The Government, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has announced, has foreclosed any further discussion on the issue and has decided that liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be the fuel of choice in Jamaica's energy diversification programme.

So, that is one issue with which the public does not have to bother in the consultations now being conducted by the Minister of Energy, Mining and Telecommunications, Clive Mullings, on a White Paper on energy that was inherited by the current administration.

Although the Prime Minister suggested that there was dithering by the previous government in coming to a decision on an energy choice, he, really, is only endorsing the preferred option of his predecessors. And in that regard he is likely to face the same obstacles that confronted the Patterson and Simpson Miller administrations.

Indeed, contrary to Mr Golding's suggestion, it was not a prolonged debate over energy choice that delayed the big expansion of Alcoa's expansion of the Jamalco alumina refinery here, or the light and power company's engineering of new generating facilities. Rather, the issue turned on the availability of the energy of choice, or, more correctly, the lack thereof.

The US$1.6 billion Alcoa expansion, it is recalled, was predicated on the use of LNG as a cheaper and cleaner fuel than oil. Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning came to Kingston and signed an agreement with his then Jamaican counterpart, Percival J Patterson, for the annual supply of 1.1 million tonnes of LNG for a 49 per cent stake in a re-gasification facility. That agreement was reiterated between Mr Manning and Mr Patterson's successor, Portia Simpson Miller.

The problem, however, is that the Trinidadians later reneged on that deal, saying that they did not have the LNG to supply, given the country's domestic demands and existing supply contracts. Indeed, the Trinidadians recently revised downwards the proven reserves of gas, and new exploration is behind schedule.

President Chávez of Venezuela promised to take up the slack, but the problem here is that Caracas' supply is stretched, and capacity that is to come on line within the short to medium term is spoken for to fuel domestic industries.

Mr Golding, however, has said that his administration is already searching for suppliers, but availability is not as immediately plentiful as we might hope. Most sources with the capacity to supply are far from our market.

That, though, is not to suggest that LNG is available now or won't be available. We just might have to look harder, and not foreclose on any option.

For example, the previous administration had looked at the possibility of the supply of compressed natural gas by Colombia - a solution proposed by a Jamaican/Canadian of significant influence.

Nor do we feel that the Government should foreclose on coal, which is available and cheap. Moreover, new technology is also making coal a relatively clean fuel.

The point is that while the administration moves ahead on LNG, it has to be aware of all the cross-currents in th energy matrix. Utilising LNG does not mean that other fuels can't be part of the energy mix.