Sun powered desalination plant, to produce fresh water, which is more scarce everyday, without generating chemical or consuming fossil energy. Close to 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water but only 2.5% is potable. The advantages of a solar desalination plant is that it can be used in low income populations and it does not damage the environment because it uses renewable energy without liberating gases that create greenhouse effect. Speaking only about my country, close to 6,000,000 people live near the coast and only 16% have constant access to fresh water.

The fact that we have created national parks for every type of environment in a country that has snow, mountains, desert, tundra, savana, rainforest, delta and tropical coast. Even though we produce oil there is a big movement to use solar energy in heat generating processes. We have at least one national park in every state and we are the second country in Latin America with national parks for a total of 15.

My childhood was a bit of a summer camp because we were many brothers and sisters so we had to do everything together. My father couldn’t be up to every little thing in our lives so I had a lot of independence.

I learned to make my choices as an individual and to share as part of a group. If you ask me, I had the perfect balance.

When I traveled to Scotland to learn English, away from family and friends. I learned very early that I had the values and endurance to be by myself with total freedom and responsibility.

The FAO estimates that in 2025, 18 million people will be living in areas where water shortage is drastic. It is an opportunity to use desalination plants to reduce this terrible statistics, and at the same time use clean energy. The goal is to promote the use of a solar desalination plant created and tested at the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela. The requirements of the project demanded that this requires minimum maintenance. This is easy to replicate, low cost, easy construction and desconstruction, transportable and able to be used in any coast. No matter how much salt there is, the water process to create a kilogram of fresh water requires the same amount of heat energy when it is done using processes that require a change in the state of the water (such as freezing or mechanic compression). In other means desalination that don’t require a change of state in the water, like inverse osmosis use too much energy. That is why using a simple plant that has a minimum number of parts, and that uses eveparotion to produce fresh water, and has salt as a byproduct is a clean energy way to produce fresh water.

One of the biggest energy consumers is our home when it comes to heating or air conditioning. The uses of biomass heating elements instead of coal, gas or wood would reduce the consumption of non renewable energy. The advances in home design taking advantage of heat from the sun, even in winter to apply external radiators that help to reduce the use of fossil fuel to heat homes. Summer is the opportunity to explores new designs in windows that help to keep fresh our homes without air conditioning. Passive acclimatization requires that we make our homes as energy efficient as we can.

Coming from an oil producing country I think I have a great responsibility to the Earth and in the exploration of renewable energy.