Green Options

According to press reports, nearly 50 pilot whales were found stranded on an Argentine beach over the weekend.  Two workers discovered the whales in the province of Chubut in the coastal region of Bustamante Bay on Sunday.  All of the whales have died.

In recent posts on Planetsave and EcoWorldy about moratoria on soya and cattle products related to Amazon destruction, it was mentioned that McDonald’s is helping to save the Amazon. With the company also delving into green building, progressive energy saving software, and charging stations for electric vehicles, is McDonald’s a green company?

In the western Argentinian province of San Juan, the provincial government has authorized the development of what will be the most powerful solar energy park in Latin America to date. The park is hoped to be operational by the summer of 2010.

A Buenos Aires landmark, the solar powered Floralis Generica.

A bidding process will begin in June of this year, and Brazilian, German, and Spanish companies are expected to invest in the project, which has an estimated price tag of $120 million dollars. The provinicial government of San Juan has already agreed to invest between $15 and $20 million.

Argentinian President Cristina Fernández vetoed a previously passed bill aimed at protecting Argentina’s glaciers.

The province of Corrientes, in Argentina, is accomplishing the goal of bringing solar power to faraway schools. On July, we told you about this proyect but in Catamarca province.

Last year the provincial government announced the Renewable Energies Program for Rural Sectors and started to placed solar panels on schools. We told you about it here.

Today in Corrientes 75 out of 85 rural schools already have solar energy that is used to power lights, fans, televisions, computers and other equipment.

Latin America already has the first green building, the Céfira Tower, located on Mar del Plata, a seaside town in Buenos Aires province, Argentina.

The building has been named after Cérifo, the Greek god of the winds because it can get power form the sea wind thanks to a windmill placed on the flat roof. The turbine can generate 4,5 kilowatts of wind power, more than enough to cover the needs of the share spaces.

Besides the wind generator, the tower makes the most of the sunlight, because 80% of the facade is pure glass. The building also has intelligent lights that automatically turn off  when they aren’t needed.

Below you will find summaries and links to several of the more interesting ecologically-related stories to come out of South American countries in the past month. The list is not meant to be comprehensive or definitive, but hopefully you will find something that teases your interest. Enjoy.

“Very good night, here we are at Las Lomitas, on a radio of Mocase Via Campesina. This is our first time on air, our name is Paj Sachada, which means mount flight and we are running on solar power.”

This is the opening message of the radio station Paj Sachada and it was broadcasted by Margarita, who is only 17 years old.

This station is located on Las Lomitas, a remote spot in Santiago del Estero, Argentina. Because electrical power does not reach this place, the local people are using solar power to feed the radio station.

Argentina will produce massive wind power turbines. This country of South America is using some of the biggest generators with de Eolis-15, that has 1,5 megawatts of power and almost 80 meters tall.

Río Negro and Neuquén, two of the southeast provinces in Argentina, along with the Science and Technology Department from Cutral-Có and Plaza Huincul-both municipalities with oil royalties- have joined each other to develop the wind turbine Eolis-15, designed by Invap to make the most of high speed winds.

Several months ago we told you that the Argentinean government was helping the rural zones with their power problems by installing solar energy. That time we are talking about solar energy kitchens for schools in Jujuy. Currently the government is installing solar cells in the province of Catamarca to empower schools, homes and public dependences.

Lets keep visiting the biggest green spaces of the world, so we can remember what we are fighting for.

This time we will visit the second largest natural reserve of the American continent, a jungle known as Selva Misionera or Paranaense (also called Mata Atlántica in Brazil, and Atlantic Forest in english). This jungle has an enormous biological diversity, with more than 2000 floral species, 150 vegetal species per hectare, 400 bird species and a great variety of mammals, reptiles and insects.

Only one hundred years ago, the jungle enlarged over a million square kilometers covering different lands of the Paraguayan , Brazilian and Argentinean territory.