This is the seventh in a series of guest blog posts by Alissa Emmel about renewable energy projects in Nicaragua.
After spending time in Sabana Grande with the Solar Women of Totogalpa, I headed to Bluefields on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua for my second class with Solar Energy International. At Bluefields we partnered with blueEnergy to learn about wind energy and clean water technologies. We spent the first few days on the National Technical Institute (INATEC) campus, which produced wind turbines on-site. We learned about how the wind turbines are built, as well as about various local communities and the community-based needs assessments which were conducted to determine which communities would receive the turbines.
The problem: lack of infrastructure
One might think that because we were still in Nicaragua, the challenges on the Atlantic coast must be similar to the challenges on the Pacific coast. In fact, there were large differences:
The Atlantic coast is made up of two autonomous regions, the Northern Atlantic Autonomous Region (often referred to as RAAN, “Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte”) and the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region (often referred to as RAAS- Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur). About 57% of the country’s territory is in these two regions. So what does this mean from a practical standpoint? Well, first, diverse populations and languages. While in the rest of Nicaragua Spanish is spoken; here there are seven different languages: Garifuna, Miskito, Creole English, Rama, Sumo-Mayanga and Spanish. For the area that we were in Spanish, Creole English, Rama, and Miskito were spoken. So you can imagine the challenge bringing together different groups that might not only be different ethnicities but don’t have a common language.
This also means that there is a lot of red tape and overlapping authority that one has to go through to get anything done. This certainly seems to contribute to the difference in standards of living that the projects I participated in were meant to alleviate. And it made the projects launched by blueEnergy even more impressive.
One solution: Biosand water filter
One example is a biosand water filter, an inexpensive filtration device without moving parts that can theoretically last indefinitely. The only caveat is that the filter needs to be used with the same source of water throughout its lifespan.
Here is a how-to video of my team constructing a biosand water filter:
And here is a short video of the filter in action:
Other posts in this series:
1. Renewable Energy Projects in Nicaragua
2. The problem: cooking with firewood
3. The solution: solar ovens
4. Re-seeding the Forest
5. Is renewable energy practical?
6. The Solar Women of Totogalpa
7. Making a biosand water filter
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