Clean energy from filthy trash

Yesterday I tagged along with Rich Cairncross's class from Universidad de El Salvador to see an under-construction landfill gas energy project. The Nejapa landfill is the only real sanitary landfill in the country, serving the area around San Salvador. This is not too shocking when you consider that San Salvador department alone, one of 14 departments that make up the country, generates more than half the country's solid waste. Metro San Salvador has about a quarter of the country's population, but I think the standard of living and thus the amount of trash generated per capita here is much higher than in the rest of the country.

Anyhow, the landfill was interesting. As usual with field trips to industrial sites, they gave you way more liberty to get up close and personal with the equipment than in the liability- and intellectual property-crazy USA. We got to get up on top of one of the huge landfill trash heaps (it's neatly covered with soil, so it's not messy or stinky) and see the network of wells and tubing that capture the landfill gas. Then we went to see the flares, which is how they are disposing of the gas while they develop the 6 MW power plant they plan to open next year (eventually to be ramped up to 20 MW). The most disgusting part of the landfill visit? The lixiviados (leachate) liquid that oozes out of the landfill and gets sprinkled over the surface of the landfill. The tour bus drove right through the sprinkler spray, motivating us to quickly shut all the windows!

UES students at the Nejapa landfill gas flare

In the evening I went to the U.S. Ambassador's residence for a social event featuring a jazz combo who are visiting El Salvador from the States. Good thing I bought a suit from the tailors down the street a couple weeks ago -- I'm already putting some miles on it. When I arrived at the party I was greeted with the good news that the Science Corner grant I wrote with the embassy's Carolyn Turpin has been awarded funding. This will give us $50,000 to start equipping Universidad Don Bosco's renewable energy research center.

I also got to meet several other people associated with the embassy, including the country director of  the Millennium Challenge Corporation. They're putting in off-grid renewable energy systems for rural homes in out-of-the-way corners of the country. I'm hoping he can set me up an opportunity to visit some of these systems and see how people are living with them.

Today I went to see an ear nose and throat specialist (in Spanish an otorrinolaringólogo - one of the most amazing words I've come across in this language). He found some inflammation in both of my ears and prescribed me some anti-inflammatory medicine and a medication that suppresses the involuntary eye movements that make vertigo so disorienting. He also recommended some head and neck movement exercises that he says will help. He thinks I'll get over the vertigo in a few more days.