Radio Havana Cuba's Science and Technology Program:
BREAKTHROUGHFor broadcast September 19-26, 1999
Written and narrated by Arnaldo "Arnie" Coro, RHC's Science Editor
Sound: Theme, fade down to background, then off
Voice: ( Coro ) Hello amigos, welcome to Breakthrough, RHC's Science, Technology and the Environment update. I am Arnaldo, Arnie, Coro, Radio Havana Cuba's Science Editor, and today it is again my pleasure to bring you an update on Cuba's energy efficiency program.
Cuban media this week highlighted Engineer Marcos Portal's statement in Camaguey province telling reporters that the country is now generating exactly 50 percent of its electricity using crude oil extracted from oil fields in Cuba. Minister Portal, a chemical engineer himself, told newsmen that each ton of domestically produced oil was costing about one-third the price Cuba has to pay for imported oil. He described how natural gas is also now playing a role in fueling power plants, not only at the ultra-modern ENERGAS project in Varadero, but also at a recently converted power station located in Santa Cruz del Norte, about thirty miles east of Havana. That power plant has three soviet designed and built 100 megawatt generators that burned high quality fuel oil... Now, the unit's boilers are using natural gas from a nearby oil field, something that has two important advantages: One, of course, is the fact that electricity generating costs go down signficantly with the local fuel, and the other is by that burning processed natural gas, the plant now generates much less pollution from its huge 180-meter-high smokestack -- one of the tallest in the Caribbean -- which was especifically designed to reduce local thermal air pollution.
Cuban oil fields produce two very different qualities of the black gold at this moment. The western part of the island is the backbone of domestic oil production, but the oil extracted is of a very high density and has a high sulphur and other contaminants content. Meanwhile in central Cuba, oil fields are yielding a much lighter and sulphur-free oil that is used by CUBA PETROLEO, the country's national oil company, for producing lubricants, something that also saves Cuba a lot of foreign currency.
But let's go back to the important statement by Basic Industry Minister Marcos Portal in Camaguey this past week... He also told the press that the plans for continuing upgrading Cuba's largest electrical generators is now going very well. One hundred megawatt generators in the Santiago de Cuba "Rente" power plant are now on line, after a major overhaul that included signficant upgrades in the steam generators, control systems and other parts of the units. The highlight of this upgrading process is that now the same basic machine, that is the turbo-generator, is producing each kilowatt hour of electricity using much less fuel oil. In other words, the machine, after decades of service and admittedly not the best possible maintenance recommended, is not only back to "as new" condition, but actually, it can be demonstrated, is in"better than new" condition -- something that is saving the nation a lot of foreign currency too... because instead of those boilers, turbines and generators, being scrapped, they are let's say... revived... at a much lower cost. According to some experts in the field of high power electrical machinery, the basic equipment is really rugged and reliable, so revamping all the peripherals has proven to be a very wise and cost-saving decision.
But despite all the efforts done in the field of more efficient generation of electricity, Cuba has to look at the next century with BIOMASS in mind, as the country's sugar industry is capable of providing very low-cost electricity during the harvest season, by burning biogas in more efficient higher pressure boilers than the ones used at the country's more than one hundred and fifty sugar mills.
SOUND: Theme music, goes to background and...
VOICE: ( Coro ) And this was Breakthrough for today, an update on Cuba's efforts to generate more electricity from domestically produced oil, and also on how the country is upgrading its generators to be able to reduce the amount of oil needed to produce each kilowatt hour... From Havana, I am Arnaldo, Arnie Coro, RHC's science editor, together with sound engineer Jose Costa Pupo, inviting you to join us next week at the same time and shortwave frequency for another edition of Breakthrough.
For more information, via Air Mail:
"Breakthrough"
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PO Box 6240, Havana, CUBA 10600
Via e-mail: arnie@radiohc.org
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