T&T, US plan new energy research centre

Published: 28 Jan 2010
NADALEEN SINGH

The Government is in the process of partnering with the US to develop a renewable energy research centre, said Energy Minister, Conrad Enill. “We are in the process of developing a framework for partnering with the United States through its Department of Energy (USDOE), in the development of a renewable energy research centre and a framework for partnership under the energy and climate partnership of the Americas (ECPA). Enill was delivering the feature address at the opening session of the T&T Energy Conference on Monday. Enill said the partnership was first announced at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April, and since then there have been feedback from T&T’s regional neighbours. “Regional response has been positive across all five ECPA elements: energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner fossil fuels, critical infrastructure and energy poverty alleviation.”

He said the renewable energy research centre would provide an opportunity to broaden T&T’s joint activities while building needed capacity in the region. “The centre would benefit from being networked to other regional energy centres that have already been established in Chile, Peru and Colombia and other centres that might be established.” A second initiative he referred to was the formulating of a carbon capture and storage project for T&T. He said this would be done in the form of a partnership of the South Chamber of Industry and Commerce (STCIC) with the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries and the Ministry of Planning, Housing and the Environment. Enill said carbon emissions must be taken seriously as there can be repercussions, he quoted from the statistics developed by carbon monitoring for action (Carma). “According to Carma, Asia (5.75), North America (3.09) and Europe (1.88) they account for more than 10.72 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually. The rest of the world accounts for just about 700 million tonnes per year.” The statistics should not be taken lightly he said because there is a view that countries such as T&T would be the first to feel the effects of climate change, the most dramatic and disastrous being sea-level rise. Enill assured that climate change is an issue which the Government would have to address and already a few things have been done. “We are in the midst of reducing our natural gas consumption in electricity generation by a programme to have all of our power generation converted to combined-cycle generators by 2016.” Declaring that T&T is entering a new era, Enill said the progress of T&T as a nation depends on our ability to use our energy resources in ways that provide maximum benefit to all the people of T&T. He explained that the Government embraced a sustainable development methodology which aims to improve our standard of living and expand T&T’s opportunities for tomorrow. “The key strategies developed and deployed by this Government for the current and long-term vibrancy of the gas sector revolve around the deliberate selection of a mix of gas-consuming projects which will provide for diversification, balance and maximum value-adding potential for our economy.” Source: http://guardian.co.tt/business/business-guardian/2010/01/28/tt-us-plan-new-energy-research-centre