number 013. May / june 2015
CLIMATE CHANGE
CONTENTS published CARTIF Research Centre Boecillo Technology Park. Valladolid, Spain www.cartif.com
staff CARTIF Communication Department
collaborations
CARTIF news
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Keywords
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One of us
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CARTIF selection
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Energy and environment Area.
design www.typopotamo.com
photography CARTIF archive. Agencia EFE. Back cover picture: Typop贸tamo
ITS EFFECTS CAN
EDITOR’S NOTE
2015 could be a crucial year in the battle against global climate change. The 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (otherwise known as COP21) will take place in December in Paris, and its decisions will give continuity to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. This Summit, at the highest level, and into which ecologists and citizens from all around the world have put their hopes, could lay the foundation for the future of the planet over the following 100 years. Expectations are high, more so taking into account the earlier good will of the three most powerful economies: The United States, China, and Europe. In the European scope, EU leaders gathered in 2014 to debate their objectives on the matter of energy and the battle against global climate change until 2020. The goal for the industrial sector is more than ambitious: reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 43% concerning the 2005 levels. In 2050, the European Union expects to reduce those emissions by 80% concerning the 1990 levels and to reach energy savings of 20% with all types of measures in terms of efficient energy use. The great support of these actions is, unquestionably, the improvements in science and technology. Through thousands of research projects, the international scientific community has been working for years to solve particular problems that contribute to “cleaning” water, atmosphere, and ground. This labor, along with the major environmental awareness of inhabitants from all over the map, will be decisive to execute any decision that is agreed on at the COP21. In CARTIF, we keep working in this regard through our energy efficiency and sustainable management projects, and we will be talking about them in this issue.
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cartif news
cartif news This news selection is just a small sample of the Center activities in the last months. You can follow us through our web and social networks. CARTIF PRESENTED THREE OF ITS PROJECT IN THE SMART CITY EVENT 2015 This event, which took place in Amsterdam in early June, gathered more than 500 agents from all around the planet, involved in the development of smart cities. Cities from all around the globe showed the various business prospects that could be drawn from the Smart Cities.
SMART HOSPITAL, AWARDED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL OBSERVATORY IN THE HEALTH SECTOR The LIFE SMART HOSPITAL project received the secondary award in the 2015 edition of the OMARS awards, as the second best action on environmental sustainability in Spanish hospitals in the last two years. These awards, organized annually by the Environmental and Social Responsibility Observatory in the Health Sector, search for sustainable ideas that function as models of good practices. The jury values the repercussion, applicability and replicability of the project in other centers. The goal is to achieve the involvement in responsible consumption and the environmental awareness in daily work at hospitals.
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The CARTIF researchers presented REMOURBAN, CITyFiED and R2CITIES, three of the projects coordinated by the Center. The three projects are meant to implement innovative technologies that allow an integral and sustainable urban regeneration and the efficient management of energy resources in order to create new urban environments.
cartif news
DEMONSTRATORS OF THE SMART CITY PROJECTS FROM CARTIF HAD A DOORS OPEN DAY DURING EUSEW During the month of June, and on the occasion of the European Sustainable Energy Week, the different cities and districts involved in smart city projects celebrated open days at their demonstrators to show the achieved improvements. Among the projects coordinated by CARTIF, there were open days in every demonstrator from the CITyFiED project. In the Torrelago district in Laguna de Duero (Valladolid, Spain), schoolchildren, neighbors and professionals visited the biomass boiler room that supplies the heating system of 500 houses. The Swedish demonstrator, in the Linero district (Sweden) and the Turkish borough of Soma (Manisa) received their enthusiastic visitors likewise. The R2CITIES project also joined the initiative with the Genoese district of Lavatrici, the Turkish district of Kartal-Istanbul and the Spanish district of Cuatro de Marzo (Valladolid).
THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SWEDISH GOVERNMENT VISITED THE CITYFIED PROJECT DEMONSTRATOR The Swedish Minister for Climate and the Environment and Vice-President ร sa Romson visited Lund in May. In the district of Linero, the objective of the project is reducing energy use by 31% and greenhouse gas emissions by 26%. Besides the remodeling of faรงades and the heat recovery ventilation, the planned actions include the improvement and renovation of the district heating through smart controls.
