Last night, a very respectable Ambassador, his country’s Permanent Representative to the UN, when our conversation turned to the UN Secretary-General’s interest in Climate Change, mentioned to me that Mr. Ban Ki-moon showed his interest by going to Brazil, and the Antarctica, before the Valencia and Bali events. I could not hold back, and I expressed my misgivings on the subject, as I have openly mentioned in the past on this website. But, from my angle, the above conversation showed me that I am really delinquent for not having done yet justice to information I gathered in my last trip to Brazil — November 17-24, 2007.

That Trip was related to two very interesting conferences/workshops that had the UN Secretary-General gone to these two meetings, rather then on his photo-stops he made, he could have indeed learned something that could have turned, what we called an ego-trip, to a rather a fact-finding learning experience – as he said.

The “1st Brazilian Workshop on Green Chemistry” in Fortaleza was organized by the Center for Alternative Energy and the Environment (CENEA), headed by Professor Jose Oswaldo Carioca of the Department of Engineering, The University of Ceara at Fortaleza. His organizing committee included scientists from many other institutions in Brazil, and the financial backing came from the Government of the State of Ceara and from organizations and businesses interested in alternate energy technology. Even the Brazilian oil industry – Petrobras – was here to help and participate. Speakers from Brazil and from outside Brazil – included Argentina, Germany, Israel, Italy, Turkey, USA.

The theme was set in the introductory presentation by Professor Carioca as Green Chemistry in the Context of Sustainability with focus on the Brazilian Economy and the Environment — Agribusiness and Green Chemistry.
He, himself a product of the Chemical Engineering Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, was then followed by a long list of presenter from the UFRJ that included Professor Emeritus, Dr. Martin Schmall, a child refugee from Nazi Germany, who eventually established at UFRJ the work on Green Chemistry and most of these presenters were his former students. Just think what Brazil has done in the area of Biofuels, now it will be a pioneer in a new generation of use of biomass inputs for replacement of petrochemicals in many non-fuel uses. For an example I will just pick the use of cashew-nut shells as primary material for many chemicals and chemical products.

Professor Antonio D’Avila presented results from his Green Tech Environmental Technology Laboratory that at UFRJ has now 200 patents and since 2005 is involved in a biodiesel plant — Agropalma.
Professor Adelaide Antunes mentioned the Brazilian start with the Proalcool program that introduced the ethanol fuels, but then moved to the Green Chemistry movement that now includes 12 countries.
Professor Peter Seidel saw in Sustainability a trade-off between Developed and Developing countries in a Brundtland Commission sense, and having moved in that direction at an early stage, he said that Brazil is now in an enviable position. He made reference to an article in Chemical Engineering News 85, of November 22, 2007, which I did not yet get to see, and to the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry that were established by the American Chemical Society. Today, Green Chemistry will be promoted under the CDM of the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC.

Professor Giuseppe Vasopollo from the University of Salento at Lecce, Italy, enlarged on the ecological foot-printing of a generation for Sustainability with Green Chemistry and Clean Chemistry as promoted now by Italy. They work on capturing CO2 with chemicals and work since 1993 by the Italian INCA consortium that involves now 30 universities and predated the ACS and IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) involvement. He pointed out that erosion is created by buildings, bridges, roads, dams, strip-burning, inadequate agricultural practices. He wants to see Green Chemistry and Sustainable Development being seen as one subject – something that was then picked up at the roundtable.

Professor Claudio Oller Nascimento, from the University of Sao Paulo works on photochemical treatment of wastewater on the Restoration of the Cubatao area that was one of the most polluted areas of the world.
Professor Schmal spoke of catalysis as a means to achieve Green Chemistry Products, work he did with the Max Haber Institute in Germany.

Professor Bernd Engels from Wuerzburg, Germany, presented Green Chemistry from a theoretical physicist’s point of view.

Professor Rita Hoyos spoke about work at Cordoba, Argentina, and Dr. Lucas Leite from EMBRAPA and Dr. Regis Lima Verde from CENEA, on enlarging Biomass Future Supplies as in turning biomass into carbohydrates that can be developed further. Tropical developing countries have more land availability and higher yields, but technology is in the north. They also complained of the higher subsidies in the north that work to the detriment of the marketability of the products of the south and to clear distortion also from an environmental point of view. The reality is that basically, the world production of biofuels is still centered only on Brazil and the US. Biofuels are starting in Europe but Europe is dependent on imports. The world use of biomass is 10.5% of energy use, but in Brazil it is 26.7%. Problems arise when there is no concern in the survival of the forests. The BIOREFINERY CONCEPT is when we produce food and fuel in the process using the biofuel feedstock.

