National Energy Policy under review by ministry
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Government is consulting with energy experts, private sector stakeholders, civil society and the public at large on the most effective strategies to deploy renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions as part of a five-year review of the National Energy Policy. People are being asked to take a short online survey, which ends on 20 January, in order to offer feedback as officials take another look at the policy that aims for 70% of total electricity generation to come from renewable sources by 2037.
However, the Cayman Islands is not even close to that target and looks extremely unlikely to meet it in the next fourteen years. The policy, which covers the period 2017-2037, states that it should be reviewed every five years, not only to monitor and report on progress but also to reset the targets, given the changing environment.
The percentage of power generated by green sources is still in single digits at around 8%. CUC signed a deal in September with Wärtsilä to supply two 10-megawatt (MW) energy storage systems by the end of this year, its first storage facility for renewables. But the project will only double the current renewable capacity CUC can use from customers with solar panels and wind turbines through the CORE programme.
Meanwhile, with more than 90% of electricity consumed here being generated by diesel and the traffic congestion increasing to unprecedented levels, greenhouse gas emissions are higher than they were when the policy was published. Very little progress has been made in the first five years and the government is running out of time to meet the ambitious 70% target.
Take the survey here.
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Category: Energy, Science & Nature
CUC should have been ordered to at least retrofit with scrubbers, or convert to LNG a generation ago. Might as well be burning coal in a furnace. We wonder why we have high rates of cancer.
Reaching the +1.5˚C “Tipping Point”, a negotiated limit divined by oil and gas parties under the 2015 Paris Agreement – may feel like a very distant and avoidable reality because it has been talked about for so long, but that breech line is quite a bit closer than you may think. 2022 average is now being reported as +1.21’C, with more on the way. IPCC and Copernicus ECMWF now model crossing that no-return line by August 2034, at least three years before Cayman’s adoption of “net-zero mitigations” deadline. Any number beyond +1.5’C, runaway extinction-level feedback loop of accelerated global warming exists, with high consensus scientific confidence. Current deadlines and targets are nearly universal fails, designed by rich comfortable industrialists that are going to be dead in the next 20 years anyway. Those that consider the needs of their kids and grandkids beyond their wallets, need to move faster, become more organised, and vocal. Most of all, they need to read and adopt the plant-based mitigations of IPCC AR6.
https://climate.copernicus.eu
https://ipcc.ch
CUC’s diesel generators could be converted to burn stable, clean, zero-emission ammonia NH3. Partial (diesel-NH3 blend) and full conversion kits are being designed to retrofit ocean freighter/tanker and other commercial-size diesel combustion systems.
Meanwhile, Avina Clean Hydrogen is building a 100% renewable-powered, electrolysis-based ammonia plant on the Texas gulf coast that will generate 700,000 tonnes per year, operational by 2025. It will be one of the biggest on the planet.
Why wouldn’t a NH3 conversation of existing infrastructure form part of the Energy plan? This technology date back to the 1930s. BIg oil blindness.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/12/09/2570923/0/en/Avina-Clean-Hydrogen-Inc-Signs-Long-Term-Offtake-Agreements-for-Largest-Green-Ammonia-Plant-at-Texas-Gulf-Coast.html
The 2013 energy policy saved us $168 million, so I look forward to even more savings from this one. I’m sure nobody remembers what was said ten years ago, so they can even use the same speech (starting on page 8).
http://www.legislativeassembly.ky/portal/pls/portal/docs/1/9928083.PDF
Another woefully inadequate consultation “process”! But that’s intended. Government gives a couple weeks of unpublished or unannounced consulting period just as lip service. The less public input the easier for the Morons in Charge to justify their actions.
“Well, we put it out to the public….”
The survey is designed to buttress the defective National (Territorial?) Energy Policy, designed by OfReg, CUC, Sol, and gas station owner cabal.
There are primary school students that could have put together a more useful survey with sensible questions and comment boxes. What a waste of time we don’t have.
We don’t have an energy policy. We have a CUC guaranteed profits policy. Not the same thing at all.
Didn’t anyone notice the massive oil-burning stacks pumping out toxic fumes a CUC?
So dumb
SMRs all the way. Certainly better than the Chinese rare earth/density-free energy we call renewables.
more soon come waffle….why try and re-invent the wheel when other countries have already shown you the blueprint for this?
anyway…it’s just the sound of another useless government kicking the can down the road and then pretending they did something……
welcome to wonderland.
Another year, another survey about the same problems and not getting closer to any implementation in sight, the solutions do exist and there are even examples on island of homes completely powered by renewable energy and local on site storage that can provide main and backup power for over spans of outage for over 48 hours. But our dear .gov is too captive of their revenue from CUC’s shares.
I understand that our Premier wants to explore better energy options for our island but all the civil service and CUC have been trying at every turn to slow any implementation efforts for over a decade.