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zero waste zero emission carbon footprint smart cities convention on climate change
This month of June has been marked by various events and episodes related to global climate change, energy efficiency and the environment. One of them has been the celebration of the Green Week. Promoted by the European Union, this week is devoted to announcing those projects related to the LIFE Programme, which funds R&D&I projects in the field of environment, the EUSEW (Sustainable Energy Week) and the Encyclical by Pope Francis, among others.
This year, the Green Week motto has been ‘Nature – our health, our wealth”
The Green Week is already an essential occasion for those agent s invol ved in R&D&I for the environment. If the previous edition was devoted to circular economy, this edition has Nature at the core of the analysis. Understanding that human beings depend on it to obtain nourishment, energy, raw material, clean air and drinking water, the organizers of the biggest annual conference related to environmental policy in Europe devoted this week to debate about the best methods to protect this source of resources and survival. Besides, on the basis that the environment is a source of wealth and employment creation, more than 4,000 people attended the Conference in Brussels to share experiences and setting new goals. In a similar context, the EU celebrated the EUSEW, an event on R&D&I for energy efficiency that has been taking place since 2006, experiencing an
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increasing involvement of the community every year. Besides the high-level conferences that take place in Brussels, almost 700 ‘energy days’ were celebrated this year in Europe. These open days, informative conferences and workshops dedicated to the implementation of renewable solutions are, unquestionably, the most efficient means of involving the community in every action against global climate change that is being executed in the European Union.
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The European Commission has been committing resources towards research and the implementation of innovative technologies to reduce energy use, improve the quality of air and water, recovering waste of any kind and decarbonizing the economy through the use of renewable energy. However, without the collaboration of the community with everyday actions and more sustainable philosophies of life, these efforts will not bear a decisive and shortterm outcome. This is the reason why awareness and information campaigns of this kind are increasing in number and winning supporters in cities and districts. Yet, if there has been a great landmark in the battle against global climate change these last weeks, it has been without a doubt the publication of the Laudato si’, first Encyclical of Pope Francis; this could be described as an unprecedented
ecological declaration in the Catholic Church. Relying on the scientific consensus, the Supreme Pontiff assumes some fundamental truths: that the Earth’s deterioration is real and verifiable, and that this deterioration is caused by man’s actions. Two facts that a significant sector of the world’s population still refuses to accept. Given this context with the Earth as the special protagonist, CARTIF also developed various actions related to the protection of the environment, always within the field of its research activity.
Dozens of people visited the demonstrators from CARTIF Smart City projects during EUSEW 2015
EUSEW 2015 Dozens of people visited the demonstrators from CARTIF Smart City projects during EUSEW 2015. The intention of these Doors Open Days (OpenHouse) was to invite the European citizens to know the work and the main changes that are being made in those cities and districts participant in Smart City projects. Among the projects led by CARTIF, there were open days in every demonstrator from the CITyFiED project. In Spain, the Torrelago district in Laguna de Duero (Valladolid) received hundreds of schoolchildren, neighbors and professionals of energy efficiency. They visited the biomass boiler room that already supplies the heating system of 500 houses in the district, and the first block of apartments in which the first building envelope for thermal insulation has been installed. At the Swedish demonstrator, in the Linero district (Sweden), and in the Turkish borough of Soma (Manisa), there was full attendance to the guided tours led by the project members.
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Ali Vasallo during his speech
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energy system. Energy System Integration from local to EU wide.’ The conference, which took place in Brussels within the framework of the EUSEW, gathered the main European authorities in the field of energy, from Miguel Arias, European Commissioner in the Climate Action and Energy sector, to Dominique Ristori, Director General for Energy in the European Union.