Dr. Jennifer Young from the American Chemical Society Washington Headquarters, Green Chemistry Institute, presented the US summer school programs to students announcing the 2008 program in Colorado and a meeting June 24-26, 2008 in Washington DC. They are also promoting in US Congress a Green Chemistry Research and Development Act. There is already a Green Chemistry Initiative in California, and a Massachusetts Toxic Reduction Initiative. Michigan has an Executive Directive in place since June 2006. EPA still thinks in terms of voluntarism.

Dr. Alberto Oliveira Fontes Jr. presented the Petrobras interest in bio-ethanol and bio-diesel. They are building ships for exporting these materials.

Professor Carioca, Professor Vasapollo and Dr. Selma Mazes spoke of the production of Cardinal from cashew nuts and building a whole series of products from this first material.

Then Professor Ami Ben-Amotz from the Weizman Institute in Israel presented a very attractive new type of ocean-side-agriculture – the production of Bio-fuels from Algae. This topic has hit finally the National Geographic Magazine in the October 2007 issue. Professor Ben-Amotz is also director of a Japanese owned industrial plant in the sea of Eilat, that uses Dr. Ben-Amotz patents to manufacture food supplements produced by algae. His Dunaliella algae prosper in very salty water and they absorb CO2. Dr. Ben-Amotz was able to convince the management of a coal-fired power plant to open two holes in the exhaust chimney of the plant in order to channel some of the CO2 to his pond with algae and found that the system works. He does not say that this can solve all the problems with CO2 emissions, but it surely can become a way to capture some of this CO2 in a recycling scheme. From the algae he can produce bio-diesel.

Professor Adrian Pohlit from INPA in Manaus, Amazonia, followed by Professor Ney Pereira Jr, spoke of Biopharmaceuticals. and Professor Roberto Rossi from Cordoba spoke on Stanum organic compounds.
Professor Guilerme Maia of the Federal University of Para in Belem, spoke of Phytochemistry – vegetable oils and fatty acids. The idea is to provide a basis for regional development using the many kinds of nuts that are present in the Amazonas. his presentation links to the second conference/workshop I attended in Belem – but on this later.

Professor Vasif Harsici from The Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey spoke of biodegradable bio-polymers and Dr. Alberto Oliveira Fontes Jr. made a second presentation on uses of oils by Petrobras. They got involved in the oil production from nuts in the Amazonas region because it is not allowed to grow sugar cane in those areas. He mentioned that the production of plastic materials takes only 4% of the global use of petroleum.

Professor Eduardo Fallabella, also from Petrobras, spoke of the production of liquid fuels via gasification processes – a way that is well known and can be viewed as a future use of biomass.

Professor Horst Friedrich, from the German Aerospace Program, spoke on Motor Vehicles and their use of biofuels, and Professor Emilio La Rovere from UFRJ enlarged on biodiesel production including social aspects.

Professor Paulo Carvalho, from UFC in Fortaleza spoke on the production of dielectric oils for the needs of transformers – a clear success story that saves on mineral oils. He was followed by a presentation of Professor Luiz Horta Nogueira from Bello Horizonte, Minas Gerais, on Bioenergy trends in Brazil in general – talking of boilers and other uses.

Professor Rainer Jonas, of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, spoke on polylactic acid, a biodegradable biopolymer.

Here I had the opportunity to speak on Sustainability in General – the title was “Global Sustainability” which I redirected to “Sustainability Requires Significantly Decreased Dependence on Fossil Fuels – and Nuclear Power Is Of No Help Either.” My statement started by saying that the “How” has been presented by the previous speakers and I intend to deal with the “Why” in order to strengthen their hands. I used my half hour in order to pick points that in term of policy did not seem to me to have been presented sharp enough in the two and a half days that went on prior to my talk.

I said that Climate is an energy issue – energy is an infrastructure issue thus climate is an infrastructure issue. We have to change the way we think about energy. I explained the balance between sunlight and earthlight that when disturbed by decreased capacity of energy being returned to space because of the Green-House Gasses Effect, we get global warming. But we get also global warming without CO2 emission when we bring out energy stored in the atom – in using nuclear power as an energy supply. Thus even without emitting cO2, nuclear power is sort of a fossil fuel as it releases energy to the atmosphere that was stored underground.

