Development of a Tool for Assessment of Energy for Sustainable Cities - Application Cambará do Sul and Crystal
Abstract
Until the industrial revolution, renewable sources of energy such as biomass, sunlight, hydropower and wind, were widely used and since then have been replaced by coal. In mid-twentieth century, oil has become widely used, coming to be the main energy source used by mankind. These changes prompted the development, however, because they are non-renewable energy sources, brought major environmental damage. Moreover, because they concentrated their shells and be considered cheap and inexhaustible, it is not your concern finitude, motivated the development of current models of urban settlements, making cities and megacities, which grew so disorderly and chaotic (Bristot, 1990). Quality of life and development are traditionally associated with increasing consumption of energy. The current vision of development requires that this occurs in a sustained ways in all its dimensions. Difficulties are encountered, so it is necessary to establish objective technical criteria, to assist in decision making to define the best ways to generate and use energy, that for different scales of communities. The relevance of this work is precisely in its bid to create subsidies that support decision making, guiding the planning and showing the potential of each source and setting indicators for the sustainable use of energy. This work deals about the implementation and evaluation of a tool designed to "Energetic Sustainability Assessment of the Municipalities" and had as a case study of the municipalities Cambará do Sul and Cristal. The result of this study was the adjustement of a serie of indicators of energy sustainability, the which ones can be applied with public´s data base. Some improvement actions were proposed too, they are applied by hypothetical way and the result was a change in the current value of general indicator of sustainability.