Last Tuesday, March 26, the first symposium of the Center for Innovation in New Energy (CINE) took place at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp). The event, which brought together researchers and professionals from various universities and institutes, focused on presenting the progress of the Center's activities since its opening last year and discussing the need to promote new sustainable energies. The event was opened by the rector of Unicamp, Prof. Marcelo Knobel.
The director of CINE and professor at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering (FEQ) at Unicamp, Rubens Maciel Filho, highlighted that in the future solar and electrical energy will have a large increase in their production, surpassing production coming from oil and gases. “In 2050, demand for electrical energy is expected to jump from 18% to 50%”, highlighted the director. Solar energy will be studied in one of CINE's four focus areas during the Advanced Energy Storage and Dense Energy Carriers project based at Unicamp.
The fact that CINE is based in the State of São Paulo was seen as a differentiator for its development. “São Paulo spends up to 29 times more than Minas Gerais on Research and Development”, highlighted Euclides Mesquita, member of the Deputy Coordination of the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp), who also justified the investment by the high number of researchers in the state of São Paulo, which reaches 69.900 divided into 151 institutes.
Noting the leadership of the São Paulo state region in new energy research, Shell also became a partner of CINE with a contribution of RS 34,7 million reais.
According to Joep Huijsmans, leader of Shell's new energy research and technology division, in addition to the investment, the partnership is important for the company that has shown itself to be committed to climate change and already maintains other energy research centers in India, China and England. For him, society has major challenges to be implemented, such as the end of deforestation, the change in consumption practices and the greater use of electrical energy, which requires further research: “In the future, industries, buildings and transport will be electrified and It is estimated that by 2100 around 20% of transport will already be powered by electricity”.
Despite only having 5 months of research under development, CINE already has a broad agenda of activities, with new workshops, courses and the production of articles related to the topic being planned for the coming months.
According to the director of partnerships at Inova Unicamp, Iara Ferreira, new energies are one of the University's focuses of attention for the development of university-company collaboration agreements. “We are focused on promoting more and more partnerships between Unicamp and the business sector that have a basis of socio-sustainable development”, states the director.
About CINE
The Center for Innovation in New Energies is an initiative of FAPESP, Shell Brasil, Unicamp, University of São Paulo (USP) and the Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research (IPEN). CINE will receive an investment of R$110 million over five years, through the FAPESP Engineering Research Centers program.
The objective of the project is to develop energy alternatives that have zero greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to other devices that are capable of converting methane into chemical products, such as lithium batteries and supercapacitors.
CINE has four research focuses with headquarters at Unicamp (Advanced Energy Storage and Dense Energy Carriers), USP (Materials Science and Computational Chemistry) and Ipen (Sustainable Route for Methane Conversion with Advanced Chemical Technologies). In total, 20 projects will be developed.
