News about Solar, Wind and alternative green power technologies

There are mountain districts where Llama herds graze and villagers rely on primitive biomass technology [firewood for cooking] and to provide warmth in their mud brick dwellings and have done so for centuries. It is an isolated area in a corner of an immense South American nation where deforestation and soil erosion is the norm.

Today however, occupants of one village named Misa Rumi, located in Jujuy province eat their lunch of stew and soups. Meals that were cooked on a solar operated stove and they are using showers heated by solar technology. It is all part of a program begun by a local nongovernmental organization called the EcoAndina Foundation.

According to one villager, they use the solar stove frequently and it works great for them. They cook up soups and anything else they like and they get great meals. He discusses his solar appliance as he stirs a pot of soup over a big aluminum plate.

Using a sundial that is built into the apparatus, when the solar stove is pointed toward direct sunlight, it can ignite a piece of paper in only seconds. These devices have become quite popular as they aid the village people well saving time and the chore of looking for firewood or paying for expensive gas.

Other parts of Misa Rumi, the brilliantly hot Andean sun is utilized to heat a common bakery as well as a solar generated pump for water. This unit sees to it that the people can irrigate their vegetable crops.

The village of Misa Rumi sits at three thousand seven hundred fifty meters or twelve thousand feet above sea level so they are pleased with their solar heating system in the village school that warms up the building in defiance of despicable morning temperatures in winter. The suns heat is transferred through black solar roof panels.
Improving The Lives Of Residents

Most of the village’s solar energy devices were installed by EcoAndina Foundation and they have been doing this since 1989 within Misa Rumi and some 30 other rural communities in and about the La Puna region.

Utilizing the technology was a method of preserving forests, which were dwindling due to firewood consumption that began causing desertification throughout the area. It was also a means to improve the lives of the residents so said the president of EcoAndina. Many other Latin American nations found the idea intriguing, as did other countries around the world.

The problem of deforestation was making it difficult for certain slow maturing plant life to thrive, like the Yareta, which was used as an excellent source for fire wood but matures over hundreds of years.

The leaders of the program are anticipating the time when villagers in the district will be able to receive carbon credits for decreasing the quantity of CO² the generated when toppling trees and burning the wood and their natural gas use which is no longer necessary.

Using one solar stove can conserve upwards of two metric tons of carbon dioxide annually when a family utilizes it continually and this is a considerable amount when one reflects on the roughly forty thousand residents in the district.

Not only is the solar technology making people’s lives easier but also the natives of this high Andean countryside are able to preserve their traditional culture due to the green technology.

By bringing in solar technology, the people of these villages have alternatives to old conflicting methods of doing things and they improve their living conditions. There is less chance of the villagers being forced from their traditions and moved into large urban centers due to solar power and conservation.