of course, the trials and tribulations of living abroad in a new country. If you'd like to read about anything in particular, feel free to leave me a comment. If you enjoy a particular entry, hate it, or have suggestions, leave me a comment, too. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Now let's get this thing started!