Johnathan Budd '15 and Anastasiya Borys '15

On site visits: Both of us have had some exposure to information about construction and operation of wind mills, but have never been exposed to the level of detail regarding how all the pieces come together from start to finish and the things wind mill manufacturing companies have to consider. It was also especially interesting to learn about wind power in Brazil and the regulation and politics surrounding it. On Brazil: We have tried more food in 4 days than we ever thought possible. On our second night here, Eloi took us out to Brazilian bbq where we have tried so many different kinds of delicious meat (and desserts!). The culture here is very open and friendly – we can only hope to be as welcoming when come for the program in United States.

Remarks from Debora dos Santos Carvalho -- 6th year Undergraduate Student in Environmental Engineering, Poli-USP

Today I begin to realize a dream. Today starts the course on sustainable cities with Harvard University and the University of São Paulo in São Paulo. It will be an honor to take classes with faculty in the best universities in the world. Brazil is the country of the future which offers may perspectives on solving world problems.  I want to dedicate myself and learn a lot. My working group will be on how to make cities better prepared for natural disasters such as major floods, hurricanes, droughts and other extreme events. I have chosen this in an effort to gain more knowledge to help save lives. In spite of social, ethnic and gender challenges I’ve learned that there are no limits to knowledge. Thanks to everyone who helped me get here, everyone who supported me and believed in my potential. Thanks especially to my mother Dinara Brum. Never give up on your dreams!

Collaborative Field Course in Brazil: January 2015

This course is designed to enable students to get to know course faculty in a way that is impossible during standard, term-time classes. Take advantage of the opportunity. In response to positive feedback from previous course participants, we have given even greater emphasis to site visits this year. We will explore the largest water reuse project in the Southern Hemisphere; the Operational Control Center of São Paulo’s modern, busy, and too-small-for-existing-demand metro system; the Emergency Management Center for forecasting and monitoring of the city’s weather; the University of São Paulo’s Photovoltaic Systems Laboratory; the Cantareira system of five interconnected reservoirs that serve 9 million city inhabitants; and the first manufacturer of large wind turbines in South America.

January 2015 course will commence on the 11th.

 

 

by Antonio Sweet '14

Back at the Ranch…

Passport?  Check.  Notebook?  Check.  Bug spray?  Check.  A backup notebook and extra pens? Check. Before beginning the course, I anticipated that I would gain a lot – information that would reinforce my academic studies, inspiration for class projects in the coming year, and expand my perspective on energy issues beyond my American prism.  While all of these came quickly, they did not scratch the surface on how deeply this program changed me.  Around this time of year as students are attending internship info sessions, I typically sort through the listings by location.  For three summers in a row, my internships have been close to home largely because they offered great experiences and because I couldn’t see myself working anywhere else.  However, this course in Brazil helped me see that breaking out of my bubble, while very risky, can be incredibly freeing and can open doors to incredible opportunities that were not imaginable before.  Visiting sophisticated research facilities, complicated manufacturing plants, and influential government agencies made me realize that my return to Brazil in any capacity was more of a possibility than I expected.  The representatives that we met with – academic, professional, and otherwise – were uniformly hospitable and welcoming, but most importantly, they were encouraging.  Now, I can see myself making the same moves that former students have made by preparing myself to make that leap of faith.  I plan on taking a Portuguese class to reduce the language barrier and I will actively work with the DRCLAS office in Brazil this semester to make this former fantasy a reality.  I cannot thank the DRCLAS and the Brazil office staff enough for making this one of the best experiences of my life and for guiding me through what promises to be a very challenging journey.

by Arthur Sentomo Gama Santos, 3rd Year

After having two weeks of hard work and going to Lectures and amazing site visits through the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro I began to link all of the pieces together. I realized that both countries are facing major problems. Brazil relies on the wet season to fill in the reservoirs and US depends a lot on fossil fuels. Even though there are some problems we saw the solution too. The lectures provided us vast knowledge on many the ways to produce green energy and understand the challenges that the engineers will have to face in the coming years to change the current scenario.

During the course we also had the opportunity to make friends that we will have for the rest of our lives.

José Marcos Bressane, EPE

By Natalia Margarido (Poli-UPS) and Kim Smet (SEAS)

 

Visits to EPE and ONS

After ten days of intense lectures and site visits all the pieces of Brazil’s energy system finally fell into place with meetings at EPE and ONS in Rio de Janeiro. The earlier portion of the course focused on the different power generation sources, providing detailed technical information such as turbine types, capacity factors and efficiency. Today, these individual pieces were constructed into the bigger picture, looking at overall system operation and future planning.
 

At EPE, we had the opportunity to hear about the energy plans for Brazil in the coming decades and were introduced to some of the research that is conducted there. In particular, the future plans to increase wind power generation were an interesting case of complementarity: wind is strongest in the dry season making it a perfect addition to the current hydropower-reliant energy matrix. 

ONS constitutes the day-to-day decision-making agency responsible for running the integrated power system. From a NASA-like control room, engineers use the output of hydrologic and optimization models to provide specific instructions regarding which power sources should be producing energy on any given day and at what capacity. The ongoing energy shortage in Brazil added additional gravity to our visit, raising questions about the future reliability of the system.

Despite only spending 22 hours in Rio de Janeiro, we managed to squeeze in a quick walk on the beach and had some great sightseeing from the bus. So while this certainly was not a long enough visit, we got a brief glimpse of life in this vibrant city.  

Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Engineering, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

 




Natália is a 6th-year undergraduate student in Environmental Engineering, Poli-USP - Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo