I forgot to post a link to this when it came out a few weeks ago.
"Debemos pensar en el ciclo de vida de la energía"
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Romero Day
Today is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, probably the single most important figure of the twentieth century in El Salvador. The occasion was marked by declaration of a day of remembrance by President Funes, dedication of a new mural at the airport, and a performance broadcast live on TV of a requiem performed by a symphonic orchestra and choral group. May the next thirty years be much more peaceful and just in this country.
If you want to read more about Archbishop Romero and the current events surrounding today's commemoration, see today's entry on Tim's El Salvador Blog.
If you want to read more about Archbishop Romero and the current events surrounding today's commemoration, see today's entry on Tim's El Salvador Blog.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Ya Sabe
One of my favorite expressions here is "ya sabe." It's one of several ways to say "you're welcome," but it has a warmth to it that I don't hear in the more common "de nada." Ya sabe is literally "you already know," carrying the connotation of "Look, you know I'd do this for you any time, no gratitude required." You're not too likely to hear it on the street from a stranger you just thanked for picking up a dropped package; more likely it comes from someone who knows you at least a little and feels some affection or respect for you.
This evening Basi and I went to the auditorium at the Museum of Anthropology to see the film Dirt. It was produced for Showtime and tells the story of a woman from El Salvador trying to make a living as a housekeeper in New York City. The actress who played the lead role, Julieta Ortiz, was in town and spoke before the film. Basi and I got to talk with her in the lobby for awhile. She's actually Mexican, and she told us about her experiences trying to get the Salvadoran accent and vocabulary right for the film. She said it's not an easy film to get ahold of since it was produced for cable TV and has not been distributed on DVD, but if you get a chance, see it. It's good.
This evening Basi and I went to the auditorium at the Museum of Anthropology to see the film Dirt. It was produced for Showtime and tells the story of a woman from El Salvador trying to make a living as a housekeeper in New York City. The actress who played the lead role, Julieta Ortiz, was in town and spoke before the film. Basi and I got to talk with her in the lobby for awhile. She's actually Mexican, and she told us about her experiences trying to get the Salvadoran accent and vocabulary right for the film. She said it's not an easy film to get ahold of since it was produced for cable TV and has not been distributed on DVD, but if you get a chance, see it. It's good.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Where do I start...?
I think this is the first time I've gone over a week without an entry since starting this blog, so excuse me for some quick catch-up.
Last week's classes went well. Tuesday was fuel cell day -- I gave a lecture on hydrogen, then we operated the H2E3 fuel cell/electrolyzer kit. The students were really interested and asked a lot of questions. Thursday I focused on system design, specifically design of small off-grid systems. We used Solar Energy International's methodology and a version of their worksheet that I translated into Spanish and modified using some ideas from an article in the current issue of Home Power magazine.
Friday Rich Cairncross and I went to a meeting at the U.S. embassy to plan some Earth Day events that we're going to participate in. Afterward, Rich came to our apartment and Basilia, Rich and I went out to have dinner at a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant. Afterward we went over to the Feria Internacional, San Salvador's main convention center. It was opening night for AgroExpo, an event that bears a surprising resemblance to the Humboldt County fair, with rows of buildings full of prize livestock and farm equipment. After making our way across a few acres of this, we found the amphitheater where Nicaraguan salsa singer Luis Enrique was scheduled to sing. The opening acts were strange -- a reggae band that I gradually realized were not really playing their instruments, and a sort of American Idol reject type singing Mexican pop to a recorded backing. Fortunately Luis Enrique and his band were of a far higher caliber and put on a really great show. The vaulted roof over the open-air arena unfortunately created bad acoustics, but aside from that the show was a lot of fun.
Saturday morning we had a 6:30 a.m. departure (ouch, after Luis Enrique kept us out past midnight the night before) for the class's last field trip. Basilia came along again. This time we went to Cerrón Grande, one of El Salvador's four large hydro power projects. My co-worker Eduardo's brother Francisco works at the plant, and coincidentally Eduardo and his wife Norma had organized all of Norma's family to spend the weekend out at a guest house operated by CEL, the hydropower agency, right by the dam. They had invited us to join them, so Basi and I sent the students back to San Salvador in the bus without us. (This was planned ahead of time, so we had our swimsuits and toothbrushes with us.) It ended up being a very relaxing way to round out the weekend. There was a swimming pool, hammocks, pupusas, some whiskey courtesy of Eduardo's father-in-law -- everything we wanted. It was well past dark when we got back to San Salvador last night.
Today I caught a ride with Jorge Lemus over to UDB's Soyapango campus. We met with Carlos and Carolyn from the U.S. embassy and Tim DeVoogd, a Cornell neurobiologist who is also an itinerant scientist representing the U.S. State Department in Latin America. He was there to review our Science Corner proposal and see if the space we had set aside was adequate. He gave us a clean bill of health. Not yet time to celebrate, but things are looking good for getting the grant.
Last week's classes went well. Tuesday was fuel cell day -- I gave a lecture on hydrogen, then we operated the H2E3 fuel cell/electrolyzer kit. The students were really interested and asked a lot of questions. Thursday I focused on system design, specifically design of small off-grid systems. We used Solar Energy International's methodology and a version of their worksheet that I translated into Spanish and modified using some ideas from an article in the current issue of Home Power magazine.
Friday Rich Cairncross and I went to a meeting at the U.S. embassy to plan some Earth Day events that we're going to participate in. Afterward, Rich came to our apartment and Basilia, Rich and I went out to have dinner at a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant. Afterward we went over to the Feria Internacional, San Salvador's main convention center. It was opening night for AgroExpo, an event that bears a surprising resemblance to the Humboldt County fair, with rows of buildings full of prize livestock and farm equipment. After making our way across a few acres of this, we found the amphitheater where Nicaraguan salsa singer Luis Enrique was scheduled to sing. The opening acts were strange -- a reggae band that I gradually realized were not really playing their instruments, and a sort of American Idol reject type singing Mexican pop to a recorded backing. Fortunately Luis Enrique and his band were of a far higher caliber and put on a really great show. The vaulted roof over the open-air arena unfortunately created bad acoustics, but aside from that the show was a lot of fun.
Saturday morning we had a 6:30 a.m. departure (ouch, after Luis Enrique kept us out past midnight the night before) for the class's last field trip. Basilia came along again. This time we went to Cerrón Grande, one of El Salvador's four large hydro power projects. My co-worker Eduardo's brother Francisco works at the plant, and coincidentally Eduardo and his wife Norma had organized all of Norma's family to spend the weekend out at a guest house operated by CEL, the hydropower agency, right by the dam. They had invited us to join them, so Basi and I sent the students back to San Salvador in the bus without us. (This was planned ahead of time, so we had our swimsuits and toothbrushes with us.) It ended up being a very relaxing way to round out the weekend. There was a swimming pool, hammocks, pupusas, some whiskey courtesy of Eduardo's father-in-law -- everything we wanted. It was well past dark when we got back to San Salvador last night.
With Eduardo (far left) and his in-laws near Cerrón Grande
Today I caught a ride with Jorge Lemus over to UDB's Soyapango campus. We met with Carlos and Carolyn from the U.S. embassy and Tim DeVoogd, a Cornell neurobiologist who is also an itinerant scientist representing the U.S. State Department in Latin America. He was there to review our Science Corner proposal and see if the space we had set aside was adequate. He gave us a clean bill of health. Not yet time to celebrate, but things are looking good for getting the grant.
Sunset over the Cerrón Grande reservoir. OK, it's a fake lake, but it sure looked pretty.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Humboldt is EVERYWHERE
Friday night I got together with Anne Schaufele, one of the U.S. student Fulbrighters here in El Salvador, and Rich Cairncross, newly arrived in El Salvador, to see a movie at the Spanish Cultural Center. Rich is here to do basically the same thing I'm doing, teach about renewable energy, but he's working at the Universidad de El Salvador, aka La Nacional, the country's one large public university. The film was excellent, a Peruvian-Spanish production called La Teta Asustada. See it if you can find it.
Yesterday we made a marathon class field trip, with Basilia, Rich Cairncross, and our friend Mercy Burgos coming along. We left the campus in a hired bus at 8 am and headed north for the Ingenio La Cabaña, one of the country's major sugar processing plants. We spent the whole morning there, getting a detailed Powerpoint slide presentation about the plant followed by an in-depth tour. The plant engineers are wonderful, really knowledgeable about their plant and proud of how it works. The plant really is a wonder, deriving all of their process heat, mechanical energy, and more than twice the electricity they need from the bagasse left over after milling the sugar cane. Not only that, but they have a separate ethanol plant on site that can make 120,000 liters a day.
We were going to also visit a second sugar plant, but the La Cabaña visit ended up running overtime, so I called the folks at Ingenio El Angel and they were OK with leaving it for another day. We headed back for San Salvador and got some lunch, then headed for the Hospital Divina Providencia, which is a cancer clinic that has a new solar hot water system on the roof. Folks from SEESA, the company that installed the system, gave us a tour of the system. We spent about an hour and a half going over every component. I was especially impressed with Carlos Martínez, a young engineer who was in charge of the installation and did a great job answering the students' questions.
From there we headed back out of the city headed south with SEESA's engineers to see an off-grid residential PV system. The owners weren't home, but a gardener let us into the yard to see the system. The batteries, charge controller and inverter are housed in a shed that the SEESA engineers had a key for, so we were able to see all the components. Roberto Bonilla, who is general manager of SEESA, is a very colorful guy who has lots of great anecdotes to tell about the solar industry in El Salvador at the same time as he shows off the nuts and bolts of his systems.
Just as the sun was going down and we were headed for the bus to end our long day, the owners of the house came home, a couple with small kids. Ing. Bonilla had mentioned earlier that the woman was from California. I told her that Basilia and I live in CA, and she asked where. Much to my surprise, it turned out that she went to Humboldt State at the same time I did, during the 1980s. We even lived on the same street, Eye Street, at about the same time. Her name is Susan Kandel and she works for PRISMA, an environmental non-profit focused on rural sustainable development. Small freakin' world, eh.
Yesterday we made a marathon class field trip, with Basilia, Rich Cairncross, and our friend Mercy Burgos coming along. We left the campus in a hired bus at 8 am and headed north for the Ingenio La Cabaña, one of the country's major sugar processing plants. We spent the whole morning there, getting a detailed Powerpoint slide presentation about the plant followed by an in-depth tour. The plant engineers are wonderful, really knowledgeable about their plant and proud of how it works. The plant really is a wonder, deriving all of their process heat, mechanical energy, and more than twice the electricity they need from the bagasse left over after milling the sugar cane. Not only that, but they have a separate ethanol plant on site that can make 120,000 liters a day.
Our class at the La Cabaña sugar plant
We were going to also visit a second sugar plant, but the La Cabaña visit ended up running overtime, so I called the folks at Ingenio El Angel and they were OK with leaving it for another day. We headed back for San Salvador and got some lunch, then headed for the Hospital Divina Providencia, which is a cancer clinic that has a new solar hot water system on the roof. Folks from SEESA, the company that installed the system, gave us a tour of the system. We spent about an hour and a half going over every component. I was especially impressed with Carlos Martínez, a young engineer who was in charge of the installation and did a great job answering the students' questions.
Carlos Martínez and Roberto Bonilla from SEESA explain solar hot water
From there we headed back out of the city headed south with SEESA's engineers to see an off-grid residential PV system. The owners weren't home, but a gardener let us into the yard to see the system. The batteries, charge controller and inverter are housed in a shed that the SEESA engineers had a key for, so we were able to see all the components. Roberto Bonilla, who is general manager of SEESA, is a very colorful guy who has lots of great anecdotes to tell about the solar industry in El Salvador at the same time as he shows off the nuts and bolts of his systems.
It all looks so beautiful in the tropics...even rooftop PV
Just as the sun was going down and we were headed for the bus to end our long day, the owners of the house came home, a couple with small kids. Ing. Bonilla had mentioned earlier that the woman was from California. I told her that Basilia and I live in CA, and she asked where. Much to my surprise, it turned out that she went to Humboldt State at the same time I did, during the 1980s. We even lived on the same street, Eye Street, at about the same time. Her name is Susan Kandel and she works for PRISMA, an environmental non-profit focused on rural sustainable development. Small freakin' world, eh.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Making a Living off Renewable Energy in El Salvador
...Yes, it does seem to be possible. Today Victor Cornejo and I went to visit what appears to be a thriving renewable energy business here in San Salvador, SEESA. I had become aware of this company several weeks earlier and attempted unsuccessfully to get in touch with them. This week one of my students who knows someone at SEESA took it upon himself to have another go at connecting us. I wanted to visit the company before the class ends because I'd heard they have some solar hot water and off-grid solar electric installations in or near the capital that I thought might make good field trip destinations.
Victor and I were greeted at SEESA by their chief engineer Roberto Bonilla and one of their staff techs, María del Carmen. Their office/workshop/showroom is in a beautiful hillside location near the south edge of the city. We sat down for an hour and a half to talk about their installations and came up with a plan to see a solar hot water installation at a hospital and an off-grid solar project at an NGO's office on Saturday afternoon, right after our field trip to two sugar processing plants. Will be a long day, but it seems a no-brainer since we already have the students organized, a bus lined up, and Ing. Bonilla is available. He got on the phone and got permission from the system owners. I emailed all the students today to see whether a good chunk of them are in agreement with this plan.
Roberto and María gave us a tour of their facility. It's quite impressive. They have a huge selection of solar electric equipment, thermosiphon hot water systems from Brazil and China, high efficiency DC and AC appliances, and loads of white LED products, including street lights. They also have their own grid tied PV system with battery backup, which uses an interesting inverter setup. There are two SMA inverters, one for grid tie and one for off-grid use. Normally they use the grid inverter with the other unit on standby. When the power goes out, the off-grid unit automatically comes online running off the battery bank. It sends an AC sine wave input to the grid inverter's utility side connection, fooling the grid inverter into thinking it's getting grid power so it doesn't shut off.
In the afternoon I had a visit from three high school students who attend a private French liceo. They had visited me the week before to ask for guidance on biodigestors. They came back today to get some documents I'd promised them and to show me a plastic bottle mini-digestor they had put together. Next week they want me to visit their school to see a larger scale digestor they have in the works.
Victor and I were greeted at SEESA by their chief engineer Roberto Bonilla and one of their staff techs, María del Carmen. Their office/workshop/showroom is in a beautiful hillside location near the south edge of the city. We sat down for an hour and a half to talk about their installations and came up with a plan to see a solar hot water installation at a hospital and an off-grid solar project at an NGO's office on Saturday afternoon, right after our field trip to two sugar processing plants. Will be a long day, but it seems a no-brainer since we already have the students organized, a bus lined up, and Ing. Bonilla is available. He got on the phone and got permission from the system owners. I emailed all the students today to see whether a good chunk of them are in agreement with this plan.
Roberto and María gave us a tour of their facility. It's quite impressive. They have a huge selection of solar electric equipment, thermosiphon hot water systems from Brazil and China, high efficiency DC and AC appliances, and loads of white LED products, including street lights. They also have their own grid tied PV system with battery backup, which uses an interesting inverter setup. There are two SMA inverters, one for grid tie and one for off-grid use. Normally they use the grid inverter with the other unit on standby. When the power goes out, the off-grid unit automatically comes online running off the battery bank. It sends an AC sine wave input to the grid inverter's utility side connection, fooling the grid inverter into thinking it's getting grid power so it doesn't shut off.
