Edward Seaga, ContributorWHILE THE industrial world remains sufficiently comfortable with the use of fossil-based fuels, the drive to use alternative resources to generate energy from renewable domestic energy sources is not being treated as a mission to be accomplished urgently, even though there is more than one alternative source with encouraging potential which ought to be urgently pursued.
Science and technology for many years have been researching the commercialisation of two inexhaustible energy sources: solar, and hydrogen for fuel cells. Oil interests too have not been dormant in their investigation of these new sources.
In an advertisement on the Public Broadcasting System WGBH out of Boston on Monday evening, November 14, 2005, a young woman on screen came directly to the point. In a no-frills presentation, without any razzle-dazzle, she asked directly: "Are we still to depend on the use of oil for our future energy? If so, where is it to come from? That is why we are investigating other sources of energy: solar and hydrogen."
RESEARCH MUST CONTINUE
The research required, and the technological breakthrough necessary must continue until it can create in any household its own generating plant, using inexhaustible solar energy available to all.
No priority exists for those whose lives are sheltered by the flick of a switch to provide light, water, air, heat, transportation and entertainment by sound or on the screen, for all of which a monthly billing can be paid.
Only those for whom these necessities are becoming a diminishing reality can understand the need to control the damage of dramatically mounting costs.
It must be within man's genius that he who has explored the cosmos, walked the moon and sent probes to the limits of our solar system should also have the capacity to place within a neighbourhood home, the technology to cook food, heat water, provide cool air, refrigerate perishables, light the darkness and provide entertainment, using our source of atomic energy, the sun.
POWER OF THE SUN
This cannot be a matter of if; it must be when. Robots are walking on Mars, a planet light years away in distance, digging samples of rocks and taking spectacular pictures to impress on us the genius of man. But which is priority, the genius who can mobilise the robot on Mars, or the one who can suffice the needs of neighbourhood homes?
I have focused on the power of the sun as a principal alternativeresource not because other renewable resources do not exist, but because wind, water, wood and waste are all restricted to particular local or regional locations for purposes of generating electrical power needs. But the power of the sun is ubiquitous; it is available everywhere and is an inexhaustible resource that can be within the reach of all mankind.
So, too, is another source of energy being pursued by science and technology: the hydrogen fuel cell. Indeed, hydrogen as a facilitator of energy production through fuel cell technology is rooted in the past, having been first developed in 1839. This brings home the point with even greater force as to how long innovations can be nascent if there is no crisis to create a sense of urgency.
Hydrogen is not unknown as a producer of energy. Its status as a colossus of destruction was demonstrated when the hydrogen bomb was unveiled as the mother of all weapons of mass destruction in 1952, greatly exceeding the power of the atom bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a decade or so before.
The use of hydrogen as creator of energy to do good rather than harm, is now being actively pursued as an energy replacement for petroleum-based fuels in motor vehicles, for a start, but with potential for bigger applications.
The success of this exploration so far has been encouraging. Prototype vehicles have been outfitted with hydrogen fuel cells. It is now a matter of achieving competitive costs and making further technological advances to complete the transformation for the commercialisation of the hydrogen fuel cell as a source of energy for the future.
HYDROGEN CELL TECHNOLOGY
But this process can still take a good many years, even though the use of hydrogen cell technology is already a proven application as the power source that provides the astronauts with electricity and water in the space capsules.
The hydrogen cell works like a motor vehicle battery. It combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce an electrical charge by the electrolysis process used in batteries.
Dr. Belal Ahmed, manager of the Science and Technology Unit at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, in the September, 1998, issue of the Caribbean Energy Information Survey, notes that with the fuel cell, "there are no noxious pollutants such as carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. The result is an environmentally friendly product. If put in vehicles it will not pollute city streets. If utilised in power stations, it would not contribute to global warming."
Solar and hydrogen fuel cell technologies share a similar path. Their advantages are:
Supply of electricity for an unlimited amount of time and from inexhaustible sources;
No moving parts, hence, they are virtually maintenance free;
No noise pollution;
No noxious by-products. In hydrogen fuel cells, the by-product is heat and water, in itself a resource.