I explained the system of the Biorefinery concept as something that can commercialize corn by selling every component except the “squealing of the pig.” A bio-refinery is thus not a petroleum refinery that uses bioethanol and biodiesel – something that I seemed to have heard in one of the exchanges. Further, the valorization of the co-products decreases also the food versus fuel dilemma because, like in the case of soy-beans, the material left after the extraction of the oil for biodiesel, is a high protein valuable food supplement – that in many cases is just what is needed – so the fuel was obtained in a process that produced the food we wanted – and this negates much of the contrived food versus fuel issue.

I touched on the issue of peak oil and on the fact that renewable energy and alternate fuels are imperative. Thus the idea that Green Chemistry is tied to Sustainability is the way to go – further, we must incorporate also clean chemistry as part of the Green concept because aspects like creating energy systems that conserve energy or decrease the need for energy by increasing efficiency, are environmentally desirable or “green” even if not involving green plant matter. After all, even Professor Ami Ben-Amotz algae are not always green.

I managed also to include policy issues related to subsidization of agricultural commodity production by taking land out of production. Thus there is a potential here to make the connection between farm policy and energy policy while finding both the farmland and the money needed to create new fuel. This is specially important in highly subsidized French agriculture and the Polish agriculture in its integration with the EU. There were several further points, and I was gratified hearing some echo of what I said in the few remaining presentations.

Thus, Dr. Norbert Keutgen from the University of Bonn, Germany, Institute of Crop science and Resource Conservation (INRES) spoke about Photosynthesis and Bio-productivity on Bio-energy Yields, and Dr. Flavio do Couto Cavalcanti from OXITENO of Sao Paulo on Oil Chemistry. Their presentations included farm policy aspects.

Dr.Hamilton Moss from CEPEL, which is the Alternative Energy and Environment Center of Research into Electric Energy belonging to ElectroBras, and his partners from UFC/CENEA, Professors Carvalho and Filho, spoke on the obvious Alternative Electricity – all renewables. We were reminded of the fact that the State of Ceara has some excellent sites for wind-power. Obviously also a lot of sun.

Professor Nei Pereira from UFRJ spoke on Lignocellulosics Biorefinery Context and Professors Cesar Abreu and Henrique Baudel from the Federal University of Pernambuco at Recife, spoke on Chemical and Biofuels from Lignocellulosics.

Professor Claudio Mota from UFRJ spoke on New Products and Processes from Glycerol – A Renewable Feedstock for The Chemical Industry.

The Concluding remarks were that the concept of Green Chemicals is new in Brazil and the intent is to cooperate with ACS and IUPAC. The Brazilians are creating now RBQV which is the National Network for Green Chemistry with its headquarters in Fortaleza. They have already 9 Member States from Brazil, 31 Institutions with a total of 111 National Participants. They Will integrate the Chico Mendes Institute into the Network as there is a Social Aspect to all of this in Ceara over 50% of the population are below the poverty level.

The Second Conference/Workshop was held in Belem, State of Para, on the Amazon River.
There were two parts to this meeting:

On November 22, 2007, the topic was RESPONSIBLE TOURISM and the idea was to create a tourism industry based on lodging the tourists in small and private housing – not the building of environment-disturbing large hotels.
Tourism has to be an integrated, participatory, sustainable development activity – it must be community based. Two practical examples in the Belem region were being discussed. I was not at these meetings because I arrived only the following day.

On November 23, 2007, the topic was Fair Trade. What the presentations were dealing with is the development of commerce by the community – with justice and solidarity. The participants were from the region and from Brasilia. and it was being sponsored by a special new Ministry that created the Institute for sustainable and solidarity based Development of the Amazonia. Again, the idea here is to have small scale and community based production of things like the nuts that were talked about at the Fortaleza meeting. To allow such development in small scale but community based centers, this is the way to reduce poverty by creating employment locally. Now in our opinion this is what Sustainable Development is all about and it allows for the social down-pinning of the Green Chemistry economy that was the subject of the Fortaleza workshop. We think of these two meetings as a unit and we wish the UN were here to see the enthusiasm of the people involved.