María del Carmen and Roberto Bonilla of SEESA with a mockup off-grid mini solar electric system
In the afternoon I had a visit from three high school students who attend a private French liceo. They had visited me the week before to ask for guidance on biodigestors. They came back today to get some documents I'd promised them and to show me a plastic bottle mini-digestor they had put together. Next week they want me to visit their school to see a larger scale digestor they have in the works.
The Liceo students with their handheld bio-digestor
This week Basilia started taking a class on Control de Enfermedades, part of the Universidad Centroamericana's master's program in public health.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Solar Lab
I was thankful for the sun this afternoon, even as it beat down on my balding head. After a string of partly cloudy afternoons this week, we were treated to some pretty constant sunshine today, which was good news for the renewable energy class. I had cobbled together some solar electric experiment kits using tiny PV modules pulled out of solar walkway lights, solderless breadboards, resistors, and multimeters. We used these to create simple I-V curves to evaluate the PV modules. The students organized themselves into five teams and had a good time trying out the equipment.
Federico Machado, the head of the university's electric lab, once again came to my aid with an assortment of equipment for doing a larger scale solar demonstration: a 12V battery, charge controller, and inverter. We combined these with three 5W solar modules, one that I brought from California and two procured locally, and a 60W desk lamp. We were able to power the lamp and operate the system in battery charging and discharging modes.
The mini solar cell test kit in action
One of the teams generating an I-V curve
Federico Machado, the head of the university's electric lab, once again came to my aid with an assortment of equipment for doing a larger scale solar demonstration: a 12V battery, charge controller, and inverter. We combined these with three 5W solar modules, one that I brought from California and two procured locally, and a 60W desk lamp. We were able to power the lamp and operate the system in battery charging and discharging modes.
Our 15W solar electric system
Students plot their I-V curve data
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Where We Live
I've neglected so far to provide any photos of our home and our neighborhood. Here are a couple.
Our neighborhood, Jardines de Guadalupe, in the foreground with El Picacho (the eastern peak of Volcán San Salvador) in the distance
Our second floor apartment. No, the truck isn't ours.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Field Trippin'
The past week has been marked mainly by a deluge of field trips with my class. Friday we went to see a solar electric system at the Escuela Alemana just a few blocks from our graduate campus. Saturday was a trip to the Berlin geothermal project that took most of the day. And today we went to see the solar project on the roof of the government's hydropower agency that I blogged about back in January. All good trips: I think/hope the students are getting a lot out of them. The class chugs on, now half over! The students gave me first drafts of their group projects last week, and I gave them back today with comments. Tomorrow I have office hours so I can see if I pissed any of them off.
I've been having fun disassembling solar pathway lights, the only cheap PV modules we've been able to buy locally. I did a dry run today of the lab I'm going to have the students do Thursday, in which they will connect the modules to resistors on a breadboard and generate basic IV curves. It worked pretty well.
Basilia and I went out with my co-worker Eduardo and his wife Claudia and daughter Yasmin on Sunday, first to the wholesale produce market where Basilia bought about 8 pounds of mangos, then to El Boquerón volcano. That's been about it for recreation this busy week.
I've been having fun disassembling solar pathway lights, the only cheap PV modules we've been able to buy locally. I did a dry run today of the lab I'm going to have the students do Thursday, in which they will connect the modules to resistors on a breadboard and generate basic IV curves. It worked pretty well.
our field trips to see solar and gothermal systems
Basilia and I went out with my co-worker Eduardo and his wife Claudia and daughter Yasmin on Sunday, first to the wholesale produce market where Basilia bought about 8 pounds of mangos, then to El Boquerón volcano. That's been about it for recreation this busy week.
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