Aerial view of the Machín volcano. Credit: Servicio Geológico Colombiano/Observatorio de Manizales

By Constanza Vieira
FINCA GALICIA, Cordillera Central, Colombia , Oct 26 2013 (IPS)

A new system of tunnels at the Alto de La Línea mountain pass in Colombia’s central Cordillera mountain range will open up a key logistics route for this country and neighbouring Venezuela. But it could be overcome by disaster if the Machín volcano erupts.

The complex engineering feat includes two main one-way tunnels, 8.8 and 8.6 km long, as well as 21 short tunnels and 29 viaducts that will total 6.8 km in length.

The first of the main tunnels, which will be the longest road tunnel in Latin America, is to be completed by mid-2014. The firms that will build the second tunnel have not yet been selected.

Danger: volcano ahead

But in the department (province) of Tolima, the road passes six km from an unassuming hill which is actually the Machín volcano, one of Colombia’s most dangerous volcanoes, which has erupted six or seven times in the past 10,000 years. The most recent eruption occurred around 800 years ago.

“The most explosive volcanoes remain quiet for long periods of time,” said Marta Calvache, director of the Colombian Geological Service (SGC).

The SGC – formerly Ingeominas – drew up the first hazards map for the Machín volcano in 1998, which it amplified in 1999, 2000 and 2003.

The map recommends that the hazards posed by the volcano be taken into account in decision-making on “strategic medium and long-term plans for routes, especially roads.”

The La Línea tunnel and the Machín volcano are 15 km apart as the crow flies. If the volcano erupts, “the tunnel will be left without a road,” Calvache told IPS.

More than 100 monitoring stations keep an eye on the volcano 24/7. In 2008, authorities declared a yellow alert, which is still in place. (Green is for normal, yellow for alert, and red for warning and evacuation.)

Even the smallest eruption by Machín would be larger than the eruption of the Ruiz volcano, 45 km to the northeast, which in November 1985 spewed out 0.3 cubic km (km3) of lahar – mudflow or debris flow – which destroyed the town of Armero, killing 22,000 of its 28,000 inhabitants and leaving over 5,000 injured.

“Machín’s normal eruptions can cover several cubic kilometres. And the big ones have been approximately 20 km3,” Calvache said.

If the next one is big, “it will affect the entire central area of the country,” including parts of the provinces of Tolima, Quindío, Valle del Cauca and Cundinamarca that are home to nearly one million people combined, the geologist warned.

The Machín volcano’s eruptions “produce major pyroclastic flows (a fast-moving current of hot gas and rock). No one survives a pyroclastic flow, and the basin would be completely changed,” Calvache said.

“That change, in human terms, would be forever. It would be human beings who would have to adapt,” she said.

“The volcano has been changing,” she added. “What we don’t know is whether that change is headed towards an eruption or if it is simply being unruly and will go back to being calm again for many years.”

The authorities are apparently betting on the latter.

In the environmental impact assessment for the tunnel, “Machín isn’t mentioned as a risk factor,” environmentalist Néstor Jaime Ocampo, of the Cosmos Ecological Foundation based in Armenia, the capital of Quindío, told IPS.

One of the 29 viaducts that form part of the project to upgrade the La Línea highway and mountain pass. Constanza Vieira/IPS

Key route

The government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) declared the La Línea route “strategic” in 2005.

La Línea is essential for trade between Cúcuta, the main city on the border with Venezuela, in the northeast, and Colombia’s only Pacific Ocean port, Buenaventura, in the west.

The road runs through the wealthiest part of the country, the central highlands, where Bogotá is located.

“All of the freight that reaches Bogotá from the Pacific comes through here,” Luis Orlando Muñoz, the head of the Colombian Society of Engineers (SCI), told IPS. “Thousands of tonnes of imports and exports are transported daily. This is the country’s spinal column, when it comes to roads.”

Ocampo, the environmentalist, said “What is being built is a modern road corridor between Caracas and Buenaventura.” In other words, Venezuela’s outlet to the Pacific.

The corridor connects the Gulf of Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea with Ecuador on the Pacific, and it forms part of the plans outlined by the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA).

Stressful driving

Like almost all roads in Colombia, the one joining Cúcuta and Buenaventura has just two lanes along most of its 1,020 km.

