Opinion
- Editorial- Commentary
Raffique
Shah:
The
good times will not roll on forever
PRIME
Minister Patrick Manning and his critics seem
to be missing the main issue in the heated
debate over the Ryder Scott report on our gas reserves.
It's not about how much gas there is, or how much
more is waiting to be "discovered". If
some global energy experts are right, Trinidad
and Tobago is sitting on possible reserves of 90
trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas. And if, over
the next ten years, we succeed in adding 25 per
cent of that volume to our proved reserves, then
Mr Manning's industrialisation programme will be
adequately serviced with its principal feedstock,
relatively cheap gas. If they are wrong, if gas
runs out in ten years, then we'd be left with a
mass of abandoned, rundown plants, much the way
Texaco left us holding a skeletal refinery that
was on the brink of collapse.
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain.
Fossil fuels will run out some time within the
next 50 years or so. Hopefully, there will still
be sufficient food and water to sustain man, and
global warming spares humanity cataclysmic changes
that would terminate civilisation.
In other words, we have much more to worry about
than gas and oil. Regarding the latter, although
we are a minute player in the global field, people
need to understand that there is a shortage of
refining capacity across the world. If we can restore
Petrotrin's Pointe-a-Pierre facility to the 300,000
barrels per day it once processed, and upgrade
and streamline it so it produces high-quality fuels
in demand, then we shall have another cash cow
to milk.
But the overriding question is what energy sources
will drive our economy and sustain life after oil
and gas have run out? That's the question we should
have been asking ourselves for some time now.
The fact is we do have alternatives-more than we
shall ever need. There's the sun, there's wind,
there's tidal potential, and there's the new
rave of gluttons-renewable energy or biofuels.
The latter I would write off "one time",
as we Trinis say. To siphon crops that provide
food for man in order to keep motor vehicles
running is criminal.
It is one thing to allocate some farmland for
growing sugar cane (and other crops) for the production
of ethanol, in which Brazil, because of its vast
land-mass, has become a showpiece. But a major
food crisis looms large when countries like the
USA, Europe and many others divert crops used as
staples into fuels, the sole purpose being to keep
developed nations fuelled-four cars per family,
air conditioning in every home and vehicle, ski-ramps
complete with snow in desert nations like the UAE,
and worse.
Man's greed, our selfishness in wanting to consume
more than our fair share of the world's resources,
will prove to be our undoing. In the USA, for example,
its government and people should be saying to themselves,
okay, we are limiting each family to two vehicles,
we shall use electricity only as required, let's
cut the wastage of a wasting asset. Nooo! The Americans
believe they have a Bush-given right to consume
and to waste-just look at their waistlines! Trinidad
is little different. Think of those among us who
are fortunate to have adequate water supplies,
how easily we waste it even as entire communities
remain without. Think, too, of the tonnes of food
we waste while thousands of children go to bed
hungry.
But I digress. Given the vast oil and gas wealth
we now enjoy, any sensible government would have
used the windfall to start diversifying, to harness
alternative energy so that future generations can
enjoy decent lifestyles we would have bequeathed
them.
Solar and wind energy are currently quite costly.
But advanced technology continues to drive costs
down. We should be utilising a combination of these
two to cut back on power consumption from the national
grid, and by extension, our dependence on fossil
fuels.
Nature has been generous to us. But our greed and
stupidity must be driving nature mad. Imagine,
if you will, wind farms fully powering far-flung
districts: no overhead electricity lines, no
mass of unsightly poles and cables, no fear of
cable thieves. Think of every new house or office
building being partly powered by solar panels.
Think of all public buildings utilising natural
lighting as much as is possible (so you won't
need to use electric lighting all day), recycling
wastewater, having greenery around to purify
the air we breathe.
As
far back as in 1928, Mahatma Gandhi, looking
at western patterns of consumption, warned: "God
forbid that India should ever take to industrialisation
after the manner of the west. If an entire nation
of 300 million (India's population at the time)
took to similar economic exploitation, it would
strip the world bare like locusts." To think
that Gandhi had not seen the wild consumerism that
has enveloped most of the world-India included.
He was indeed a visionary. And we are blinded by
the good times that we think will roll on forever.
Raffique
Shah is a columnist of the Trninidad Express -
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note: This article was first publish in Trinidad
Express, Sunday, August 26th 2007. Petroleumworld
reprint this article in the interest
of our readers.
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08/26/07
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