Blog One: Caribbean Islands Agree to Swap Diesel Power for Renewable Sources

Summary: On Thursday, February 6, multiple Caribbean nations decided to take a huge step in cutting emissions from diesel generators. These nations, including St. Lucia, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands, signed a pact saying that they would begin replacing the generators with types of renewable resources, such as solar and wind power. The meeting was organized by a nonprofit organization, the Carbon War Room, which was created in order to help fight climate change. The founder of the organization, Richard Branson, stated that the costs of electrical power on the Caribbean islands are incredibly high. He added that the implementation of renewable resources like these would bring these costs down quite dramatically. There are many political hurdles that the projects must jump before being fully established, but so far there has been a wind farm established in Aruba; the British Virgin Islands are trying to create a waste-to-energy program within their existing power plants; and St. Lucia has started testing solar power for use in powering the electricity in buildings.

Analysis: This article was well-written, and I felt that it definitely brought some important socio-economic points to light. In the article, Mr. Branson makes a comment about how to win the “renewable resource war.” He says that in order to do so, you must use creative entrepreneurship. He goes on to say, “what we’ve learned in the renewable world is everyone wants to save the world, but very few people want to pay for more energy.” (B3). You could definitely argue that it is not always a matter of people not wanting to pay for the renewable energy. How many people really could pay for the energy? However, on the opposite side, by implementing new technology like this, the islands are creating new green jobs. They will be able to employ more people, and their nations will become more globalized and able to compete with other nations. So, at the end of the day, what do you do? Do you pay up now to save later (go green), or do you save now to pay later?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/business/energy-environment/caribbean-islands-agree-to-swap-diesel-power-for-renewable-sources.html?_r=0