A nova mega-fábrica de Leonardo DiCaprio à porta de Portugal: um investimento que promete agitar a Península Ibérica

A poucos quilómetros da fronteira portuguesa, a Extremadura prepara-se para receber um dos maiores projectos tecnológicos da Europa. Trujillo, na província de Cáceres, foi escolhida para acolher uma fábrica de semicondutores de última geração da Diamond Foundry — a empresa norte-americana que tem Leonardo DiCaprio entre os seus investidores mais mediáticos. A dimensão do investimento, a inovação envolvida e o impacto económico esperado estão a transformar este anúncio num dos temas mais relevantes da indústria tecnológica ibérica.

A decisão surge após aprovação do Conselho de Ministros espanhol, que deu luz verde a um plano que prevê 2.350 milhões de euros até 2029. Esta quantia avultada não serve apenas para erguer um complexo industrial de ponta: representa também uma estratégia nacional para posicionar Espanha — e em particular a Extremadura — como um novo pólo europeu na área da microelectrónica. Trata-se de um sector dominado por gigantes asiáticos e norte-americanos, e cuja relevância ficou evidente nos últimos anos, quando a escassez global de chips paralisou indústrias inteiras.

O impacto no emprego será igualmente significativo: cerca de 500 postos directos altamente qualificados e outros 1.600 indirectos, ligados à cadeia logística, à produção auxiliar e aos serviços que inevitavelmente crescerão à volta da fábrica. O envolvimento da SETT — Sociedade Espanhola para a Transformação Tecnológica — reforça a aposta estratégica: o organismo público ficará com 32% do capital, contribuindo com cerca de 752 milhões de euros. As projecções económicas também impressionam: estima-se que, só nos primeiros dez anos de actividade, a fábrica injete 2.150 milhões de euros no PIB espanhol.

Mas o que distingue verdadeiramente este projecto não é o volume de investimento — é a tecnologia. Trujillo será o primeiro local do mundo a produzir semicondutores com diamante monocristalino sintético como substrato. Este material, muito mais resistente que o silício tradicional, oferece vantagens decisivas em aplicações de alta exigência: temperaturas extremas, frequências elevadas, inteligência artificial, defesa, sistemas industriais avançados e automóveis eléctricos de nova geração. Para muitos especialistas, esta tecnologia poderá representar um salto evolutivo comparável ao que o silício significou há várias décadas.

A escolha da Extremadura, uma região historicamente distante dos grandes centros industriais, não é um acaso. Espanha tem vindo a canalizar políticas públicas para desconcentrar a produção tecnológica, aproveitando regiões com espaço, capacidade de expansão e ligação directa a Portugal, cuja proximidade geográfica poderá favorecer projectos conjuntos no futuro. O objectivo é claro: reduzir a dependência externa e criar autonomia num sector onde a Europa tem falhado repetidamente.

Ao mesmo tempo, o facto de Leonardo DiCaprio estar envolvido neste investimento acrescenta-lhe uma curiosidade inevitável — o actor é conhecido pelo seu activismo ambiental, e a Diamond Foundry destaca justamente a sustentabilidade do processo de produção de diamante sintético. No entanto, o que está realmente em jogo é algo muito maior do que uma manchete com um nome famoso: é o aparecimento de um novo centro tecnológico à escala europeia, potencialmente decisivo num mercado cada vez mais competitivo e estratégico.

Para Portugal, a notícia não é indiferente. A poucos quilómetros da fronteira, uma das indústrias mais críticas do futuro está prestes a instalar-se, com potencial para atrair empresas associadas, investigação universitária, mobilidade laboral e oportunidades económicas que poderão atravessar a linha que separa os dois países. A Península Ibérica, tantas vezes vista como periférica em termos tecnológicos, pode estar a ganhar um novo ponto de influência — e este nasce com um brilho muito particular: o de milhões de euros e o dos diamantes.

The EU-US Trade and Technology Council Reaches a Crossroads

The next meeting of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) that begins on December 5 in Washington, DC, may well turn out to be the most consequential in the TTC’s short history. Since its establishment in the early months of the Biden administration, the TTC process has been hailed as a productive effort in transatlantic trust-building. Yet pressures are mounting, and the Washington meeting will be a significant test of the TTC’s capacity to steer through growing tensions over subsidies, trade issues, and distinct geopolitical postures on China.

Do the US and EU Want the Same Thing from the TTC?

The initial push to establish the TTC came from the European side, who viewed it is an opportunity to reset frayed transatlantic relations. In December 2020, the European Commission pitched to the incoming Biden administration the establishment of a forum to reduce trade barriers, coordinate on technical standards development and tech regulation, improve critical supply chain security, and deepen research cooperation in critical emerging technologies. After initial worries that the TTC would become a talking shop producing few deliverables, the Biden administration eventually warmed to the idea and the TTC was officially launched at the June 2021 US-EU Summit.

In contrast to the European vision of the TTC as a platform for transatlantic trust-building, geopolitical concerns are at the center of American hopes for the TTC. Policymakers have framed it as one critical piece of the Biden administration’s China policy based on the “invest, align, compete” approach outlined by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May 2022. The US aims to align with its “like-minded partners” in Europe as well as the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.

The place of China in the TTC has become a bone of contention as Europe has steadfastly resisted the framing of TTC as an anti-China alliance. European officials strongly object to efforts to position the TTC as a means of countering and containing China in the growing global tech conflict.

Aiming for Agreement

The TTC’s loose design allows officials to steer around traditional sources of discord in the transatlantic relationship and focus on areas ripe for cooperation. The TTC is overseen by high-ranking economic and trade officials in the US and EU who meet at occasional summits, while much of the day-to-day work takes place within 10 working groups on topics ranging from cooperation on technical standardization to export controls. Unlike the failed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) initiative a decade earlier, which aimed for a high bar of US-EU regulatory alignment across a range of issues, “regulatory autonomy” based on “respect” for “different legal systems in both jurisdictions” is a founding principle of the TTC.

Additionally, irritants that could derail cooperation are deliberately kept off the table, including agriculture, procurement, and investment dispute settlement issues. Instead, the focus is on so-called “virgin” issues where both the US and EU are developing rule systems for emerging technologies and there is a potential to move in the same direction, for example on efforts to develop “trustworthy” Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital standards.

While China remains the implicit focus in the work of several TTC working groups, the TTC’s priorities shifted considerably after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ahead of the TTC’s second meeting in Paris-Saclay in May 2022, coordination on export controls rose to the top of the agenda. The TTC’s working group on this topic provided a platform for an “unprecedented level of cooperation” on joint export prohibitions to Russia and Belarus on dual-use items and other sensitive technologies with a potential military application.

