Nicaragua is Fertile Ground For Alternative Energy

Dear Nica Times:

I read with interest the article on Iranian

hydropower (NT, June 6). It begged the

question: Why is no-one considering wind

farms?

As recently as yesterday, I heard on NPR

that T. Boone Pickens (oil billionaire) is

vacating the petroleum market for wind

generation, and plans to do it in a big way. I

have neither his ear, nor President Daniel

Ortega’s, but there could be no better location

than Nicaragua, situated as it is directly

in the path of the Tradewinds, which first

brought European explorers to this continent

– whether they liked it or not.

Wind farms could be situated on fallow

land. The only way that a hydro dam could

make better sense than a wind farm would

be if it were a multi-tasking design that also

comprehended water purification and distribution;

PERHAPS recreative tourism;

AND could be located innocuously.

I have not heard that such a multi-faceted

plan is contemplated.

You may, out of interest in seeing Nicaragua prosper and grow, sow the seeds of interest in wind power generation with whomever you are able. I have found Dr. Susan Kinne at the UNI engineering school in Managua to be a reasonable advocate for various forms of alternate energy.

At the UNI’s annual alternate energy courses, I was introduced to the concept of sun-powered, silicone-mediated, steam-turbine electric generation.

Such turbine generated energy could also be located anywhere in sunny Nicaragua, in places where no other enterprises currently exist.

This could not only be a political sea change, as President Ortega has thus far played to “both galleries,” but no matter whether funded by Iranian, or other – presumably U.S. – capital, it makes more sense than a hydroelectric dam.

John Bergman

San Francisco, California

Editor’s note: The government has recently

awarded its first wind-power concession to the

AMAYO Wind Consortium, which will build a 40

megawatt wind plant in Rivas (NT, June 6)