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Bahamian Environmentalist: No to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)... Yes to Renewable Energy
Related to country: Bahamas

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ReEarth says no to LNG, yes to renewable energy:
By JIMENITA SWAIN, Guardian Senior Reporter -
Nassau, Bahamas:




The country's energy problems can be reduced if The Bahamas takes advantage of renewable energy technology and move away from the Liquefied Natural Gas pipeline proposal, a local environmentalist said yesterday.

LNG has been heralded as an option to reducing oil cost.

ReEarth director, Sam Duncombe, told The Nassau Guardian in a telephone interview, "We need to tell the LNG companies to go somewhere else."

She compared renewable energy technology to the industrial revolution of today and called on Bahamians to take advantage of it.

"It makes absolute sense that we need to start investigating those issues in terms of what is going to work for us," she added.

A recent article in The Economist of June 21, 2008 supported that point in a special report on the future of energy.

"The technology has gotten to the point where it can work for us on a large scale, but even on a small scale it can work and it needs to happen," she stressed.

The ReEarth director attended last week's Caribbean Regional Sustainable Energy Conference. She sent a message to Aaron Samson of AES Corp. who she said has been promoting that LNG could lower energy costs, through a transition to natural gas, instead of oil.

"That logic is tantamount to trying to wean a cocaine addict by addicting them to heroin," she said. "Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Samson. Natural gas addiction is no solution for our current or future energy problems."

She said the lesson she walked away with after the conference was, "The way forward for producing energy, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, keeping millions of dollars in the country, lowering our energy bills, creating new jobs, protecting the environment from global warming green houses gasses, is to dive straight into the renewable energy market, not LNG, not coal, not oil."

A number of speakers at the energy conference reiterated the view shared by Duncombe, that technology was no longer an issue, and that solar, wind, bio-fuels, tidal power were all proven technologies that could meet The Bahamas' energy needs.

On July 7, 2007 ReEarth joined two billion viewers for the Live Earth concert — the brain child of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore — and called on Bahamians to purchase compact fluorescent bulbs to help lower their energy costs, and reduce the amount of global warming gasses entering the atmosphere.

She also called on the government to consider providing soft loans for consumers to be able to install solar water heaters, to help reduce their energy bills. BEC should also start the process of weaning The Bahamas from fossil fuels, Duncombe added.

Minister of Environment Earl Deveaux said in his address — which ReEarth supported — that The Bahamas could reduce its fuel import bill by $11 million per annum, simply by converting to compact fluorescent bulbs and solar water heaters.

Duncombe called on the government to follow New Zealand's lead by forbidding any future fossil fuel based projects.

She said the government "must now officially turn away the LNG proposal put forward by AES and any others that may be lurking in the shadows; they should extricate The Bahamas from all oil exploration licenses; then they must make compact fluorescent lights and solar water heaters duty free.

"We need to start moving. Everyday we delay, we affect future generations."

July 31, 2008 | 5:36 PM Comments  0 comments

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