Barriers to Transatlantic Cooperation on Tech Standards

Russian aggression was a shot in the arm for the cause of transatlantic unity in the TTC’s infancy, but, in the longer term, divisions over how to deal with China are likely to impede meaningful cooperation on key issues. The TTC’s Working Group 1 on technology standards illustrates the challenges.

To date, this working group has actually been one of the TTC’s most active and successful. Its major deliverable was the establishment of a Strategic Standardization Information (SSI) mechanism to facilitate information-sharing among government officials and Standard Development Organization (SDOs) in Europe and the US over developments in standard-setting on sensitive technologies and materials. This initiative drew momentum from China’s 2020 bid to set up and chair a committee at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on lithium, which flew under officials’ radar until the European Commission was alerted by the Australian government. Enhanced information-sharing measures will assist stakeholders in anticipating and quickly reacting to China’s future efforts to lay claim to sensitive standardization topics.

Yet, insiders question whether the TTC will be able to reach the higher-hanging fruit in this area. The standardization working group aims, in the longer term, to establish a platform for the coordination of transatlantic development of standards in areas such as AI. A standard-setter at the European level dismissed the TTC as largely a “political statement” with little potential to deliver on its more ambitious aims. In addition to barriers imposed by the stark differences in the European and American standardization systems, skeptics point out that it is not self-evident that US and EU firms are really “like-minded partners” on standardization. For European companies with investments in China, the question of who their like-minded partners are in the first place is not straightforward.

On the Agenda in Washington

While transatlantic ties via the TTC have been bolstered by geopolitical developments such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and some level of concern about China, over the past two months unilateral US moves have complicated the dynamic. The most notable major new friction dogging the TTC is the US Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) provisions that incentivize Americans to buy electric vehicles made in North America. Brussels argues that these “Buy American” provisions discriminate against European producers and violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. EU leaders are keen to see some progress on addressing these concerns.

Both sides appear eager to separate this and other related issues from the TTC process, though it is likely to be challenging to fully insulate the TTC, as it was for the negotiations that led to the Privacy Shield agreement earlier this year. The US and EU recently launched a Task Force on the IRA to address Europe’s concerns. Similarly, the US has also expressed concerns about several legislative proposals making their way through EU institutions. For instance, Washington has recently sought to narrow the definition of AI and broaden the exemption for general-purpose AI in the EU’s forthcoming Artificial Intelligence Act—expected to enter trilateral negotiations between the European Commission, Parliament, and Council to finalize the act sometime early next year.

Since the last TTC meeting earlier this year, the US has been pushing the EU to take a harder line on China across a broader front, including in areas where EU officials are reluctant to take a harsher line. For US officials, including some that are involved with the TTC process, Beijing remains a top national security concern, especially in the technology sector—statements over the past several months from senior US officials have placed advanced technologies such as semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing at the center of US concerns, in ways that some EU officials are likely to object to. This was demonstrated by the set of new unilateral and unprecedented set of restrictions Washington released in October targeting Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductor technologies. One part of the controls touches on advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment, potentially drawing in EU technology leaders in the Netherlands and Germany.

While the EU has implemented export control rules for some dual-use items and various investment screening mechanisms, it has not treated China with the same level of national security concern. US officials in November embarked on what is likely to be a months-long process to convince the Dutch government, in particular, to align with the new controls, but strong industry pushback from Dutch and German companies that would be most impacted by the new controls has increased and led the Dutch government to signal it could push back on transposing the measures into Dutch law outside normal multilateral channels such as the Wassenaar Agreement.

This friction has added some tension to the TTC process, but officials will also attempt to keep this issue in separate channels. However, a growing sense that the US is willing to take unilateral measures in part designed to force compliance in other jurisdictions, including Europe, without sufficient consultation, has added to the complexities facing further progress within the TTC on issues such as export controls.

Rough Sailing Ahead

After an encouraging start, the TTC has now entered deep water. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine initially drew Europe and US officials together over export controls and sanctions, the economic toll of the war now threatens to undermine transatlantic unity. At the same time, divisions over the China challenge are resurfacing.

The Washington meetings will be a test of the two sides’ initial commitment to pushing forward on areas with a high potential for cooperation and steering around the rocky shoals.

Why the war in Ukraine is also a make-or-break moment for climate change

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is barely three weeks old, but it’s already brought unspeakable suffering and destruction, as well as momentous shifts in the global order. Now, as Western countries have effectively started decoupling from Russia both economically and politically, a lot of attention is focusing on energy security and increasing fossil fuel production.

“We can come back to tackling climate change” later, we’re starting to hear. This puts the existential effort to decarbonize the global economy at risk of becoming collateral damage of the war — and that would be catastrophic.

But can we be outraged about the war, worry about energy security and fight climate change all at the same time?

Those goals aren’t necessarily at odds. But they will require a clear-eyed understanding of the dramatic forces now at work, both economically and geopolitically.

The war in Ukraine is, in many ways, an energy war. Europe in particular is becoming acutely aware of its dependence on Russian fossil fuels — a dependence that is literally fueling the conflict. The European Union, and to a lesser extent the UK and the US, buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil and gas from Russia every day (some of it transiting through pipelines that cross Ukraine), and it’s those millions that finance Russia’s regime and its army.

Europe relies on Russia for about 40 percent of its gas and about one-quarter of its oil imports. Cutting those flows is dual-edged — it would cripple Russia economically but could also trigger blackouts and chaos across the continent. That helps explain why EU sanctions currently do not extend to Russia’s fossil fuels (The US and the UK import far less and moved to ban oil imports).

Olaf Scholz, the recently elected German Chancellor who with a single, historic speech reversed decades of non-military foreign and security policy, has had to acknowledge that Europe’s supply of energy “can’t be secured otherwise at the moment.” His economic and energy minister Robert Habeck from the Green party warned of “mass unemployment and poverty.”

Hence, the flows keep flowing — and the fueling of Europeans’ cars and the heating of their homes funds the war. Columnist Javier Blas calls it “the commodities market version of the Cold War doctrine of mutual assured destruction, or MAD.” It’s that madness that threatens to derail the efforts to decarbonize the global economy.

Europe’s energy predicament is largely self-inflicted. But that doesn’t alter the fact that weaning the continent off Russian gas and oil — a need that has been spoken between the lines in European discussions for years — has suddenly become an urgent security imperative. The European Commission has presented a plan to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030, starting with reducing gas imports by two-thirds by year’s end. (It includes increased imports of liquified gas, deploying renewables faster, conserving energy, developing hydrogen and taking measures to respond to rising energy prices.) The International Energy Agency (IEA) has added its own thinking towards reducing that reliance.

