Day 21 6/12/13 (Energy generation in Nicaragua, Tumarín, batteries, gas bottles (DON'T BREAK THE HEAD OFF THEM) and the 2013 Tour de 'Tepe)

Today started off kinda rough, but has gotten significantly better as I was able to sit at the front of the table and learn a bit more today. Conversation was interesting as we talked about renewable energy in Nicaragua and how the Nicaraguan government is putting tons into renewables. Presently Nicaragua has a distribution of energy as follows: 60% nonrenewables (gas and oil), 7% biomass, 10% hydroelectric 7% wind and 16% geothermal. The Nicaraguan government has a plan that is set to change the distribution to 35% hydroelectric, 21% nonrenewables, 20% geothermal 16% wind and 8% biomass by 2017 (changing from 40% renewables to 79% renewables). The money not being spent on oil would then be given to schools, road improvements, purification of water and subsidies to hospitals. The main project in this plan is a project called Tumarín that is slated to increase the hydroelectric power percentage to 35% in 2017. This is a massive dam that would be built in the Atlantic south and would combine the rivers from the mountains there. Unfortunately there are 315 families already located there that must be relocated, but the government has apparently covered this in the project and will help them with houses (FEMA trailers anyone?). The project would save an estimated $70 million a year though, so I suppose they could probably get these people decent houses. The project would also employ around 6000 workers (So much about those renewable energies providing “no jobs” right certain congressmen?). The project also hopes to generate around 253 MW of energy (it’s over 9000!). Another part of the project is electrification of the country (bringing the percentage up from 52% in 2007 to 88% in 2012 to more than that in 2017). Already Nicaragua has 6907 solar panels installed around the country. Additionally the government likes to hire women as they are less likely to embezzle money and because they tend to invest the money in the family not in beer or women (like some guys here do). Anyways, Rivas also has a wind farm installed and can be seen today (it’s actually beautiful to see the renewable molinos de viento (windmills) against the natural backdrop of Ometepe). Nicaragua is also partially powered by geothermal energy (with Momotombo providing 70 MW of power as this is an active volcano. Some Spanish words for various power sources are: el viento (wind) to provide energía eolica (wind energy), energía hidroelectrica (hydroelectric), energía geotermica (geothermal) and paneles solares for solar energy. Also interestingly enough kinetic energy is called cinetica. Daniel Ortega has made huge advances to build power plants with help from Hugo Chaves, but no one knows how Nicaragua is paying for them except for Ortega. Changing topics, the two dirtiest cities are Managua and Masaya because the people don’t have a high regard for the cleanliness. The cleanest city is in León and is called Nagarote which has won this award called the municio Azul. People work tirelessly to keep the area clean. Also food is pretty expensive (with rice being upwards of 12 cordobas for a pound (3 pounds are needed for a family of 4ish per day)). Despite that, transport is relatively cheap in Managua (for getting to buy the expensive rice) and is like 2.5 cordobas. In fact there are new buses in Manauga with handicap elevators (un ascensor) on them! Anyways, after that grammar was boring.

            Today’s lecture started with a quiz on the past few devices (bililights, aspirators and ESUs). After that we talked about batteries, battery types, battery capacities, testing batteries and then did a quick unit on bottled gases and how you can NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BREAK THE TOP OFF THE GAS BOTTLE! (We even got to watch a myth busters where they broke the top off a gas bottle and watched it punch through a wall). We also got to try an ESU on a bar of soap! SO MUCH FUN CUTting soap -.- haha I suppose it wasn’t super exciting, but it was cool watching the electrical arc cut the soap (so interesting with the technology). Anyways the lab was to charge a battery with the variable power supply and we cranked out the calculations for the required resistance and actually got close to minimizing the charging time given our limited selection of resistors. After that we’ve just been chilling at Euro Café getting stoked for our trip to Ometepe to do the Tour de ‘Tepe on bikes this weekend. Anyways, that’s about it, I’ll leave y’all with a short one today! Have a fantastic rest of the day and enjoy tonight! Also the program is about 1/3rd over (time is going quickly!) Only another 15 days until I'll be working on medical equipment in San Carlos! Note from the future: We also had this really good dinner of these circular tacos (kinda like a crunch wrap supreme without the crunch or the lechuga) but they were soooooo good said the ugly one (SB emails reference)!