Due to strict curriculum requirements, many engineering students do not get the opportunity to study abroad. The last few years, the School of Engineering has been perfecting the Engineering 290 course in order to provide students with short study abroad course that enhances the curriculum. This year, the program expanded to provide multiple three week courses, one in Argentina and Costa Rica. I was one of the lucky students accepted into the 22 day trip to Costa Rica in order to study engineering in a developing country with a focus on renewable energy.
Costa Rica, while being only slightly larger than the state of Pennsylvania, is one of the global leaders in renewable energy production. The country generates 99% of its energy using clean sources and is looking to be the first country to be carbon neutral. With the aid of The GREEN Program, a Costa Rica based green energy tour and educational organization, 21 students and I learned about the various types of renewable sources while touring various energy generation sites to gain first hand engineering experience. Our tour took us from the capital of San Jose to the Pacific Coast town of Quepos to the one of the largest reservoirs in the world, Lake Arenal.
The various tours on our trip took us inside a sugar cane processing plan, a wind turbine, hydroelectric plant and a geothermal plant. We spoke with engineers at all of these locations to see what challenges they face working in a developing nation as well as how they keep the society supporting the green energy expansion. Their responses overwhelmingly related to their country’s history. Ever since Costa Rica became electrified, the power was generated in a sustainable way and they have continued this tradition throughout the grid expansion. We were tasked to draw comparisons to our oil-heavy energy generation here in the US and realized that, as rising engineers, there are many things that we can bring to the field that will help improve the sustainability of our energy infrastructure.
Besides the engineering studying, we had some amazing trips to various historical and ecological sites. We hiked through various national parks such as Manuel Antonio as well as the Poas Volcano and Rio Celeste. We watched tons of soccer matches and got defeated horrendously by a group of 12 year olds at a school. Besides playing soccer at the school, in true Chi Phi fashion, we participated in a community service project that included designing and installing a new water fountain system to prevent wasting water. Our project was a big success and the Green Program is now planning on installing the system in many other schools in the area.
This trip was an enlightening immersion into a culture many of us have not experienced before. Costa Rica is setting the bar when it comes to renewable energy and I am excited to see the strides that other countries make to achieve the same level of success.