As it climbs into the central Cordillera range – the highest of the three branches of the Andes in Colombia – the road switchbacks through a stunning landscape of cloud forest, Quindio Wax Palm (Ceroxylon quindiuense), and the royal purple flowers of the Glory Bush (Tibouchina lepidota), and past paddocks and cliffs.

Truckers treat the La Línea route with respect. Because of the frequent fog, steep inclines of up to 18 percent, and tight curves, the average speed is just 18 km an hour. It took IPS six hours to drive the 38 km between Ibagué and this mountain pass.

The need to control traffic on this narrow, busy road and the extreme poverty in the area have given rise to a strange occupation: human stoplights – men and women dressed in rags who use flags, flashlights and whistles to warn drivers that a semi-trailer truck is coming in the other direction, just around the next curve.

It is impossible for these huge trucks to avoid invading the other lane when taking a curve on the La Línea road. Drivers thank the human stoplights by tossing them a few coins.

The tunnel will ease traffic by cutting the distance by 10 km and saving drivers an 840-metre climb, which will reduce the average time it takes to drive across the Alto de La Línea pass by 87 percent for truck drivers (to 80 minutes) and by 72 percent for cars (to 30 minutes).

The average speed should increase to 60 km an hour, and accidents should be reduced by 75 percent, according to the Colombian Infrastructure Chamber.

Logistics and planning delays

Nearly 80 percent of Colombia’s domestic cargo is transported by road, according to the transport ministry.

But the country’s road infrastructure “is lagging by at least 30 years,” Diana Espinosa, the president of SCI – the engineers association – told IPS.

She attributed that to a lack of adequate state policies and to “the dedication of funds to financing the war [the nearly half-century armed conflict against left-wing guerrillas], which is causing us a huge lag in infrastructure.”

In the last decade, road freight traffic has increased multifold, reflecting the growth in foreign trade, especially imports.

The volume of imports is three times that of exports, according to the National Council on Economic and Social Policy, the national planning authority.

For that reason, the first main tunnel will serve traffic from Buenaventura to Bogotá.

Ignoring the risk

“People prefer the known risk to unknown solutions,” expert on natural disasters Gustavo Wilches-Chaux told IPS to explain why, despite the tragedy in Armero, no one is considering relocating Cajamarca, population 10,000 – the town that is closest to the Machín volcano.

To the contrary, the South Africa-based firm AngloGold Ashanti is moving forward with the massive La Colosa open-pit mine between Cajamarca and La Línea.

Ocampo said that “By pursuing economic activities in that area, like the La Colosa mine, we are inviting tens of thousands more people to live in an area of hazardous volcanic activity.”

“A blockage of the highway lasting just a few months would be a catastrophe – the country’s foreign trade would practically collapse,” the environmentalist said.

“This is not about our comfort, so our drive from Armenia to Ibagué will be 25 minutes shorter. This is for the comfort of the multinational companies. And it will be us who will pay a steep toll for going through that tunnel.”

Kawerau geothermal centre in New Zealand. Credit: Courtesy of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, May 8 2013 (IPS)

Chile is one of the countries with the greatest potential for geothermal energy development in Latin America, but a lack of incentives for investment in the sector has kept it from moving past the exploratory phase. A strategic partnership with New Zealand aims to change that situation.

Geothermal energy is the heat energy from deep inside the Earth, which is brought to the near surface by thermal conduction and in some areas rises to the surface in natural streams of hot water or steam. This steam can be harnessed to power a turbine and generate electricity.

This long, narrow South American country stretches 4,270 kilometres along the slopes of the Andes Mountains, the world’s longest volcanic chain, according to the Andean Geothermal Centre of Excellence at the University of Chile.

Ten percent of all of the world’s volcanoes are found in Chile, “which represents significant potential in geological terms,” Gonzalo Salgado of the Chilean Geothermal Energy Association (ACHEGEO) told Tierramérica.

Chile forms part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a belt of volcanoes and earthquake epicentres that in the Americas also encompasses Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Central America, Mexico and parts of Argentina, Bolivia, the United States and Canada. This belt contains numerous virgin territories for thermal energy exploration, said Salgado.

Geothermal energy offers a means of achieving greater energy self-sufficiency in Chile, which currently depends on imports for 70 percent of its energy needs.

