technology

Inventor a leading light in developing greener energy

Levi Cruz/La Prensa

bright idea: Panamanian engineer Antonio Clement’s bicycle generator embodies its inventor’s belief in sustainable energy.1080520

When asked about the global energy crisis, award-winning Panamanian inventor Antonio Clement likes to respond with this hypothetical situation: “If a spaceship, as enormous as the ones in the movie “Independence Day,” came to Earth and the alien crew announced that they had brought free oil, they wouldn’t be doing us a favor but a huge detriment.”

Clement’s moral is, the sooner we stop relying on oil, the faster we’ll achieve a global society with “sustainable life” and a greater respect for the environment.

These ideas, incarnated in his many energy-saving inventions, have earned Clement a bevy of honors, including the third prize award in the “fire” category at the Energy Globe Awards, the so-called Environmental Oscars, and an open invitation to talk about renewable energy at the Universidad Autónoma de Chiriquí.

But it’s Clement’s low-cost bicycle generator for Panama’s rural regions, capable of illuminating four 60-watt lightbulbs for several hours, and a micro-hydroelectric project that functions with water from small streams and creeks, that have won the electromechanical engineer most acclaim recently.

These creations testify to Clement’s belief that wind and water generators are indispensable to ensuring sustainable sources of energy. In fact, instead of diverting the flow of a river and harming aquatic habitats, Clement explained that his mini-hydroelectric plant runs on a scant 10 percent of a creek’s total water channel.

“From now on, we must think more carefully about whether to approve hydroelectric plants requiring dams, or those that use only enough water to activate the generator’s equipment,” he said.

Whether officials at the Instituto de Acueductos y Alcantarillados Nacionales (Idaan) will act on Clement’s counsel is still unknown, but Raúl Montenegro, a former director of the entity agreed, that we must work to rectify the disruption made to a river’s ecological flow by a hydroelectric plant.

“At minimum, 10 percent [of the flow] is lost through evaporation or seepage. Already rivers have lost their fishing resources as a direct consequence of man’s actions,” he said.

Clement said that there are many myths that society must overcome, including the misconception that the blades of high-tech windmills pose a danger to birds. The real threat, he commented, are clear glass windows that birds mistake for open space. Another myth, of course, relates back to his alien oil anecdote.

“The cost of energy increases because of oil prices. I want to know when they’re going to meet the country’s demand for energy with hydropower and wind,” he mused.

Clement noted that several mountainous regions of Chiriqui have already been tested for their potential to generate wind energy, but that they aren’t the only areas.

The important thing is to make these alternative energy generators available to the public, he said, because waiting for the government to act may mean waiting too long.