This has definite positives when it comes to dealing with climate change, and there are plenty who see the instability provoked by the war as a fork-in-the-road moment, a renewed incentive to accelerate the adoption of clean energy.

Getting rid of the dependence on Russian fossil fuels means getting rid of fossil fuels — and once that shift to cleaner sources is achieved, there would be no way back. That is, for now, the position of Europe, which has found new unity and political vigor in response to the war. (It’s worth noting that this shared goal isn’t matched by a consensus on method yet: while Germany is phasing out nuclear plants, France is planning a vast expansion of nuclear power, for instance.)

Others, however, think that we cannot confront both energy security and decarbonization at the same time. In this view, the instability provoked by the war creates disruptions in energy supplies and price increases with significant economic and social repercussions. We should therefore tackle this crisis first, and worry about climate change later, by giving priority to securing energy supplies, increasing oil and gas production and delaying the phasing out of coal. This seems to be the position of the US (which is even trying to convince Venezuela and Iran to increase oil production), and to some extent, also the UK and China.

Who is right? This tension between energy security needs and overarching climate goals is now central to the climate discussion. It can’t be — and shouldn’t be — easily resolved. Either/or is a luxury we can’t afford. There are merits to both points of view, at least in the short term. It is not a choice so much as a dilemma, in which we need to keep two conflicting goals in mind at the same time, with the same high level of priority.

Which brings me to the second major challenge now facing climate action: deglobalization. Fighting climate change needs global collaboration. However, after decades of global integration, accelerated in 2001 when China joined the World Trade Organization, the world is now becoming less integrated. This deglobalizing trend isn’t new, it can be traced back to the 2008 financial crisis, and has been hastened over the last few years by the growing economic and strategic rivalry between the United States and China and by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has added to global inequality and provided new rationales for more protectionist policies.

For this trend, too, the war in Ukraine is a dramatic accelerating factor. To avoid a confrontation with a nuclear-armed Russia that could escalate into a generalized conflict — a third World War — the West has elected not to engage militarily in Ukraine but to offer external support. By itself, that’s a prudent and rational decision: no one wants NATO and Russian jet fighters getting too close to each other.

In parallel, however, Western countries have initiated severe economic sanctions on everything from Russian banks to technology imports to the assets of oligarchs. As a consequence of the sanctions (and of popular outrage at the war), hundreds of companies have withdrawn from Russia or suspended their operations. Many think that the country has become “un-investable” for a long time. This is putting huge pressure on Russia, but it has also transferred the theater of the conflict to the global economic sphere.

For instance, in a recent TED conversation Ian Bremmer, the founder of Eurasia Group, told me that the Chinese ambassador to Moscow gathered Chinese investors in Russia to suggest that the Western withdrawal represents a unique opportunity to “go in and do more because Russia is going to be relying on us.” Most of the sanctions, Bremmer suggested, are potentially functionally permanent (at least as long as President Putin is in power, and especially if he acts on his threat to seize the assets of Western companies), and their ripple effects will ignite a repatterning of the global economy.  

Watch the full discussion about the war in Ukraine between TED’s Bruno Giussani and geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer: 

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Many scenarios can spin out of this situation, and here’s one. The world splinters into two ideologically incompatible parts, an authoritarian one around China and Russia and a democratic one around the United States and Europe. The underlying infrastructure also starts diverging, with separate credit card and payment systems, Internet networks, information spheres (this is already happening, especially after the thorough shutdown of any independent source of information in Russia), technological developments and supply chains. If it sounds familiar, that’s because it is — the world was split into two such halves during the Cold War.

This New Cold War is different, however, for at least three reasons. First, the world has grown way more interconnected and interdependent, which means that a rapid reorganizing (or disorganizing) of global supply chains is going to bring significant disruption, from higher prices to shortages. Second, China is not the Soviet Union: it is a big, successful economy with an assertive foreign policy that has by and large achieved technological parity with the US, has the world’s largest navy, and is inching closer every day to the moment when it will regain control of Taiwan, the world’s semiconductor hub.

Finally, it is not obvious that much of the rest of the world would align itself with the US and Europe. The Western media has focused on the fact that the United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine has gathered 141 votes, with 35 countries abstaining and only 5 voting against (Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria and Russia itself), framing it as a demonstration of a world united against Russia.

Meanwhile, too little airtime has been given to the list of countries that have actually joined the West’s sanctions, which is much shorter: the US, the UK, the EU, Canada, Japan and a dozen others. Southern countries, for instance, are staying out of it, possibly because they recognize the double standards the West is applying. Middle Eastern countries are also keeping their distance, their motivations likely both economic and political.

In other words, we are at a geopolitical juncture, facing a future of less “global liberal order” and more raw national self-interest. We already see less attention on international institutions and rules — which need to be re-imagined — and more to national sovereignty, and a competitive edge tilted towards those who control reliable sources of energy, materials and food, as well as technology and supply chains. Europe has surely woken up to the fact that “tectonic shifts” are happening and, in the words of France’s President Emmanuel Macron at last week’s Versailles meeting of EU heads of State, that energy, food and defense are issues of sovereignty.

Within countries, spiraling energy (and food) prices, which hit less-well-off groups harder, have the potential to destabilize political systems, making ambitious climate policies even more difficult. In this sense, the coming energy crisis will be a crucial test. It’s going to make very tangible how costly the climate transition is going to be, and the response will show how earnest we are. As the IEA puts it, “The faster EU policymakers seek to move away from Russian gas supplies, the greater the potential implication, in terms of economic costs and near-term emissions.” Absorbing those costs will demand huge effort, commitment and political creativity.

What are the implications of all this for the climate?

In the last few years, the fight against climate change has finally gained momentum, propelled by a combination of public pressure from the youth movement, of growing apprehension with catastrophic wildfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves on all continents, of increasingly accurate (and disquieting) scientific evidence and of the development of still vague (and often abused) but useful concepts such as net-zero and ESG.

The COP26 climate conference last November in Glasgow, although depicted by some activists as a failure, produced a series of real commitments with cities, the private sector, finance, science and civil society leading the way. Climate scientist Johan Rockström, a regular at COP gatherings, said that for the first time he saw “momentum that’s beyond incremental.”

Overall, the momentum is still towards an energy transition (including when viewed through the behavior of stock market investors). But it’s now frighteningly easy to see how we could careen towards a world where the decarbonizing efforts of some could be entirely wiped out by others, less sensitive to public opinion and more focused on economic growth, just pumping and burning away. If you want to make it even more dystopian, think of a future split in two between a group of authoritarian fossil-energy-rich economies versus a group of democratic green-energy-fragile states. And when it comes to CO2, it doesn’t matter where and by whom it is emitted, because the atmosphere is one and shared.

