Desenvolvimento de tecnologias como conjunto de ferramentas e suporte às atividades e pesquisas socioambientais na Amazônia brasileira: mobilidade e acessibilidade em áreas de várzea

Abstract

The intense search for new energy sources, as well as for the general availability and efficient use of those already existing, demands creative and rational answers to this difficult equation. In Brazil, Nature has been generous and furnished many options that are being gradually discovered, developed and made accessible to domestic and industrial uses. Society, Government, industry and academia join forces to go beyond the limits of current technologies in order to establish new relationships in the medium and long term. The natural gas and light oil 1970s and 1980s discoveries in the rainforest-covered Solimões sedimentary basin (Juruá and Urucu fields) raise the following question: how to make such a noble natural resource available to consumer centers, in an efficiently and economically sustainable fashion, ensuring the reliability and safety of operations and industrial facilities located in flooded areas with dense vegetation, under inhospitable conditions and in places very difficult to access? The construction of a complex pipeline network was the solution found suitable for transporting the natural gas and light oil produced in Urucu. These products present undeniable advantages if compared to diesel, currently used as the basis of the energy matrix in Manaus metropolitan region and its surroundings. As a result, another question emerges: how to operate, maintain and monitor areas under the influence of this infrastructure that stretches for 800 km along one of the fastestgrowing regions of Brazil in recent decades? These questions bring opportunities for discussions embracing the technological basis of the present academic work, which intends to examine the feasibility of a new locomotion concept for people, equipment and goods. A vehicle with environmental emphasis placed as part of its very first specifications, specially designed for inundated scenarios in Amazonia. Such a concept could help decision makers to plan operational activities by providing mobility and accessibility into sensitive areas of Amazonian floodplains. In addition, we expect that this innovative technology will benefit similar areas in Brazil, such as the flooded native pastures of the Pantanal of Mato Grosso state, which is difficult (or even impossible) to access using the conventional means of locomotion available today.