 | The market does not solve everything
'The year of the blackout', according to Ennio Peres, who studies
hydrogen as a source of electrical energy CARLOS LEMES PEREIRA   The market doesn't solve everything. This is the main cause of the energy crisis, in the analysis of Ennio Peres da Silva, coordinator of the Hydrogen Laboratory at the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW) at Unicamp. “The privatization process of a sector that was historically controlled by the State was carried out without certain precautions, following the logic that the market regulates itself. But this doesn’t always happen in the short term, punctually,” he says.
While participating in the debate about the “year of the blackout”, the scientist coordinates research into the use of hydrogen as a “clean” source of electrical energy. And, thanks to the increase in awareness, driven by the crisis itself, Peres da Silva believes that next year he will be able to test prototypes to supply lighting to schools in the basic network of Campinas (see box).
Continuing in his assessment, the physicist emphasizes that, above any predominantly political factor, there is the condition that the country has its electricity generation strongly based on the hydroelectric system. This configuration, according to him, largely determined the perverse cards of the privatization game. “Since the Vargas era, the State has maintained absolute control over generation, transmission and much of distribution. Then, under the Collor government, the process of restructuring the sector began, with greater participation from the private sector, where the State began to position itself more as a regulatory agent than an economic one”, he explains. The obstacles began to emerge in the current government, which was responsible for continuing the privatizations. “One of the obstacles is the fact that generation via hydroelectric power requires large investments in projects and requires a long maturation period, in the order of fifteen years, on average”, highlights the researcher. “So, even if the operation later becomes low-cost, as the water – let's put it this way – is almost free, the private sector does not feel attractive in this type of venture, as it has to contribute large amounts of capital. As you aim for profits, you obviously want smaller investments and faster returns,” he concludes. Difficult parish – The government even tried to get around the situation by offering the alternative of thermoelectric plants. Theoretically, the scenario seemed calmed. After all, thermoelectric plants require smaller initial investments, project execution times that are feasible in two or three years and quick financial returns. Everything to the taste of the big electricity “customers”. Not so much, corrects Peres da Silva: “There is the cost of fuel. Therefore, agreements with Bolivia and Argentina were necessary for the construction of the gas pipeline, allowing Brazil to technically make the thermoelectric plants available.” Even so, more trouble lies ahead. Feeling that they were dealing with a government with its hands tied in reacting in the field of large-scale investments, due to the restrictions placed by the IMF, the business community felt free to demand a series of guarantees, linked from the supply of gas to the sale of energy. “As it was estimated that it would take up to three years to build the thermoelectric plants, the government negotiated, but not in a critical way, as time was passing”, observes the researcher. “Thus, if within that idealized time frame it would be possible to put thousands of megawatts into operation, since there were several companies and they would all carry out their projects simultaneously, what was 'possible' did not materialize: the crisis arrived earlier”. Peres points out as proof that market logic does not always work the illusion that, by solving an economic problem, the necessary investments would quickly be made. “Obviously, any government has to understand that the dogmatic formula according to which the market automatically regulates everything does not always work, especially when dealing with a sector that is so essential and, at the same time, so poorly structured”, he criticizes. An example of this destructuring, for him, is in the history of regulation itself: “Privatizations ended up preceding the regulation process. The government needed to sell and the regulations are still being developed. We are already doing it as part of the privatized system. This, of course, will cause a thousand problems. One of them is the difficulty of placing taxes on investments”. Adventure risks – The imprudence of embarking on an “eight or eighty” type of action, as Peres compares it, is making the staff at the Interdisciplinary Center for Energy Planning (Nipe) at Unicamp stand on their heads. Mainly in relation to two aspects: one is exactly the regulatory framework and the other, the environmental one. In the first case, the physicist warns: “Constitutionally, everything is quite doubtful. We go from having an energy supply problem that would be unlikely to remain serious for more than a few months to creating another, which could be permanent. Trampling constitutional premises is a sure way to undermine credibility in institutions. A recent and bitter example is that of the savings account, which never regained popular trust after the confiscation of the Collor Plan”. On the environmental front, Peres fears the considered relaxation of impact analyzes for energy projects: “It could be a disaster. In writing, our environmental legislation is very advanced, but little of it has been regulated and that little is no longer complied with. Allowing thermoelectric plants without criteria can worsen air pollution and compromise water quality.” In the researcher's opinion, the best lesson that the government can learn from the crisis is that when treating energy like other market products, it should at least see it as an essential product: “When it comes to meat, beans and other items, whose Supply is the responsibility of the private sector, there is the buffer stock strategy. In the face of disturbances in the market, such as the off-season or mere price speculation, the government intervenes and corrects the distortions”. He admits that, in the case of energy, it is difficult to build stocks or even import them. “But nothing prevents the State from maintaining some hydro or thermoelectric plants on its own, which may even be turned off during normal times, only coming into operation during emergencies”, he argues. “It would be a social cost that we would all pay, so as not to have a recurrence of the crisis.” The postponement of the privatization of Furnas is seen by the researcher as “a sign that we are learning from adversity”. ------------------------------------------ CLEAN ENERGY ON THE SHORT The origin of Ennio Peres da Silva's research dates back to 1975, within the perspective of the oil crisis. Hydrogen, then, was worked on with the aim of replacing derivatives. Studies into the generation of electrical energy from the element began to intensify in the 1990s - more precisely in 1992, the year of EcoRio, an event that had the merit of raising global awareness about environmental problems, in which the Energy use from renewable sources has become increasingly prominent. The novelty in the sector are fuel cells, which transform hydrogen into electrical energy through an electrochemical process. “Hydrogen is a way of storing and transporting energy, in addition to interconnecting various sources”, explains Peres. In this case, hydrogen plays the role of an energy vector. As a way of producing stationary energy, hydrogen-based equipment can become an alternative to conventional generators, which, in addition to the atmospheric polluting effects, have the inconvenience of not being able to be used anywhere, due to noisy operation. Another advantage is the fact that the efficiency of alternative equipment is independent of dimensions, which is not the case with turbines. “So, in the future, we will be able to make use of a set of small stations, without the expense of a large one”, says the physicist. He adds that he is seeking partnerships with national and international private companies to assemble equipment to be used in various applications, including schools. “What will also benefit us is the tendency for these establishments to adopt compact light bulbs in a short time, one of the resources recommended for reducing consumption”, says the researcher.
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