For exactly that reason, fighting climate change needs global cooperation. The new configuration emerging from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the West’s economic sanctions in response threatens to make that collaboration exponentially harder, if not impossible.

Moreover, fighting global heating and its impacts needs rich countries to share technologies and financial resources with poorer ones to allow them to adapt and develop their economies and societies without resorting to fossil fuels.

Until now, that support has been lacking, as the Prime Minister of the Barbados Mia Mottley said in her much-discussed talk at COP26, adding that “our people are watching and taking note.” At a more recent Financial Times conference, Mottley defended her country’s plan to expand fossil fuel exploration off its coast. According to the newspaper’s own account, she explained that developing countries need “a way to finance our route to net-zero,” and if the wealthy nations that “caused the problem” would not provide funding, they would need to find other ways to generate revenue, such as extracting and exporting fossil fuels. That’s probably a majority viewpoint among politicians from Africa to India and plays to the potential geopolitical divide that the Ukraine war is now triggering.

What applies to energy also applies to food and minerals — Ukraine and Russia account for about 12 percent of calories traded in the world, and the impacts of the war on food supplies are already been felt across the world. Furthermore, many of the materials necessary for a clean energy transition also rely on unstable global supply chains involving, among others, Russia, which I don’t have space to discuss in detail here.

So what do we do about it? This is a time for putting all the cards on the table and exploring a new type of climate politics.

Like the coronavirus crisis before it, the Ukraine war is unlikely to be the last global systemic shock with the potential to derail climate action. There will be other crises, and we can’t keep kicking the climate can down the road at every crisis. We need to develop a plan now, one that, as climate writer Gabrielle Walker told me in an email, “is dynamic and flexible, keeps everything on the table and adapts according to current circumstances”.

First, we need to acknowledge that in a world where the goal is to get rid of the foundational source (fossil fuels) that provides about 80 percent of our energy, climate solutions can’t be decoupled from energy security. Modern societies can’t function without a reliable supply of energy.

Even if renewables are now the cheapest source of power and Western countries come together to accelerate their deployment, implement serious measures to increase efficiency and reduce consumption, develop new approaches such as geothermal and hydrogen, and massively invest in new technologies (for instance for storage), it’s going to be impossible for them to maintain their economies’ stability over the short-medium term without fossil fuels and nuclear power. It takes years to bring a solar plant online, for example. In other words — and I say this as a climate activist — we will have to live with “impure” solutions to the energy crisis in the short term while keeping our eyes on the longer-term climate targets.

Second, while working on securing their energy supply, Western countries need to get much more serious about funding energy infrastructure across the global South — it’s a question of equity, but also crucial to counter the geopolitical divide that is starting to build. It’s also worth noting that China still has a net-zero commitment and is still very much interested in being a provider of low-carbon solutions (think solar technology) to the world. That’s also a conversation that should not become a fatality of Russian bombs.

Reframing the way we use the concept of net-zero could also be helpful here — although it does need a more stringent definition, possibly linking permission to offset some emissions more strictly to actual decarbonization. It could be framed not as a climate goal, but as a secure way ahead for the world, the mechanism by which energy security and decarbonization can both be achieved.

Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who directed the process that led to the Paris Agreement, told me in a discussion the other day that “what’s happening now should be a holy-shit moment for climate.” Her colleague Tom Rivett-Carnac, who was also on the call, added that the world “will hopefully come together around the challenge of incorporating the short-term energy security and social stability concerns into the long-term decarbonization imperative.” And not just those who identify as climate scientists, climate experts, climate investors or climate activists, but everyone who cares about keeping the planet welcoming for human life. So far, that unity has not been a characteristic of the climate community.

On February 28, 2022, a shocking report went almost unreported, knocked off the front pages by the war in Ukraine that started four days earlier. The IPCC, the United Nations panel that assesses the state of climate science, published a devastating second part (of three) of its sixth assessment describing how climate breakdown is accelerating. (The report’s “summary for policymakers” needs to be unanimously agreed, word by word, by all 195 member governments.) The UN Secretary-General António Guterres called it “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.”

That was followed, on March 8, by the International Energy Agency releasing its Global Energy Review report, which says that 2021 registered “the largest ever year-on-year increase in energy-related CO2 emissions in absolute terms,” with a rise of 6 percent, mainly driven by coal, and reaching their highest level ever. Meanwhile, record rainfall brought calamitous floods and deaths to Eastern Australia. In other words, the climate crisis is accelerating, and the urgency to decarbonize is indisputable.

It’s now vital to reconcile short-term energy goals and long-term climate goals in this deglobalizing world with a unity of purpose and direction. Meanwhile, the suffering and destruction intensifies in Ukraine, and confronting it is urgent.

And failing to do both at the same time would affect the world for generations to come. When he gave his inaugural speech in 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said something that is a fitting message for the whole world today. He said: “We will build the country of other opportunities … and for that, we need people in power who will serve the people. This is why I really do not want my picture in your offices, for the President is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead and look at them each time you are making a decision.”

Grafeno verde. Elvira Fortunato continua a revolucionar a eletrónica com materiais sustentáveis

A investigadora portuguesa dá um novo contributo para reduzir o problema ambiental do lixo eletrónico. Projeto valeu-lhe uma terceira bolsa do Conselho Europeu de Investigação.

Acumulando mais de 250 milhões de toneladas por ano, o lixo eletrónico é o fluxo de resíduos com maior crescimento em todo o mundo e constitui aquele que é, provavelmente, o próximo grande problema ambiental numa sociedade em transformação digital. Pioneira no domínio da chamada eletrónica de papel, a cientista portuguesa Elvira Fortunato tem vindo a destacar-se entre os protagonistas de uma nova revolução tecnológica mais "verde", à base de materiais ecossustentáveis que permitam uma eletrónica amiga do ambiente. Um trabalho que voltou a ser reconhecido recentemente a nível europeu com aquela que é já a sua terceira bolsa do Conselho Europeu de Investigação (ERC), desta vez a premiar um projeto que pretende utilizar o grafeno verde como forma de reduzir o desperdício eletrónico.

Denominado "e-GREEN. Da floresta à eletrónica: grafeno verde", o projeto liderado pela investigadora e diretora do CENIMAT|i3N, laboratório associado da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, propõe "uma nova abordagem sustentável, tanto em termos de materiais quanto de processos" para a produção das placas de circuito impresso - as placas eletrónicas que estão em diversos equipamentos, desde telemóveis a eletrodomésticos.

