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Good News in the Malvern Hills
9:49 pm, Sun September 20, 2015
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Road being widened to accommodate delivery of huge components of the wind turbines
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By Bumpy Walker
As part of my service, a Maori colleague and I routinely have coffee in a European client’s canteen. Invariably there are playing in the background two muted television sets on twenty four hours news stations with subtitles on as we sit and plan operations, troubleshoot and fire-fight issues associated with the extractive energy industry . Occasionally, very occasionally, the conversation drifts towards the events on the silent televisions. Routinely my colleague complains that there is never any good news.
In my humble opinion, this is because, even in our less ideal world, things are expected to work properly. People expect to live in peace and prosperity; there is not an expectation that one leaves one’s home fleeing from fundamentalist nut jobs or in search of economic security. Children don't drown after falling from rickety boats, fleeing said nut jobs, and the police are expected to be honest. Schoolers should be safe travelling to and in school. Systematic medical treatment, free at point of use, is expected. Drivers should follow the traffic rules. Women are not expected to be assaulted. Water is expected in the pipe and young poor men should not get shot. There is, despite the disruption of history, an optimistic expectation that things will work as they are supposed to. Deviation from the norm, in other words, from the expected, is thus news
If it bleeds, it leads
When it comes to news, the above aphorism is the usual driver. To the eyes of any local anywhere on the planet, it is blood or bullets that get international attention. Lord Laro’s tuneful admonishment to the foreign press is true, though the local press may be as guilty, but because if one does one's own navel gazing, local pessimism is not as painful.
Yes; truth needs to be told, lies exposed, preachers defrocked, teachers challenged and politicians held to account. That is the role the press. One of the many blessings that Jamaica has, despite its challenges, is that there is a press that occasionally presses on the pressure points of society, keeping the great and the good honest. Well fairly honest... okay, a little honest. Not all the negative that all Jamaicans feel will be covered; our universe is filled with too long a catalogue of sorrow and sadness.
Thus trawling the Jamaican news sites on 16th September, up came the usual deviations from the norm with the morally ambiguous, negative stories: A doctor is accused of performing an abortion on a minor, a house is firebombed, a former councillor and a co-accused are charged with sexual assault and, in a possible hissy- fit, a MP was notably absent from Parliament, after being democratically told he would not be a candidate for the next election, having lost favour with a number of his Party delegates.
Positive Vibration
There was an additional deviation from the norm; from the expected. One that, in the main, was positive and did not involve Tessanne Chin or Usain Bolt. There was an article on this website about the ongoing investment in an eleven turbine wind farm in the Malvern / Munro area by BMR Energy. It was even picked up by the Foreign Press! 1)
This story has huge personal resonance. As a native of St Elizabeth, I grew up close to the site of this investment. Oh the joy! I confess more joy, joy endorphins have been surging through my brain than through Hugo Chavez’s when he chewed that coca leaf on television!
For too long, inward investment in the Malvern area has come from local educational institutions, locals building houses or agriculturalists via machete and muscle. The returns on the latter have often been dismal and uncertain. For many this has led to migration to colder climes and perceived better opportunities. I understand; I am one of those failed farmers of the local reliable cash crop, who have chosen the easier option of the cold.
This project represents the most significant investment of any sort in my six decades on earth in the Malvern/ Munro area. Now, imagine if you took the fifty years of investment in a single project in Desi Mac’s or Lucrecia’s urban constituency. There would be much celebration, vuvuzela blowing, bell ringing and Dutch pot lid banging. Our urban politicians would have photo opportunities by nacelles and long winded ribbon cutting ceremonies that would send the local fidgeting school choir to sleep as the little people would be present to entertain with their youthful voices.
Thankfully, the local MPs have adopted, or are naturally ingrained with the unofficial motto for St Elizabeth: “we work not shirk.” Our politicians (except one) were all beavering away on our behalf elsewhere, thus saving the world from the usual platitudes. However, in their absence, the local media took little interest, hence no coverage of this once-in-two generations life changing, school fee generating event on the Gleaner or Observer websites.
Public Private Partnership Perspective
On Thursday (September 17th) on the RJR News website, Dashan Hendricks presented with his usual flair the benefit to the national economy of public-private partnership. Electricity (power) is considered as one of the Commanding Heights of an economy as defined by Lenin. It was traditionally considered to be part of the remit of government to provide. Here is a case where the macroeconomic model being advocated by Mr Hendricks in practice. Ultimately, who cares if the electricity is private or public as long as it affordable and available?
