So I'm thinking of pushing a set of ideas to an extreme and here's what came up:
Take Turbine Farms, add in hyped-up solar panels and waste-water recycling, throw in a plasma gas burner and do that all in one town so that it becomes a showcase for technological and environmental progress.
I nominate Lajas, Puerto Rico for that honor (it IS a Jenius Idea, patent pending.) As you can see, Lajas could use the boost and here's where the other elements come in:
Solar panels: Lajas gets 10-12 hours of sunshine a day for around 290-320 days a year. One plot of land, about 1 square mile, could be covered with solar panels to provide a brute-force experiment in producing electricity using only the Sun. Excess power (once the system is ramped up beyond the town's needs) can be used to power up the other two innovations.
Waste-water recycling: As soon as possible, Lajas's water and sewer system is split from the main (crumbling) infrastructure and converted to full recycling. Sound expensive? Not really. A one square mile of space is needed to properly treat the water (both run-off and waste) with natural methods, using clean water for residential and the treated waste material as organic fertilizer for the Turbine Farms. Put the whole water treatment facility under the solar panels and you can mix two functions in one plot.
Plasma gas burner: Biomedical waste in Puerto Rico is a 13 million pound headache. At present, these potentially-lethal wastes are dumped in landfills, warehouses or even by the side of the road. Some hospitals burn them in normal incinerators, but that procedure is inefficient, costly, produces toxins that fall or leak into the environment and can only deal with a small percentage of the 13 million pounds. Enter a plasma gas incinerator, capable of up to 8,000 degress Fahrenheit of purifying burn. Once the gases are recycled, the waste product is an inert glassified "gravel" that can be used for road construction or as a building material. And how much space would a plasma gas facility need? About 5-8 acres, depending on how you want trucks moving into and out of the facility.
With these projects, Lajas--or any other small town with land to spare--can not only turn around its economy, it can turn around the Island's economy as well. None of this is an "instant" solution, but the sooner We get started, the sooner We benefit.
The Jenius Has Spoken.
1 comment:
Brilliant Gil. One town is a start. Puerto Rico, the *country*, has the opportunity to be a model for the world, whenever it decides to stop squandering its resources, and self-medicating with Medalla which helps to perpetuate the "ignorance is bliss" phenomenon.
Re: http://gilthejenius.blogspot.com/2008/07/were-number-2.html
Now - how do you think this can get off the ground? University of Mayaguez, Vitec, Grupo Guayacan? Launch the entire initiative as a not-for-profit? Recruit some of those Reggaeton artists who like to support La Perla to help with a more impactful cause?
Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Perla,_San_Juan,_Puerto_Rico
"In recent years, La Perla has become more known because of the high rate of illegal drug trafficking and crime. During the night, many teenagers and adults enter La Perla to buy illegal drugs. Despite this, local Salsa and Reggaeton concerts are being held each week with the intention of shedding the bad image of the community."
I suppose the job has to be done with the toolbox we have available. Hence, the above suggestion wasn't totally out of the ether.
Now... I hope all of this gets done on American time, not Puerto Rican time.
Do you have a specific example of any other global town/city/village that has done something like this, as an example of the press it generates? Need to find some commercial motivators here.
How does this get started/done? That is the billion $$$ question.
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