EFE FORUM Technology and Environment
Doors Open Day in Torrelago (Valladolid)
The R2CITIES project demonstrators also joined the EUSEW 2015 OpenHouse initiative. The Genoese district of Lavatrici and the Turkish of Kartal-Istanbul showed their progress on the project. More than 20,000 European citizens are benefitting or will benefit from the Smart City projects in which CARTIF will be participant until 2019. Besides the increase in home comfort, the reduction in energy spending and the improvement of your quality of life, these projects seek to reach an important reduction of pollution emissions and an efficient management of energy resources. Precisely, the implementation of energy systems in the urban sphere and their relations to other systems, was the topic of Ali Vasallo’s conference, researcher in CARTIF’s Energy Division and coordinator of the CITyFiED project. Vasallo presented the actions that are being executed in the Smart City projects led by CARTIF in the context of the session ‘Towards an integrated
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Two of the most consolidated research lines in CARTIF are the Environmental Technologies and Sustainable Management lines. In this context, our teams develop projects on the three cores of circular economy: water, waste and air. The 12 LIFE projects that the Centre will participate in between 2013 and 2018 are also based on these topics. To advertise these projects, CARTIF organized an informative event in partnership with Agencia EFE (first Spanish news agency in the world).
The actions against climate change were the protagonist at the EFE FORUM CARTIF
The actions against global climate change were the protagonists in the event coordinated by CARTIF and Agencia EFE. The opening speech was made by Susana Magro, Director General of the Spanish Office of Climate Change, who claimed that “all the policies related to waste, energy, water, biodiversity, including the economic and social policies will have climate change policies as the starting point.” Arturo Larena, Director of EFEverde, concluded the convention. Magro placed particular emphasis on encouraging companies to “invest in R&D&I, for it will be the key towards a low-carbon economy,” and she claimed that “the policies to face climate change will mark the beginning towards a zero emission world.”
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Pedro Pablo GarcĂa moderating the debate
Arturo Larena (from EFE) and Susana Magro
CARTIF researchers
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Business owners and public administrations that attended the event thought likewise. Esteban Pérez, technical director of Turqueplast, explained the importance of earning environmental together with economic profit from investments in R&D. On the other hand, María José Blázquez, technical director of the Integrated Management System for the Collection of Drug Product Containers (SIGRE), reminded us that her nonprofit organization invests 20% of its budget in environment R&D&I of the pharmaceutical industry, especially in ecodesign. As for the improvements in R&D&I in the environmental field, members of the CARTIF research team presented some of the projects that search for solutions to specific problems related to waste management (and their valuation), air pollution and the water cycle. One of the major challenges of the actions against global climate change is fighting air pollution. Among the functioning projects in CARTIF, two of those are distinctive for their search for solutions to improve the air quality. The EQUINOX project attempts to make a largescale demonstration of a system that captures nitrogen oxides from the air on road areas and transforms them into an innocuous substance that tolerates rainwater and washing-down.
The great challenges: the optimal management of waste, water, air and energy
The idea is to combine a new development of lowcost air quality sensors, which has allowed creating a dense network of air quality and combining it with this air treatment technology based on titanium dioxide. It will be tested in an area of 80,000m2 in the Chamberí district (Madrid) and the results obtained will be measurable from 2016.
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“The Paris agreement has to be impartial and delimit each country’s responsibility” Ban Ki-Moon
Another project that attempts to fight air pollution is DIOXDETEC TOR, whose researchers are developing a new technique to quantify dioxins in the air, ground, water and biota. This technique will allow detecting lower levels and in a shorter span of time, thus working more efficiently to obtain the actual spread of dioxins in nature. Besides, it will be a reliable tool so the air quality managers can make the right decisions. Water is one of the scarcest natural resources and it s right management is objec t of great preoccupation from companies and public adminis trations. In the SMART HOSPITAL projec t, managing the water c ycle correc tly in hospitals will reduce water use by 35%
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Among the most innovative, in the livestock sector two projects are working on the same matter: wastes derived from porcine. In the case of the VALPORC project, it covers those wastes from category 2 carcasses (those that cannot be used either for human consumption or for animal consumption), which only in Spain mean 150,000 ton/year. The options to reuse them are: turning them into biofuel and organic fertilizers.
“The submission of politics to technology and finances is shown in the failure of World Summits on Environment” Francis I
and was te pollution by 20%. The use of water remains at a high level in the construction sector. Reducing the water footprint by 5% and the carbon footprint in those rail network projects by 10% is the goal of the HUELL AS project, based on life cycle assessment instruments that will allow developing tools and methodologies to optimize decision-making before causing an irreparable environmental damage. And, in the field of waste management and valuation, the CARTIF teams are working simultaneously in different sectors: agricultural and livestock waste, plastic waste and biomass waste.