"O que se pretende com este projeto é substituir as placas convencionais, que são aquelas placas verdes com várias camadas de polímeros. Queremos substituir esses materiais feitos com tecnologias poluentes, e que têm origem fóssil, por materiais à base de papel, celulose. Além disso, evitamos a utilização de cobres e metais como materiais condutores, porque temos uma tecnologia laser que carboniza a superfície destes materiais celulósicos, transformando-a em grafeno. E o grafeno é um material muito condutor, tem propriedades muito boas do ponto de vista elétrico", descreve a cientista, em conversa com o DN.

Com isso, Elvira Fortunato consegue providenciar ao mercado uma solução ao mesmo tempo sustentável e de menor custo. "Um problema que temos com as placas de circuito impresso é a sua reciclabilidade. Temos elevados volumes de milhões de toneladas de lixo eletrónico acumulados por ano. E é um problema que o hemisfério Norte não está a resolver: os países mais desenvolvidos estão a exportar estes resíduos para países na África ou na Ásia, onde se está a utilizar mão de obra muito barata para, através de raspagens e outras técnicas, aproveitar ainda parte desses metais", diz a cientista que ganhou o Prémio Pessoa em 2020.

Urge, portanto, criar alternativas e este projeto é mais uma contribuição de Elvira Fortunato nesse sentido. "Não podemos estar continuamente a usar materiais, neste caso metais, à taxa que utilizamos agora. São materiais caros e são finitos na natureza, vão acabar um dia. Neste projeto, a solução é utilizar materiais de origem renovável. E, por outro lado, a tecnologia também é não poluente. Temos circuitos elétricos feitos à base de celulose em que os condutores são à base de grafeno e são biodegradáveis. Podem ser completamente reciclados e fazer mais pasta de papel e novos produtos à base de celulose. Há desperdício zero."

De resto, "a sustentabilidade tem sido sempre um elemento crítico" no trabalho da cientista. Agora, a ideia do "grafeno verde" convenceu o Conselho Europeu de Investigação a atribuir-lhe uma bolsa Prova de Conceito, no valor de 150 mil euros, para testar a viabilidade comercial no mercado. Uma bolsa que vem na sequência de uma outra maior anterior, uma ERC Advanced Grant que Elvira Fortunato conquistou pela segunda vez em 2019, no valor de 3,5 milhões de euros, a premiar o projeto Digismart, cujo objetivo é revolucionar a forma como os circuitos integrados e componentes eletrónicos são produzidos. Foi através desse projeto que a equipa liderada pela diretora do Cenimat|I3N obteve uma grande variedade de materiais à base de grafeno, materiais de origem renovável - como celulose, nanocelulose e cortiça - utilizando um novo processo baseado em grafeno induzido por laser, que agora mereceu esta nova bolsa."

Elvira Fortunato compara esta tecnologia com as tecnologias laser de remoção de tatuagens. "Nós temos um laser que vai escrever um determinado padrão na superfície do papel. Ou seja, vai carbonizar esse papel. E esse material queimado, que é o produto resultante desta conversão protoquímica (reação química induzida pela ação do laser), é o grafeno. Assim, ficamos com pistas condutoras à base de grafeno", diz.

Este é um grafeno verde, porque "é convertido através das árvores, da celulose extraída das árvores. E é verde também porque a tecnologia é feita à temperatura ambiente, sem quaisquer reagentes, ao passo que o grafeno convencional é produzido a altas temperaturas, na casa dos 1000 graus centígrados, com equipamentos muito caros e com muita complexidade", salienta a investigadora. "Aqui conseguimos ter material mais sustentável e de mais baixo custo. Daí o interesse por parte das indústrias e da própria Comissão Europeia", refere a cientista que revolucionou o papel, reinventando-o como um "material eletrónico".

Especialista em Microeletrónica e Optoelectrónica, a "mãe" do transístor de papel tem na celulose a matéria prima por excelência dos seus projetos, mas não a única, naturalmente. A ecossustentabilidade, contudo, estende-se a todas as escolhas. É por isso que Elvira Fortunato privilegia também alternativas ao silício como semicondutor. "Para fazer um transístor, que é a unidade de base de um circuito integrado, tenho de ter sempre um conjunto de três materiais: isolantes, condutores e semicondutores. O papel é um dos componentes, é um material isolante que pode ainda ser convertido num material condutor, o grafeno, mas depois precisamos ainda de materiais semicondutores, e aí também trabalhamos com outra classe de materiais sustentáveis. Não trabalhamos com silício, mas sim com materiais à base de óxidos metálicos, como por exemplo o óxido de zinco, que é um dos componentes dos cremes cicatrizantes, como o Halibut, os cremes da Mustela ou os protetores solares", explica.

A cientista portuguesa, que já viu o seu nome associado a um possível Nobel da Física, acredita que é viável caminharmos para uma eletrónica 100% sustentável. "Estou convencida que sim. Aliás, não temos alternativa. Isto não é uma opção, é uma obrigação. A população está a aumentar, cada vez mais pessoas vão tendo acesso a equipamentos como computadores, telemóveis, eletrodomésticos, temos o 5G e o 6G, e hoje em dia nada se repara, tudo se muda... Isto não é sustentável. Temos de arranjar soluções", aponta.

Ler mais:

Elvira Fortunato entre as 27 inspiradoras da Europa selecionadas pela UE para o Dia da Mulher

Elvira Fortunato ganha o maior prémio mundial de engenharia

Ser mulher na Ciência. 10 rostos que lutaram para mudar o mundo

Biografia

Elvira Fortunato

China com Sun Tzu, na guerra dos chips

Indo direto ao ponto: com ou sem rolo compressor de sanções, a China simplesmente não será expulsa do mercado global de semicondutores.

Xi Jinping lendo o clássico de Sun Tzu A Arte da Guerra
Charge de Craig Stephens, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong

A quantidade real de chips que a Huawei tem em estoque para suprir o próprio negócio de smartphones talvez até seja questão em aberto.

Mas o ponto mais importante é que nos próximos anos – lembrem que Made in China 2025 continua em vigor – os chineses estarão fabricando o equipamento necessário para produzir chips de 5 nanômetros tão bons ou até melhores que os que vêm hoje de Taiwan, Coreia do Sul e Japão.

Conversas com especialistas em TI da Rússia, dos países da Associação de Nações do Sudeste Asiático (ing. ASEAN) e da Huawei revelam os contornos básicos do mapa do caminho à frente.

Esses especialistas explicam que o que poderia ser descrito como uma limitação da física quântica está impedindo a passagem consistente, de chips de 5 nanômetros para chips de 3 nanômetros. Significa dizer que as próximas descobertas podem vir de outros materiais e técnicas de semicondutores.