“The solutions (for energy dependency) are numerous: we need to talk about energy efficiency and many other things, but obviously, geothermal power is one of the inputs that could help to solve this problem,” Salgado added.

According to a report from the Renewable Energies Centre of the Ministry of Energy, in 2012 non-conventional renewable energy sources represented five percent of the country’s total installed capacity for electricity production.

By comparison, renewable energy sources accounted for 77 percent of the electrical power supply in New Zealand in 2011.

The Chilean government currently aims to reach a 10 percent renewable energy share by 2024, although a bill is currently under discussion in Congress that would raise this target to 15 or 20 percent.

Chile was a pioneer in studying its geothermal potential. The first exploration was conducted in 1907 in El Tatio, a geyser field in the north of the country, and two wells were drilled in the area in 1931.

In the late 1960s, with the support of international financing, the government embarked on more systematic exploration in El Tatio, but these activities were eventually suspended.

In 2008, the Geotérmica del Norte consortium launched exploration activities in the Zoquete ravine, a few kilometres from El Tatio.

In September of the following year, a 60-metre plume of steam erupted from one of the wells drilled by the consortium to extract and re-inject geothermal fluids in order to evaluate the area’s potential for energy generation. This anomaly, which continued for more than three weeks, led the government to revoke the permit for these operations.

Despite the alarm that this incident caused among the public, which had begun to show interest in geothermal energy, Salgado maintains that it “did not affect the development” of this energy source in Chile.

Luis Mariano Rendón, director of Acción Ecológica, an environmental organisation, told Tierramérica that while all power generation has harmful effects, “geothermal energy is a relatively low-impact source of power generation” that Chile should pursue. The most pertinent factor would be the availability of water, which could limit its use in arid regions of the country, he noted.

Studies by the University of Chile estimate that the country could generate 16,000 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power, while the installed capacity for electricity production is 16,970 MW and the maximum demand is around 9,000 MW, according to official figures from February 2012.

A total of 76 concessions have been granted for geothermal exploration throughout the country, while another 42 are currently being processed and 24 are under study. However, as of now, not a single megawatt of power is produced from this source in Chile.

This situation spurred ACHEGEO to organise its 2nd International Congress on Geothermal Energy, held Apr. 11 and 12. The subjects discussed included legislation, the electricity market, environmental issues, and the need for risk insurance for geothermal drilling failure in Chile.

“What is needed is deep exploration drilling,” for which this type of insurance is crucial, as it would serve as a “concrete and tangible” incentive for the investment required, said Salgado.

To boost its geothermal development, Chile announced a strategic partnership with New Zealand, where 15 percent of electricity is produced from this source.

The Wairakei power station, built in 1957 in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island, was the world’s first wet steam power station and is still in operation today.

“In the last seven years, seven projects have been developed in New Zealand that add up to 550 MW. Thanks to these projects, all of them successful, we have been able to accumulate a good deal of knowledge and experience,” said Bernard Hill, the president of Geothermal New Zealand, an international geothermal consulting and promotion agency.

According to Hill, Chile is the country with the second greatest geothermal potential after Indonesia.

“The international geothermal industry is small, so the people involved know each other. Chile is seen as an important place for geothermal energy and this is reflected in the number of companies that are studying the possibility of investing here,” said Andrea Blair, the geothermal business development manager at GNS Science, another New Zealand-based consultancy firm in the sector.

Companies in New Zealand are seeking the development of mutual support, which would include the transfer of technological know-how with Chile, Blair told Tierramérica.

“Nobody knows Chile better than the Chileans themselves, and we know quite a lot about geothermal development, and so by working together we can ensure that our projects are successful,” she said.

In addition to its scientific and technological expertise, New Zealand can also offer its own experience in relations with indigenous communities when it comes to planning a project.

“There has to be a genuine commitment to the communities and to trying to understand the other side’s point of view, to know what they need, what they want, by maintaining a transparent discussion at all times,” said Blair.

“In New Zealand, the Maoris are part of the project and often they share in the profits as well,” she added.

The scenario she describes contrasts sharply with the situation in Chile, where numerous plans have been halted by the courts due to the opposition of indigenous communities who demand their right to prior consultation, in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization.

In New Zealand, on the other hand, “before developing a project, the company has to go and speak with the owners of the land, who are almost always indigenous, and if they do not agree, the project doesn’t go forward,” said Blair.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Excerpt: