Lesson useful for the greenhouse effect
César Pagan, the 'man with the lamp', takes another step forward
and alerts the government to the hole in the ozone layer

JOÃO MAURÍCIO DA ROSA

Sand rationing in Brazil serves as a lesson to the federal government, the scientific community will begin to be better heard in what it has said about the greenhouse effect, a warning as blunt as the imminence of energy collapse and equally disdained. “It was not for lack of warnings that the government neglected. Now, if we neglect the greenhouse effect, the consequences will be tragic for the entire world”, says scientist César José Bonjuani Pagan, a licensed Unicamp professor and mayor of the São Paulo resort of Amparo.
The professor's concern grows in line with the construction of thermoelectric plants across the country. “It’s an insane policy”, he criticizes, rushing down the sumptuous stairs of the tourist resort’s Municipal Palace, a historic building in the city center.

At 39 years old, Pagan seems too young for his biography, which became nationally known in 1998. At the time, 36 years old and teaching at the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC) at Unicamp, Pagan, in partnership with professor Gilberto Januzzi , from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM), made the powerful cartel in Brazil's lighting industry resume the manufacture of 127 volt lamps, which were then exchanged for 120 volt lamps, saving the country R$ 500 million annually. A sum equivalent to the cost of a 250 megawatt hydroelectric plant, enough to light three cities the size of Campinas.

Currently, if instead of Amparo's cabinet he were in the National Congress, he would pick a fight against the project in order to avoid future rationing with the unrestrained construction of thermoelectric plants. “This option for thermoelectric plants worries me, as it could be an option for private investors, as the investment amortization period is less than half that of a hydroelectric plant. But it's bad, because it depends on non-renewable resources, indexed in dollars, much more expensive. And our energy was once the cheapest in the world,” he recalls. The return period for thermoelectric plants, according to him, is approximately 10 years, compared to 20 or 30 years for hydroelectric plants.

Worse than the mere financial speculation behind the proliferation of thermoelectric plants is their contribution to the hole in the ozone layer that protects the planet from the greenhouse effect. Regions in Chile and Argentina have already adopted inappropriate times for people to take to the streets, in a clear demonstration that the problem is much more palpable. “This is not a pessimistic fantasy. If the scientific community has been saying for so long that we would have energy rationing, without any measures being taken, it is better that governments pay attention to the same community regarding the greenhouse effect, a serious thing that can have an impact on the entire planet”.

Pagan speaks uneasily about the abundant renewable natural resources in Brazil, such as water and sun, kept as they are, relegated to oblivion for the benefit of thermoelectric plants powered by Bolivian gas paid in dollars. “The choices we make today will have consequences tomorrow. It is insane that we are moving towards this thermoelectricity policy. It can come as support for the system, but not with this range of investments that they are allocating. It is perfect for the private sector, which makes profits faster, but for the development of the country and our sustainability, it is a terrible strategy.”

The professor credits the rationing to the lack of investment in recent years. “The government preferred to privatize rather than put money into the electrical system, while the reservoirs were falling. And the problem is not the climate, it’s not a lack of rain, it was negligence in investing in generation and transmission.”

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Corridor talk raises tension
of the lighting industry

Professor César Pagan's concern for the environment was the subject of his electoral campaign in 2000, which earned him 65% of the votes through a PT-PC coalition from B. Amparo is the largest city in the so-called Circuito das Águas, with 60 thousand inhabitants and a diverse industrial park. Currently, the mayor is leading a movement to create a microbasin in the region, involving five other municipalities.

For him, the life of a mayor is similar to that of a teacher. Both are public men who produce actions for the benefit of society. “I should return to teaching after I leave city hall,” he says, saying he is out of a dispute at the state or federal level. If so, bad luck for the electronics industries and energy distributors, because when he returns to the laboratories – or before that, through his colleagues – he promises to restart his research into the effects of voltage variations on domestic equipment.

The story of changing the voltage in the light bulbs began with what would have been nothing more than a hallway conversation. An electrical engineering teacher, he heard students commenting that their lamps were burning out very quickly. "Mine too. We went to see and what happened”, he summarizes.

Pagan and team discovered that, although the 120-volt lamp offered a gain in brightness, it consumed more energy and had less durability. In other words, it gave 21% more light, but also consumed 9,1% more energy. Multiplying this percentage by 20 million homes lit, we arrived at the fantastic figure that the country was paying annually for the waste and also the loss of R$ 100 million per year to consumers due to the increase in the bill. What's more, 120-volt bulbs had a lifespan of 450 hours, less than half the life of 127-volt bulbs.

Refrigerator - A scientist who completed undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate degrees in physics, and then completed his post-graduate degree in electrical engineering, Pagan informs that every time there is a change in the applied voltage, the way in which much of the domestic equipment works also changes , like the refrigerator, which depends on an electric motor. “If the voltage drops too much, it can shorten the life of the device.”

Professor Gilberto Januzzi, Pagan's research partner, continues to study this problem and master's student Dean Willians is defending his thesis on the functioning of refrigerators. He has already discovered that the drop in voltage in the distribution network will make the refrigerator consume more energy. “The University is full of well-intentioned people. Just walk through its corridors to see them. If the academic community were listened to sensibly, we wouldn't have a blackout and we wouldn't need to fear the greenhouse effect”, concludes Pagan.