Costa Rica’s Electricity and Water Problems

I remember reading a magazine article about 30 years ago about a community that had one reservoir at a high elevation. There was a hydroelectric dam which supplied power to the community, however, it was being strained by increasing usage and decreasing water supplies. The community was in the process of digging another reservoir at a lower elevation.

The plan was to use the dam to generate power during the day as usual, however at night when the demand for electricity was much lower, the community would pump the water back up into the higher reservoir. It would take a lot of energy to do this, but the energy was expended during light usage hours.

I don’t know if this plan worked or not, but I thought it was a unique solution. Of course, I’m not an energy expert either.

editer

I had the same thoughts as I was writing my post. As I said, I’m no expert, either. The article was written decades ago and my memory about the project is more than a little bit frayed. It may have been that a power source other than the hydroelectric dam was used to pump the water back up to the reservoir. I never saw a follow-up article that spoke to the success or failure of the project. I’m not even sure what publication carried the article. It may have been “Popular Mechanics.” You know, the issue that explained how to build a robot out of vacuum cleaner parts.

editer

Scott,
The huge problem that I see is not what can be done but when. Those large computer corporations won’t stand for their power being interrupted, they will move to another country before ICE knows what is happening. ICE knows what needs to be done but the bureaucracy prevents them from doing anything till it’s to late. I’ve done some checking on the new solar panels and find the prices have drop considerably. Where I’m living now near Tehachapi California has a huge wind farm developing 1.6 megawatts per unit, that would seem to be a very quick answer to Costa Rica’s problem. ICE would have to start now to keep those computer related companies from moving, I would wager that other countries are plying them with their own power systems if they would just move. The other thing that needs to happen today is to stop those high rise buildings and other power hungry buildings. Water does renew itself but just how fast is the question and if this global warming is happening then fresh water will become scares. As an ex-engineer I know it takes time to put things in motion, that is something Costa Rica doesn’t have. They need to start construction of wind power plants yesterday or the economic crash they heading for will be something Costa Rica will never recover from. I have an engineer friend that installs turbine power plants and he says that it would take way too long to set things up to stop this disaster from happening that way. He did think there are some small turbines that could be brought in quickly if Costa Rica can find the fuel. That would only be a stop gap measure to give them the time to build the wind power units. Of course all this is just my humble opinion.
Art Edwards

Friends: I understand that a major problem with the wind turbines near the San Francisco area is that they kill a lot of birds, including protected species. I believe that might present a problem in Costa Rica where there are so many different kinds of birds. I fear that in the tico way, that as soon as it rains and everyone has power again, no one will follow up on this disaster in the making. Before anyone responds, I am all for alternative methods of power, it just that we don’t want to injure the ecosystem either. Also, before moving here, I investigated investing in solar power in Southern California. I found that the equipment was so expensive that it was doubtful whether or not one could ever recoup the costs involved. If it’s that expensive in California, I really fear the price in CR. A solution might be conservation and stricter development requirements? tm

Detroit Edison built a pump recycling station on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan at Ludington, Michigan in the late 1960s at a time when I was married to the daughter of their vice president for construction. They used standby (waste) energy from fuel-fired generating plants at night to pump lake water into the reservior. Then, when demand increased, they released reservior water through the turbines to meet the need. It worked very well.

The downside was that it was hard on the environment. When lake water was pumped into the reservior, many fish were killed. And when the relatively warm water that made it through the turbines was released back into Lake Michigan, bad things happened to the local lake environment.

All that said, I’m pretty sure the plant is still in operation.

TM,
I’ve never heard of any birds getting killed by the wind turbines, the blades turn so slow any bird should be able to avoid getting hit. Solar power in Southern California is around $23,000 for a 3KW unit, what you don’t use you sell to the utilities. Perhaps it would take some time to recover your investment but you would be looking at many years of little maintenance. The cost of power keeps going up so payback gets shorter all the time. When I do move to Costa Rica I’m thinking of bringing some solar panels with me to hook up to a battery storage system for when the local power goes off. I’m looking for the payoff on a system at current prices when I get it figured out I will post my findings.
Art Edwards

I think that I remember reading something similiar in Popular Science.
What I remember was a location that had a huge tide difference and they opened some large gate like structures that allowed a gigantic holding pond to fill with ocean water. When the tide started to drop they would shut off this gaste and then allow the water to exit through some turbines to genertate electricity. That is if my memory serves me.
Phil