Portanto, quanto a esse aspecto, a China está praticamente no mesmo nível de pesquisa que Taiwan, Coréia do Sul e Japão.

Além disso, não há nenhuma lacuna de conhecimento – ou problema de comunicação – entre os engenheiros chineses e taiwaneses. E o modus operandi predominante ainda é a porta giratória.

Os avanços da China envolvem mudança crucial, do silício para o carbono. A pesquisa chinesa está totalmente investida nisso e está quase pronta para transpor o próprio trabalho de laboratório, para a produção industrial.

Em paralelo, os chineses estão atualizando o procedimento de fotolitografia, que os EUA privilegiam para obter chips nanométricos, para um novo procedimento de litografia não fotográfica, capaz de produzir chips menores e mais baratos.

Assim como as empresas chinesas, avançando, estarão comprando todas as etapas possíveis que apareçam no negócio de fabricação de chips, e custem o que custarem, também as principais empresas de semicondutores dos EUA farão o mesmo, como a Qualcomm, que não se sujeitará a sanções e continuará a fornecer chips para a Huawei. Esse já é o caso da Intel e da Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD).

O jogo de Huawei

A Huawei, por sua vez, está investindo em profundidade numa relação muito estreita de P&D com a Rússia, recrutando alguns dos melhores talentos tecnológicos da Rússia, notoriamente fortes em matemática, física e no trabalho de rigoroso projetamento. Exemplo disso é a compra pela Huawei da empresa russa de reconhecimento facial Vocord em 2019.

Alguns dos melhores cérebros tecnológicos da Coréia do Sul são russos.

A Huawei também estabeleceu – na Tailândia – um “centro de inovação de ecossistema 5G”, o primeiro de seu tipo em países da ASEAN [Indonésia, Malásia, Filipinas, Cingapura e Tailândia, desde 1967; Brunei, a partir de 1984; Vietnã desde 1985; Mianmar e Laos a partir de 1997 e Camboja desde 1999 (NTs)].

No médio prazo, a estratégia da Huawei para seus telefones inteligentes de alto padrão – que utilizam chips de 7nm – será entregar o negócio a outros atores chineses como Xiaomi, OPPO e VIVO, cobrar taxas de patente e esperar pelo inevitável chip chinês, enquanto mantém a produção de equipamentos 5G, para os quais tem chips suficientes.

Esses especialistas em TI consideram o sistema operacional Harmony da Huawei mais eficiente que o Android. E roda com chips menos exigentes.

Com a expansão do 5G, a maior parte do trabalho em telefones inteligentes pode ser feito por servidores em nuvem. Até o final de 2020, pelo menos 300 cidades em toda a China estarão cobertas pela 5G.

A Huawei se concentrará em produzir computadores desktop e displays digitais. Estes desktops virão com processador chinês, o Kunpeng 920, e serão executados por um Sistema Operacional Unificado (ing. Unified Operating System, UOS) chinês.

O UOS é um sistema Linux desenvolvido pela Union Tech chinesa e encomendado por Pequim – aqui está o busílis –para substituir o Microsoft Windows. Estes desktops não serão vendidos ao público em geral: equiparão a administração pública nacional e provinciais da China.

Não é de admirar o persistente rumor que se ouve nos círculos de TI, segundo o qual é hora de pôr dinheiro num Fundo de Investimento em Chip Chinês – para embolsar gordos ganhos quando acontecerem grandes avanços tecnológicos, antes de 2025.

O centro tech da Ásia Oriental

Quaisquer que sejam as provações e tribulações da guerra dos chips, a tendência inevitável é a China posicionada como centro tecnológico indispensável da Ásia Oriental – abrangendo países da ASEAN, o nordeste asiático e a Sibéria Oriental ligada às duas Coreias.

Este é o nodo duro da já próxima Parceria Econômica Regional Abrangente, PERA (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, RCEP) – o mais abrangente acordo de livre comércio no mundo – a ser assinado até 2021.

A Índia optou por se autoexcluir da PERA –, com o que se autocondenou a ter papel periférico, como potência econômica e em termos geoeconômicos. Basta compará-la à Coréia do Sul, que está impulsionando sua integração com a ASEAN e o nordeste asiático.

O núcleo tecnológico do Leste Asiático estará no coração de uma cadeia global de produção que integra o melhor da concepção científica e tecnológica e os melhores especialistas em produção espalhados por todos os nodos da cadeia de suprimento global.

Essa é consequência natural, dentre outros fatores, de o número de patentes requeridas no Leste Asiático já ter chegado a 3,46 vezes o número dos EUA.

E isso nos leva ao caso muito especial da Samsung. A empresa Samsung está aumentando seu esforço de P&D para, de fato, deixar para trás, o mais rapidamente possível, as tecnologias de marca norte-americana.

Quando o presidente Moon da Coréia do Sul superturbina seu apelo pelo fim oficial da Guerra da Coréia, o movimento deve ser visto em conjunto com a Samsung em vias de alcançar amplo acordo de cooperação tecnológica com Huawei.

Este movimento de pinça ilustra com perfeita clareza a independência da Coréia do Sul em relação ao abraço de urso dos EUA.

Não escapa à atenção da liderança em Pequim que a emergência da Coréia do Sul como ator geopolítico e geoeconômico cada vez mais forte na Ásia Oriental deve estar inextricavelmente ligada ao acesso da China à próxima geração de chips.

Portanto, um processo geopolítico e geoeconômico crucial a ser observado nos próximos anos é como Pequim progressivamente atrai Seul para sua área de influência, como espécie de potência tributária de alta tecnologia, enquanto aposta no futuro do que seria uma Federação Coreana.

A ideia tem sido discutida ano após ano, no mais alto nível, no Fórum Econômico Oriental em Vladivostok.

Wang Huiyao, presidente do Centro para a China e a Globalização, sediado em Pequim, observa que China e Coréia do Sul, que já têm um acordo de livre comércio, “iniciarão a segunda fase de negociações para estabelecer novo mecanismo para a cooperação econômica China-Coreia do Sul, que se desenvolve rapidamente”.

O próximo passo – imensamente difícil – será criar-se um mecanismo de livre comércio China-Coreia do Sul. E depois, um mecanismo China-Japão-Coreia do Sul, mais próximo e interligado. A Parceria Econômica Regional Abrangente é apenas o primeiro passo. Até 2049 a viagem será longa. Mas todos sabem para que lado sopra o vento.

---

Muito obrigado a Tlaxcala
Fonte: https://asiatimes.com/2020/09/china-deploys-sun-tzu-to-win-the-chip-war/
Data de publicação do artigo original: 29/09/2020
URL deste artigo: http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=29720

O Ouro dos Tolos e o Odor de Alho: A Peculiar História Química do Telúrio

E-livro

Identificado no século XVIII na Transilvânia, o elemento batizado em homenagem à Terra é tão fascinante quanto invulgar.

