Cross-posted from
Energy Trends Insider
I just spent two weeks on the Galapagos Islands. Their economies are
driven almost entirely by Eco-tourism. Like the rest of us, the people
of the Galapagos Islands are utterly dependent on affordable sources of
energy for their existence.
As a result of a fuel tanker grounding
and attendant oil spill in 2001, a consortium of energy companies from
the G7, calling themselves e7 (created to bring renewable energy to
developing nations), funded the installation of three wind turbines on
San Cristobal, an island in the Galapagos archipelago, to minimize the
amount of fuel that had to be delivered to run the generators. They also
created a trust fund for maintenance and eventual removal of the
turbines at the end of their twenty year life spans.
My youngest daughter is studying in San Cristobal. Her class took a
field trip to the power station shortly after my arrival. I sent along a
list of questions.
Her class was told that there is no wind for
three or four months out of the year. They were also told that at least
one of the five diesel generators is always running. When my daughter
asked why the computer screen only had three icons for the generators
when there are five of them, she was told that two of the three icons
represent a pair of generators.
My daughter took the above photo of the computer screen in the control
room. The diesel generators were producing over half of the power
(162.5 + 222.5 =388 kW of power from the diesel generators, and 239 +
231+ 236 = 726 kW from the wind turbines).
The plant supervisor
had explained to the class that the San Cristobal electric power system
is a diesel/wind hybrid. I was impressed. Few people understand that
virtually all wind turbine installations require the consumption of
fossil fuel because they are part of a hybrid system that includes some
form of fossil fueled peaking power plant to take over when there isn’t
enough wind. A wind turbine without fossil fuel back-up is about as
useful as a car without wheels.
The turbines are located on a hill
about a mile away from another hill that has the only fresh water pond
on the island (in an old volcanic caldera) which is frequented by
frigate birds and the Galapagos White-cheeked pin-tail duck, which is
endangered. The original site chosen for the turbines was abandoned
when researchers discovered that it was in the flight path used by the
endangered Galapagos Petrol returning to their nests in the night after
fishing far out to sea.
While riding a bike on a dirt road leading
away from the wind turbines, I found an endangered Galapagos Rail and a
common species of Darwin’s Finch within a few miles of each other that
had recently been hit by cars. This gave me an epiphany.
To put
the bird and bat killing potential of the three wind turbines in terms
of road kill, picture a 1/3 mile long oval race track in an area known
to harbor endangered bird species, with nine equally spaced cars going
around it at 180 mph, 24 hours a day (three turbines, each with three
100 foot long blades spinning at 25 revolutions per minute, 5,280
feet/mile, 60 minutes/hour, circumference = 2pR).
There are also
three wind turbines (from a different manufacturer) located on the
island of Baltra. Although it was always quite windy, I never saw them
spinning. All of these turbines are essentially an experiment testing
the viability of wind energy in the Galapagos Islands. Will they
eventually fall into disrepair and join the rest of the abandoned
structures on the islands?
I briefly discuss below a few other energy schemes that may also be effective at preventing oil spills.
Natural Gas
If
Ecuador were really serious about protecting the “Mona Lisa” of
biodiversity from the next inevitable oil spill, everything in the
Galapagos would run on natural gas. Much of the taxi fleet in Buenos
Aires (a city of 13 million) runs on natural gas, as does Seattle’s
garbage and recycling trucks. The generators could also be run on
natural gas. Petroleum products are heavily subsidized by the Ecuadorian
government. Gasoline here costs $1.50 a gallon. This has, of course,
created a black market for Ecuadorian petroleum products in neighboring
countries.
Biomass
Roughly 90% of the biomass
here is from invasive plant species. One of the worst is the guava
tree. A system might be developed to pay farmers to haul biomass (roots
and all) down the mountainsides with their donkeys to a biomass fired
steam turbine or a power-from-waste combustion system with the intent
of controlling or possibly eliminating some invasive species.
Power from waste and Plasma gasification
Decades
ago, environmental activists successfully shut down the worst of the
old technology incinerators in the United States that had little or no
pollution control. Attempts to build modern power-from-waste or
plasma gasification
facilities (which bear no resemblance to the old trash incinerators)
will usually attract a crowd of aging activists waving signs with the
word “incinerator” somewhere in the text. All the same, most developed
nations are using the technology. From the
Wikipedia article:
Waste
combustion is particularly popular in countries such as Japan where
land is a scarce resource. Denmark and Sweden have been leaders in using
the energy generated from incineration for more than a century, in
localized combined heat and power facilities supporting district heating
schemes. In 2005, waste incineration produced 4.8% of the electricity
consumption and 13.7% of the total domestic heat consumption in Denmark.
A number of other European countries rely heavily on incineration for
handling municipal waste, in particular Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Germany and France.
Although there is a recycling
program, some of the Galapagos Islands are, literally, awash with trash.
Sea turtles and sea birds will sometimes eat plastic debris and die as a
result. I witnessed scrap metal being hauled to a dock and loaded by
hand onto small barges which ferried it out to ships that had just
unloaded cargo in the reverse order.
Biofuel
An
economically viable technology to convert cellulose into a liquid fuel
does not exist. It is still more efficient to burn woody biomass for
electricity or heat. Humanity is the cause of the sixth great extinction
event. Habitat loss is the main driver and agriculture is the main
driver of habitat loss and deforestation, which is also a significant
contributor to global warming. Because palm biodiesel or cane or corn
ethanol require the conversion of ecosystems elsewhere into cropland, I
would not consider them any better than oil when it comes to overall
environmental impact.
Dedicated bicycle lanes?
Santa
Cruz is the most populous of all the islands. The tourist district has
dedicated bicycle lanes with a physical barrier separating bikes and car
traffic. Bicycles are already used extensively on all of the islands
because weather is rarely an impediment and because most destinations
are not very far apart. Unfortunately, thanks to the low cost of motor
fuel, there is less incentive to ride a bike than to drive the
ubiquitous crew-cab short-bed pickup truck.
The future of the Galapagos Islands
The
population of the Galapagos is growing rapidly because there are so
many young people who are just beginning to have a family or are not old
enough to do so yet, and all of their children will of course have
children of their own.
Thanks to ecotourism, the standard of
living in the Galapagos Islands is much higher than on the mainland of
Ecuador, although still well below most developed nations. It’s illegal
to migrate there unless you are married to a citizen of the islands,
and it isn’t legal to marry somebody just so you can.
Fresh water
is very limited and on some islands you shower and wash in salty water.
Any kind of social upheaval that disrupts Eco-tourism or the supply of
fossil fuels would be disastrous for the people and the wildlife of the
Galapagos.
Unlike wildlife found at other Eco-tourism destinations
like Costa Rica, the indigenous wildlife of the Galapagos never
developed a fear of man. Nowhere else on the planet can you stand next
to a sea lion at the fish market, share your fork with a finch
(Darwin’s), wait for the occasional giant tortoise to cross the road …
…have a staring contest with a marine iguana.