Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
Energy-saving flourescent light bulbs for domestic use. - Andrew Smith/Photography Editor
JAMAICA IS scheduled to become a designated centre of excellence for renewable energy under the PetroCaribe agreement. This puts the island in line with a worldwide trend born not out of choice, but a combination of economic pressure, security threats and global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.
Government has responded by drafting its own national energy policy, which speaks to this challenge. CARICOM as a whole is preparing its own to be ready for February of next year.
Jamaica, says the document, has an, "excessive dependence on imported primary energy; low energy supply self-sufficiency due to a lack of indigenous energy resources, and low utilisation of available resources; namely wind, hydro, solar and biomass." The document seeks to increase the contribution of renewable energy from its current level of six per cent, to 10 per cent by 2015, and 15 per cent by 2020.
SERIOUS CONCERN
For Jamaica, as with most countries, our oil import bill is a serious concern, unlike Trinidad ,whose self-sufficiency in oil and gas production has made it the wealthiest and most industrialised country within CARICOM. This is in stark contrast to the local economy where manufacturers are complaining that high energy costs are making them uncompetitive. Imports are projected to reach US$1.5 billion this year, which is a crippling burden on the economy and foreign exchange reserves.
As the national energy policy recognises, this situation is economically unsustainable, especially as our consumption habits show no sign of changing.
Still, economic challenges remain, with the document calling for over US$1.5 billion to be invested in the energy sector. Other countries currently have more advanced plans. In economically-developed Europe, for example, which was relatively eager to embrace the United Nations Kyoto Treaty on global climate change, renewable energy is seen as a way to reverse the process of global warming. Countries such as Denmark and Germany have become world leaders in renewable energy and Germany now has 18,428 megawatts of installed wind power capacity. Jamaica, in comparison, has 20.7MW.
However, it is not just the world's richest countries that have developed their renewable resources. Costa Rica is 85 per cent dependent on hydropower for its electricity generation while Barbados manufactures solar water heaters and solar voltaic units, recently setting up a project in oil-producing Nigeria.
However, demand for oil worldwide continues to rise. Oil firm Exxon Mobil last year forecasted global energy consumption to rise by 60 per cent over the next 25 years, with most of it coming from the developing world, especially from rapidly-industrialising (and populous) China and India. Also pushing demand is the increasing demand for air travel.
The United States who remains the world's largest consumer of energy, did not sign up to Kyoto and possesses a powerful oil lobby, which exercises significant foreign policy influence. All that information is not news. What is news is that even President George Bush a man known to be more oil man than tree hugger has begun speaking of the value of renewable energy as part of his 'Advanced Energy Initiative.' The cost of imports is a concern, but Mr. Bush is most worried about security.
"Maximising energy efficiency and renewable energy is now the domestic epicentre in the War on Terror and it is imperative that we maximise the partnerships between the public and private sectors in new and creative ways with a sense of seriousness, national purpose and the urgency the situation merits," said Alexander Karsner, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Meanwhile, with his documentary film An Inconvenient Truth former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore has resurrected himself as the world's most prominent environmentalist. "What changed in the U.S. with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences," said Mr. Gore on the website for his film. Judging from the box office performance of the documentary it reached a respectable ninth in its first weekend at the U.S. box office an increasing number of Americans are becoming worried about global climate change.
GROWING AWARENESS
Perhaps, Jamaicans who have increasingly adopted American consumption habits may catch on to what seems to be this growing awareness to the north. Renewable energy has also gained celebrity endorsement from the likes of actor Leonardo DiCaprio, raising the profile of hybrid cars, which run on a mix of electricity and gasolene. There are currently thought to be just two hybrid cars in Jamaica, both owned by Petrojam, the refining arm of the state-owned Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica
Government hopes that its distribution of four million energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs to households islandwide will do much to raise awareness of renewable energy and energy saving. The possibility of solar water heaters being mandatory under the draft National Building Code might also bring the message further home.