A descoberta do telúrio remonta ao ano de 1782, nas regiões de mineração da Transilvânia (atual Roménia). O mineralogista austríaco Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein analisava um minério de ouro local atípico - apelidado por mineiros de aurum album (ouro branco) ou "ouro dos tolos" -, que continha menos ouro do que o esperado e um elemento desconhecido que interferia no processo de extração do metal precioso.

Müller von Reichenstein suspeitou ter encontrado um novo elemento, mas foram precisos mais de 15 anos para que a descoberta fosse formalmente confirmada. Em 1798, o influente químico alemão Martin Heinrich Klaproth isolou o elemento e deu-lhe o nome de telúrio, derivado de Tellus, a deusa romana e personificação da Terra (fazendo um par conceptual com o elemento selénio, descoberto mais tarde e batizado em honra à Lua, Selene), como regista a Royal Society of Chemistry.

Na tabela periódica, o telúrio pertence ao grupo dos calcogénios (a mesma família do oxigénio e do enxofre). Na sua forma pura, é um elemento de aspeto prateado, brilhante e quebradiço. Quando queimado em presença de ar, produz uma chama azul brilhante e forma dióxido de telúrio.

Apesar das suas propriedades químicas e semicondutoras úteis, o telúrio carrega uma das características biológicas mais invulgares da química organometálica: o chamado "hálito de telúrio".

Quando humanos ou animais são expostos a pequenas quantidades de compostos de telúrio (mesmo através do contacto cutâneo ou inalação), o organismo metaboliza o elemento convertendo-o em dimetil telureto. Esta substância volátil é eliminada através dos pulmões e dos poros da pele, conferindo ao indivíduo um odor extremamente penetrante, semelhante ao do alho estragado. O efeito é notável por duas razões:

1. O odor manifesta-se mesmo com doses de exposição microscopicamente pequenas (frações de miligrama).
2. A duração do efeito é notavelmente persistente, podendo durar semanas ou meses após uma única exposição acidental, de acordo com relatórios de segurança da CDC / NIOSH.

Hoje em dia, com protocolos estritos de higiene e segurança industrial nas fábricas de semicondutores e metalurgia, os riscos de exposição grave foram drasticamente reduzidos. No entanto, o "efeito alho" permanece na história da ciência como uma lembrança pitoresca das peculiaridades biológicas do elemento que veio das entranhas da Transilvânia para moldar a tecnologia moderna.

Natural Capitalism

Fonte: Mother Jones

Somewhere along the way to free-market capitalism, the United States became the most wasteful society on the planet. Most of us know it. There is the waste we can see: traffic jams, irreparable VCRs, Styrofoam coffee cups, landfills; the waste we can’t see: Superfund sites, greenhouse gases, radioactive waste, vagrant chemicals; and the social waste we don’t want to think about: homelessness, crime, drug addiction, our forgotten infirm and elderly.

Nationally and globally, we perceive social and environmental decay as distinct and unconnected. In fact, a humbling design flaw deeply embedded in industrial logic links the two problems. Toto, pull back the curtain: The efficient dynamo of industrialism isn’t there. Even by its own standards, industrialism is extraordinarily inefficient.

Modern industrialism came into being in a world very different from the one we live in today: fewer people, less material well-being, plentiful natural resources. As a result of the successes of industry and capitalism, these conditions have now reversed. Today, more people are chasing fewer natural resources.

But industry still operates by the same rules, using more resources to make fewer people more productive. The consequence: massive waste — of both resources and people.

Decades from now, we may look back at the end of the 20th century and ponder why business and society ignored these trends for so long — how one species thought it could flourish while nature ebbed. Historians will show, perhaps, how politics, the media, economics, and commerce created an industrial regime that wasted our social and natural environment and called it growth. As author Bill McKibben put it, “The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.”

The laws we’re ignoring determine how life sustains itself. Commerce requires living systems for its welfare — it is emblematic of the times that this even needs to be said. Because of our industrial prowess, we emphasize what people can do but tend to ignore what nature does. Commercial institutions, proud of their achievements, do not see that healthy living systems — clean air and water, healthy soil, stable climates — are integral to a functioning economy. As our living systems deteriorate, traditional forecasting and business economics become the equivalent of house rules on a sinking cruise ship.

One is tempted to say that there is nothing wrong with capitalism except that it has never been tried. Our current industrial system is based on accounting principles that would bankrupt any company.

Conventional economic theories will not guide our future for a simple reason: They have never placed “natural capital” on the balance sheet. When it is included, not as a free amenity or as a putative infinite supply, but as an integral and valuable part of the production process, everything changes. Prices, costs, and what is and isn’t economically sound change dramatically.

Industries destroy natural capital because they have historically benefited from doing so. As businesses successfully created more goods and jobs, consumer demand soared, compounding the destruction of natural capital. All that is about to change.

Natural Capital

Natural systems provide trillions of dollars in services that have no man-made substitutes, as Biosphere II’s failure shows.

Everyone is familiar with the traditional definition of capital as accumulated wealth in the form of investments, factories, and equipment. “Natural capital,” on the other hand, comprises the resources we use, both nonrenewable (oil, coal, metal ore) and renewable (forests, fisheries, grasslands). Although we usually think of renewable resources in terms of desired materials, such as wood, their most important value lies in the services they provide. These services are related to, but distinct from, the resources themselves. They are not pulpwood but forest cover, not food but topsoil. Living systems feed us, protect us, heal us, clean the nest, let us breathe. They are the “income” derived from a healthy environment: clean air and water, climate stabilization, rainfall, ocean productivity, fertile soil, watersheds, and the less-appreciated functions of the environment, such as processing waste — both natural and industrial. Nature’s Services, a book due out this spring edited by Stanford University biologist Gretchen C. Daily, identifies trillions of dollars of critical ecosystem services received annually by commerce.

For anyone who doubts the innate value of ecosystem services, the $200 million Biosphere II experiment stands as a reality check. In 1991, eight people entered a sealed, glass-enclosed, 3-acre living system, where they expected to remain alive and healthy for two years. Instead, air quality plummeted, carbon dioxide levels rose, and oxygen had to be pumped in from the outside to keep the inhabitants healthy. Nitrous oxide levels inhibited brain function. Cockroaches flourished while insect pollinators died, vines choked out crops and trees, and nutrients polluted the water so much that the residents had to filter it by hand before they could drink it. Of the original 25 small animal species in Biosphere II, 19 became extinct.

