President of Central American Parliament earmarks $4 billion for alt energy investment; targets US Sustainable Energy’s Rivera process for Latin expansion

The Baytown (TX) Sun reported today that President Julio González Gamarra, president of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen), offered to contribute up to $4 billion for the rollout of the “Rivera” process to Latin America. The Rivera process is used at the Baytown Green Energy Facility, a joint venture of US Sustainable Energy and Sustainable Power Corporation, now operating at 2.4 Mgy capacity.

President Gamarra and engineer Fernando Ricardo Luna Waldheim visited the Baytown facility following a demonstration of the “Rivera process” earlier this month in the Dominican Republic. “This technology has a great future,” Waldheim told the Sun. “It’s just a great opportunity for us to enter and to substitute the demand and to lower the energy costs in these countries where they don’t have crude oil, but they do have the agriculture,” he added.

“Instead of being energy dependent, they could be exporting crude oil. It’s a great opportunity for the democratic countries”, Waldheim said.

Panama, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua are members of Parlacen. Waldheim said that the Parlacen countries have the potential to install as many as 800 reactors, which would use the Rivera process to produce organic fertilizer, heavy crude oil, light crude oil and synthetic gas from carbon-based feedstocks.

The Baytown Green Energy facility has a current capacity of 2.4 Mgy, and is planning to expand capacity to 8.7 Mgy by May 2008. The joint venture partners also ultimately plan to add a 500 MW power plant at the Baytown facility.