Only in the light of a world energy crisis does people conscience start to realise that the island needs a better energy policy in general and faster / better processes to give access to renewable power either at the individual level or at the grid-scale / utility level.
The Wärtsilä deal about storage solution isn’t even fit for its intended purpose, the company doesn’t have a vertical solution stack that can measure as primary storage and is specialised in mission critical power infrastructure and provides second tier backup solutions which doesn’t address the problem of storage at a large scale.
A simple google map satellite view will very much demonstrate my point. But our dear .gov is playing deaf/blind/mute , pretty much the same thing as to finding a solution to the dump and its emanations.
Why does CUC’s CORE program control the energy private solar panel produce and then pay those private panel owners a pittance for their own power?
Does anyone see just how strong of a disincentive that is to solar adoption? Extending the payback period of any home renovation is a fastest and most effective method to push people AWAY from making the investment.
Then we cry and wail and wring our hands and gnash our teeth when shocks to the global fuel supply leave us with spiking energy bills.
These issues are the consequences of successive governments choices and (in)actions and, as usual, ordinary people are left holding the check.
CNS The link is not working, for me at least.
The public consultation closes 20 Jan – woefully short when we have no TV and barely any decent media outlets to communicate the message (thanks CNS). By the time this filters out to the wider community the Consultation will already be closed.
CNS: The link works for me, but try the full URL – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/energypolicyreview?fbclid=IwAR3pbyoJEU-WLetbz0CA59TWgkUHNsKswBFL5xCqAdjQC0BlBRN64pILybA
The survey doesn’t collect any meaningful info anyway. It’s just a perfunctory attempt to tick a box that they polled the room.
While CUC and it’s enabler OfReg holds the reins the 2037 target is like the search for dark matter. It’s a joke and anyone submitting proposals for a major slice of the renewables pie knows it or has never dealt with the two aforementioned colluding entities. Fusion power plants might come online in other countries before we ever begin to seriously move away from fossil fuels here.
What exactly is to be monitored and reviewed every 5 years, failure. No this is just another opportunity to make up more excuses and move the target further into the future.
Can we make these following changes a national absolute mandate in the next election, no matter which bunch of clowns get elected? Break the cartel, nationalise the grid, find an independent entity to run it, make CUC a licensee and open the field up to viable renewable proposals. Many viable proposals for renewable projects are already stacked up on OfReg desks, some gathering dust for years.
The climate change mitigation mentioned over 400 times in last year’s UN IPCC Assessment Report is to rapidly transition the human diet to plant-based eating. 8 billion humans are now clearing millions of acres of CO2 sequestering forest to raise over 50 billion livestock a year for food, not only degrading our own health in the process, but those extra animals and their waste and feed production contributes more GHGE than the entire transportation sector. If we could snap our fingers and eliminate all fossil fuels in an instant, we would still exceed the Tipping Point of 1.5’C just on animal agriculture alone. Last year’s 2022 average was 1.2’C, so there’s only 0.3’C to the top of the fourth bulkhead on the Titanic. Nuclear fusion and electric cars are not ready and not enough even if they were.
2037 will be too late.
Don’t look up
Another useless survey designed by someone that has no clue. #7 and 8 are the same question.
Perhaps it’s been updated since you looked at it, but they are in fact two different questions. One asks what you’ve already done and the other asks what you are willing to adopt. Sad that so many people gave you a thumbs up without even verifying your claim.
Quite important to ask both questions as I suspect many people are willing but unable to adopt the items listed for various reasons the survey will hope to highlight (cost, convenience, etc.).
For those that have made personal adaptations, what they are willing to adopt is the same answer. There’s no new info relayed by asking the same defective question again.
No, for instance, I don’t currently have solar power. However, I would like to, but can not because of the way the process is set up.
World Class
No they are not. #7 asks what have you done in the past, #8 asks what you would be willing to adopt in the future.
Reading comprehension skills should be a requirement for all functioning adults, you may have missed a step somewhere.
If you’ve already maxed out what you can do in #7, #8 doesn’t glean any new insight or useful data.
But you have learned that the person is maxed out. As opposed to willing and able but still some limitations. See, you learned something new.
Heat pumps, promote vegan diet and local farming, reduce consumption, reuse/relife old stuff, recycle, refuse. Convert diesel power generators to biodiesel, or ammonia fuel. Sell excess solar generation at a discount to evening generator capacity. Make batteries duty free. Set a responsible territorial moratorium date on all petroleum combustion before 2030. Deliver the bike lanes.
Typical naval gazing.
I don’t think CUC has a private Navy
Soon come with a new surcharge. Thanks for the idea.
We have Caymanian lawyers with engineering/technology degrees. Hope CIG reaches out to them.
The survey link does not work.
CNS: Try this https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/energypolicyreview?fbclid=IwAR3pbyoJEU-WLetbz0CA59TWgkUHNsKswBFL5xCqAdjQC0BlBRN64pILybA