At the end of 17 months, the humans showed signs of oxygen starvation from living at the equivalent of an altitude of 17,500 feet. Of course, design flaws are inherent in any prototype, but the fact remains that $200 million could not maintain a functioning ecosystem for eight people for 17 months. We add eight people to the planet every three seconds.

The lesson of Biosphere II is that there are no man-made substitutes for essential natural services. We have not come up with an economical way to manufacture watersheds, gene pools, topsoil, wetlands, river systems, pollinators, or fisheries. Technological fixes can’t solve problems with soil fertility or guarantee clean air, biological diversity, pure water, and climatic stability; nor can they increase the capacity of the environment to absorb 25 billion tons of waste created annually in America alone.

Natural Capital as a Limiting Factor

The new limits to prosperity are natural systems — not boats, but fisheries; not sawmills, but forests.

Until the 1970s, the concept of natural capital was largely irrelevant to business planning, and it still is in most companies. Throughout the industrial era, economists considered manufactured capital — money, factories, etc. — the principal factor in industrial production, and perceived natural capital as a marginal contributor. The exclusion of natural capital from balance sheets was an understandable omission. There was so much of it, it didn’t seem worth counting. Not any longer.

Historically, economic development has faced a number of limiting factors, including the availability of labor, energy resources, machinery, and financial capital. The absence or depletion of a limiting factor can prevent a system from growing. If marooned in a snowstorm, you need water, food, and warmth to survive. Having more of one factor cannot compensate for the absence of the other. Drinking more water will not make up for lack of clothing if you are freezing.

In the past, by increasing the limiting factor, industrial societies continued to develop economically. It wasn’t always pretty: Slavery “satisfied” labor shortages, as did immigration and high birthrates. Mining companies exploited coal, oil, and gas to meet increased energy demands. The need for labor-saving devices provoked the invention of steam engines, spinning jennies, cotton gins, and telegraphs. Financial capital became universally accessible through central banks, credit, stock exchanges, and currency exchange mechanisms.

Because economies grow and change, new limiting factors occasionally emerge. When they do, massive restructuring occurs. Nothing works as before. Behavior that used to be economically sound becomes unsound, even destructive.

Economist Herman E. Daly cautions that we are facing a historic juncture in which, for the first time, the limits to increased prosperity are not the lack of man-made capital but the lack of natural capital. The limits to increased fish harvests are not boats, but productive fisheries; the limits to irrigation are not pumps or electricity, but viable aquifers; the limits to pulp and lumber production are not sawmills, but plentiful forests.

Like all previous limiting factors, the emergence of natural capital as an economic force will pose a problem for reactionary institutions. For those willing to embrace the challenges of a new era, however, it presents an enormous opportunity.

Dia Internacional do Sol - Brilliant Noise : O Som do Sol

Brilliant Noise from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun's finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots containing additional information, by satellites orbiting the Earth. They are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies.

Awarded second prize by the Science Film Festival, a Coruna Spain. 2008.

Awarded second prize at Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival 2006.

Awarded Best Video at Experimental Film and Video Festival, Seoul, Korea 2006.

Thanks to the following solar observatories whose data archives were used in the making of this film: Mount Wilson Observatory UCLA, Lasco/SOHO Naval Research Laboratory, TRACE/LMSAL, Big Bear Solar Observatory/NJIT, SST/Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Gong/National Solar Observatory/AURA/NSF Thanks also to: Steven Christie, Iain Hannah, the CSE team and all at the space sciences Lab. UC Berkeley.

Early on in our fellowship we came across one still image of what turned out to be the Sun. We were fascinated by this image and wondered why we hadn't seen anything like it before. After some rooting about we discovered there were archives full of these documents of the sun but they required specialised knowledge just to extract each individual still from the data package it was stored in. We set about learning from the scientists the methods of extracting them and over the course of three months we downloaded gigabytes of archives. From here we turned these files into time lapse sequences according to their spectral frequencies and the film Brilliant Noise began to emerge.

The visual noise in the images is caused by natural and man made interferences. The white noise is cosmic rays impacting the CCD of the satellite camera, we also see frame dropouts and one frame taken from a ground based observatory which shows the silhouette of a plane as it crosses the path of the observatory. We wanted to leave these flaws in as they reveal something about the tools man uses to capture these images and makes them more tangible. These disturbances are routinely removed by NASA to create a cleaner image, they then go on to colourise them.

The sound is derived from solar natural radio and controlled via digitally sampling the intensity of the brightness of the image. The sound is intrinsically born from the image, creating a symphony by the Sun.

By doing this we wanted to enhance the sun as natural phenomena. Working with a documentary approach, we wanted to indulge in the raw material that is our Sun, using the image to control the fluctuation of the sound would emphasize the transitions and processes taking place.

Semiconductor have developed Brilliant Noise as a multi-stranded project; It exists as a single work and also as a multi-screen installation. It has been installed as a 10 screen 16 audio channel work, and as a three screen surround sound installation.

It is the feature of Semiconductors DVD release with Fat Cat Records, Worlds in Flux, in the form of a soundtrack project. Semiconductor invited sound artists and musicians to create alternate soundtracks to the film resulting in eleven new or remixed works by:

Antenna Farm, Disinformation, Thomas Dimuzio, Ensemble, Gæoudjiparl, Robert Hampson, Iris Garrelfs, Our Brother The Native, Max Richter, The Twilight Sad, Cristian VogelIt also exists as a live performance whereby the brightness of the image is sampled in real-time to control live audio.

Brilliant Noise has also been performed as a single / multi screen and HD work with live soundtrack.

Sobre o Dia Internacional do Sol

O Dia Internacional do Sol é comemorado a 3 de maio. Esta data foi criada para homenagear a importância desta estrela para a vida na Terra.

Sendo o Sol a nossa principal fonte de vida, é importante alertar para a importância das energias renováveis, de forma a consciencializar a sociedade para um futuro mais sustentável, ajudando o equilíbrio do planeta.

O Sol é a principal fonte de energia que há no mundo. Embora existam outras fontes de energia como gases naturais, petróleo e carvão, todos estes minerais existem graças à captação e armazenamento da energia solar pelas plantas, algas e alguns animais, há centenas de milhares de anos.

Sem o Sol não haveria vida na Terra.

O Dia do Sol surgiu de uma iniciativa do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente, em parceria com a NASA, para homenagear e apresentar curiosidades sobre o “Astro-Rei” às pessoas. Uma das ferramentas criadas pela NASA foi o site Sun-Earth Days, que apresenta uma versão interativa sobre o Sol, ajudando os visitantes a entender as relações entre o astro e o ambiente terrestre.