Solar power and the hydrogen fuel cell face a common remaining hurdle to allow them to be used on a wide scale: Price competitiveness which can only be met by improved technology.
Technology has been moving in this direction with some success.
Portugal has announced the construction of the world's largest solar energy power plant on a 250 acres site to produce 62 megawatts at a cost of $307 million. It will create 240 permanent jobs.
The cost of roughly $5 million per megawatt compares with conventional oil-fuelled plants which require $1 million per megawatt for greenfield construction. But the operating costs tell a different story: Solar costs two cents per kilowatt hour to produce energy while conventional oil-based generating systems cost three times as much, 5.9 cents.
Sweden is now developing a solar-powered plane to fly around the world.
Solar power, it is estimated, is capable of supplying up to 10 times Jamaica's needs.
Success in the commercial application of these two cleaner, cheaper, technologies is just around the proverbial corner. But they have been there for years. To bring them forward to functional levels in a hurry will need a special facility.
Notwithstanding the efforts of private research and development, the need exists for a specialised international agency to expeditiously promote the next steps to achieve early success.
PROPOSALS
In 1981, as one of the four selected keynote speakers at the United Nations Conference on New and Renewable Sources of Energy in Nairobi, Kenya, I made the same proposal for a special facility for the same reason: the onset of another oil price shock at that time, the second within only a few years. The economic impact globally of these sudden shocks, again shattered the prescriptions for development and saddled the expectations of developing countries with reduced prospects.
I said then:
"The role of the United Nations as an intermediary to activate the market place and draw into the development process the resources of the private sector should not be minimised if we wish to accelerate to the maximum the pace at which all new technology can reach the market place especially in the developing world.
"Having regard to the sensitivities which exist and often quite rightly so, to the establishment of new international agencies the proposed centre for research and development could be tied into an existing agency of common interest the International Atomic Energy Agency in order to minimise overheads."
Because of the less than urgent pace of development of new technologies over the past many years, it will not be difficult to accept that without promotion of research and development facilitated from the highest level, less than best efforts will be forthcoming.
The Government of Jamaica has been fortunate to make agreements with the Governments of Venezuela and Mexico to participate in oil- financing facilities with generous terms of repayment. This, together with a possible agreement to supply natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner than oil, constitute outstanding advances which will ease some of the burden. But for how long? Future increases in the price of oil will continue, adding fresh burdens in the near future.
JA MUST RALLY SUPPORT
It is in the interest of Jamaica to rally support to press the United Nations through its International Atomic Energy Agency to become involved in bringing newer, cheaper, cleaner, inexhaustible energy to the market place.
From whatever perspective we view the future of oil, it cannot be our vision for the 21st century to rely on a depleting resource with its attendant obstacles to sustainable development: price and pollution.
Our vision must be to create a settled environment of stable supply for the most vital utility in the life of civilised man, electricity, and to offer to those who have not yet enjoyed the utility and comfort of an energy-charged society, the chance to experience new life-styles with better prospects for the future.
Historically, for a great many centuries, oil has been the base on which civilisation has progressed immeasurably, and at a dazzling rate of development over more recent times.
TIME TO UNVEIL NEW ERA
The end of that era, it is now recognised, is forthcoming. It is time now to unveil a new era and unleash new power with no less prospects than the world of new technology created by the splitting of the atom. The power of the sun and of natural elements, which are our inexhaustible resources, is that new era.
"Surely, no more pressing subject exists than one which envisages the prolonged economic distress of the developing world, as a consequence of inaction;
"Surely no more economic case exists than to ensure the transformation of one energy base to another, more affordable, more available, and more suitable;
"Surely, no more enticing case exists than one which ties the interests of the private and public sector in official programmes to advance the development of mankind.
The peculiar coincidence of circumstances today, driven by needs to abandon the old and marry the new with urgency before missed deadlines overwhelm us, may not co-exist again.
If we fail, the real tragedy will be that we failed to put crisis into perspective; to recognise it as nothing more than a challenge; to exercise the vision that creates opportunity from adversity; and to measure up to the urgent call of our time.
I pray that we will not fail!
Edward Seaga is a former prime minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the University of the West Indies.