In the MIX FERTILIZER project, the waste to recover is the porcine manure, transforming it into a new mixed-base (organic and inorganic) fertilizer and of slow release. This would be an excellent option when a manure-treatment plant business is in a low-activity phase facing the revocation of state funds.
UN Conference on Climate Change: COP 21 Five months before the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris – COP21 – the international community believes it is possible to achieve a binding global agreement to answer global warming. The commitment of the three world economies – the United States, the European Union and China – to achieve a zero emission development, the increase of the use of clean energy and the demands by citizens and leaders like Pope Francis, allow a relative optimism. However, it is fundamental that the agreement on the table is impartial and that the responsibilities of each country are clearly identified, given that they are neither equally guilty of global warming nor equally capable of responding. The ultimate goal of the international community is that global warming does not exceed two degrees (Celsius) concerning the pre-industrial levels, something that scientists and technologists are contributing towards thanks to their respective projects. In CARTIF, we remind the words from Pope Francis and “invite everyone to stop and think about the environmental challenges.”
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one of us
one of us José Antonio Valverde Gómez (Valladolid, Spain 1926-2003) Biologist, naturalist and environmental activist He graduated from the University of Valladolid with a degree in Life Sciences and received a PhD from the University of Madrid. He had been part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) since 1957 as an assistant scientist and collaborator and worked as a research professor until his retirement. His career reached its turning point in 1952, when he went on an expedition to Doñana, Andalusia. He was captivated by its breathtaking wilderness, and this fascination turned into preoccupation for its state of conservation. Along with other fellow biologists, he founded and was named president of the Spanish Ornithological Society in 1954. Worried about the drainage works on the Guadalquivir River marshlands, with no means, and in a time when conservation was not
considered a matter of concern, he proposed the creation of the Doñana National Park. He studied the marsh communities, discovered their structures and specialized in the study of the different communities of terrestrial vertebrates. His writings and analyses were taken as reference works to elaborate the model for the description of Reserves and National Parks for the International Biological Program (IBP). In the 1960s, he obtained financial means to purchase about 7,000 hectares of land in Doñana, where the CIB or ‘Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas’ (Biological Research Center) was established. He also became the first director of the centre. In 1971, he founded the Center for the Rescue of Animals of the Sahara in the Alcazaba of Almería, under the protection of the Acclimatization Institute of the CSIC. Aware of the progressive loss of fauna in this area of Africa, he decided to bring animals to a similar environment with financial aid from WWF/ Adena and support from other institutions. Among his numerous occupations during his life, Valverde was a member of the International Ornithological Committee and president of the Spanish Ornithological Society, the Steering Committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and its Resources from the UNESCO, the Conservation Committee of the International Biological Program, the board of directors of WWF/Adena, and environmental consultant of the Presidency and the Sciences Division of the CSIC.
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cartif selection
cartif selection
I SMART CITIES CONGRESS The Book of the ‘I Smart Cities Congress’ is already available. It includes 95 articles on social innovation, urban mobility, services and infrastructure management and energy efficiency. Among them, CARTIF projects such as REMOURBAN, R2CITIES, CITyFiED and the Smart City VyP initiative.
ENCYCLICAL LAUDATO SI’ Titled Laudato Si’ (‘Praise Be to You’), Pope Francis expresses technological, scientific and moral arguments that demonstrate that global climate change is a reality that he defines as “one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity.” Francis demands “enforceable and urgent ” international agreements in the battle against global climate change in what has become the first ecological declaration in the Catholic Church.
APP A team of research chemists from MIT have devised a sensor that detects gases and environmental contaminants such as gaseous ammonia, cyclohexane or hydrogen peroxide, among others. These contaminants can be detected by a mobile using wireless technology. These devices are quite cheap, and this is why researchers expect that they will spread easily. Another quality is that they work at different temperature levels, which means that they allow any location.
COP21 online Paris will hold the COP21 (UN Climate Change Conference) in December. The information about the major event on environmental policy of the lustrum can be found on their website and social media. This Framework Convention recognizes the existence of a global climate change due to human activity and endows the industrialized countries with the main responsibility in the battle against this phenomenon.
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