http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68K2OD20100921
Tue Sep 21, 2010 11:41am EDT
SAN VICENTE PACAYA, Guatemala (Reuters) - Dotted with active
volcanoes, Central America is seeking to tap its unique geography to
produce green energy and cut dependence on oil imports as demand for
electricity outstrips supply.
Sitting above shifting tectonic plates in the Pacific basin known to
cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, the region has huge
potential for geothermal power generated by heat stored deep in the
earth.
Geothermal power plants, while expensive to build, can provide a long-
term, reliable source of electricity and are considered more
environmentally friendly than large hydroelectric dams that can alter
a country's topography.
Guatemala, Central America's biggest country, aims to produces 60
percent of its energy from geothermal and hydroelectric power by 2022.
The government is offering tax breaks on equipment to set up
geothermal plants and electricity regulators are requiring
distributors buy greater proportions of clean energy.
Some 1,640 feet below the summit of Guatemala's active Pacaya volcano,
which exploded in May, pipes carrying steam and water at 347 degrees
Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celsius) snake across the mountainside to one
of two geothermal plants currently operating in the country.
MOLTEN ROCK
Run by Israeli-owned Ormat Technologies Inc, the plant harnesses
energy from water heated by chambers filled with molten rock deep
beneath the ground.
The company has been operating two plants in Guatemala for three years
and wants to expand but is weighing the risks of drilling more costly
exploratory wells.
"There's a phase where you just have to drill and see," Ormat's
representative in Guatemala, Yossi Shilon, told Reuters. "The problem
is that you risk a very expensive investment and are not always
satisfied with the results."
Ormat's project is only a 20 MW station but Guatemala says the country
has the potential to produce up to 1000 MW of geothermal energy, a
third of projected energy needs in 2022.
Other Central American countries are already forging ahead in this
emerging technology.
More than a fifth of El Salvador's energy needs come from two
geothermal plants with installed capacity of 160 MW and investigations
are being carried out to build a third.
Costa Rica, which has 152 megawatts of capacity in four geothermal
plants, is due to bring a fifth plant online in January 2011 and is
looking into building two more.
Nicaragua generates 66 MW from geothermal energy and in the next five
years plans an increase to 166 MW.
Guatemala only produces a tiny amount of its own oil and spends about
$2 billion a year on imports. The aim is to save money on energy costs
and join international efforts to cut green house gas emissions,
issues that will be on the table at global climate change talks this
November in Cancun, Mexico.
BETTER THAN DAMS
Central America, heavily dependent on agriculture, is feeling the
effects of extreme weather. Tropical Storm Agatha killed nearly 200
people in the region earlier this year.
The largely poor countries are highly reliant on hydroelectricity, the
number two source of energy after oil, but environmental activists and
energy experts say harnessing geothermal energy has distinct
advantages over dams.
Hydroelectricity depends on rainfall and is vulnerable to hurricanes
that can wash mud and debris into rivers and clog dams. Such storms
are expected to increase in the frequency and intensity as the planet
warms.
"With climate change there's uncertainty over the future behavior of
water resources," said Eduardo Noboa, a renewables expert at the Latin
American Energy Organization, or OLADE. "We're going to see a
vulnerability in hydroelectric systems."
Dams, which can flood vast areas of land during their construction,
are unpopular in rural areas where families rely on farming and have
trouble finding arable land.
In Guatemala, hydroelectric projects have a haunted past after
hundreds of Mayan villagers protesting the building of a dam on the
Chixoy river were massacred by security forces in 1978 at the height
of the country's civil war.
The dam and its reservoir, which now generates around 15 percent of
Guatemala's electricity, displaced thousands of people in the
country's central highlands.
Geothermal plants by contrast are compact and companies, learning from
the mistakes of the past, say they are making an effort to provide
nearby towns with easy power access.
(Additional reporting by Leslie Josephs in San Jose, Ivan Castro in
Managua and Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Mica Rosenberg
and Missy Ryan)
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