BMR, the investor and operator of this energy project, has taken this approach to a more local perspective, albeit through necessity. The company has participated in the widening and resurfacing of the roads to facilitate the delivery of the large scale equipment to their site for installation, making it safer for travelling schoolers. Highly commendable!
One comment made by BMR’s egional director, Ava Tomlin, in the audio link to the story caught my attention. Her company will be grading and re-laying the sub-surface of the Round Hill Road, though it does not plan to re-seal the surface. Hopefully the local politicians will take note, see past party loyalty, add their voice for the responsible agency to react quickly. Time is short; there is much prayer locally for rain, which I predict will be answered shortly, and when the blessed water comes, this opportunity will be lost, leaving the road in question to be resurfaced entirely out of the public purse. But then there is an election coming; who knows how much milk will be available to drink, even if the uncounted tax cows lack nourishment!
An International Perspective
The world’s least favourite aspiring Yankee politician of the moment is Donald Trump, the property developer. The Donald, you may not be aware, has invested in acquiring a property in the North East of Scotland. The original plan, done with much flair and enthusiasm, was to build multi hotels with multi Golf courses. Donald, who, it seems, is a climate change sceptic, and believes windmills are unsightly eyesores, lobbied the Scottish Government to stymie a proposed wind farm
Unfortunately for him, despite having being courted by the SNP Government to invest in this leisure enterprise, the Scottish Government went ahead and approved the eleven turbine offshore wind farm to be developed by Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd. Trump was less than pleased and has looked to Ireland for future hotel and golf ventures, thus not investing the full $750 Million he claimed to have planned. 2), 3).
While at first the above vinaigrette may seem irrelevant to the Munro Malvern project, it is worth noting, highlighting the fragility of the ego of foreign investors.
It has to be pointed out that the recent fall in the price of oil makes the economics of wind power questionable, and in the UK, since the last general election, the removal of government subsidies has slowed or shelved similar projects. The North East of Scotland waits with bated breath to see if the Trump exorcizing project does go ahead.
Environmental Perspective
There is currently an international drive on to reduce carbon emissions. Jamaica has a high dependence on hydrocarbons to produce electric, nor does it have it have in place the systems to sequestrate the carbon dioxide thus generated. This project will, according to the literature, provide 4 % of the electricity our country needs. Additionally, it has to be pointed out that there is, in all likelihood, in the medium-to-long-term a price spike in hydrocarbon prices. It is rare in my limited experience for governments to think long term.
So, in the main, this is a project of significant national importance and will assist in ensuring that Jamaica actually meets the Kyoto target, as expressed by Minister Pickersgill in his “Climate Change Policy Framework and Action Plan”:
Under Jamaica’s National Energy Policy 2009 - 2030, Jamaica aims to increase the percentage of renewables in the energy mix with proposed targets of 12.5% by 2015 and 20% by 2030. 4)
It has to be pointed out that, while renewable enthusiasts will claim wind is zero carbon emission, this is not totally true. Carbon was generated to manufacture the blades, equipment and transport associated with this operation.
Of more concern is the logistics of power and the contract under which BMR will produce electricity. One trusts the good minister responsible and his competent technocrats have not written in the contract a take or pay clause whereby when the electricity can be generated by the turbines the consumer pays for it, whether or not there is capacity in the network for this power.
Insecure Perspective
I must confess that I am a pessimist by nature. It stems, no doubt, from being a failed farmer in “them there” Santa Cruz Mountains. Thus, I have a tendency to investigate gift horses’ teeth. So I did a quick Google search on BMR Energy. The company boasts seventy years’ experience. 5) However I note the only project listed on its website is the Munro / Malvern project. Yes, like the rest of us, they are parliamentary with the facts!
Despite this company’s lack of projects, this project has been scrutinised by the US Government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which has given it financing in the tune of US$42 million, as well 10 million from IFC-Canada Climate Change Program. The presence of the Canadian state institutions does provide reassurance; after all, following the 2008 world financial crisis, the United States oversight is still suspect. 6) 7)
My heroes
Ms Tomlin and Mr Bruce Levy of BMR Energy: If you need some good strong hard working men to work on your project, I strongly recommend you seek out three of the heroes of my youth: Thunda, Septimus and Ezra, who are still in the area. They are all smarter than me, (I, on occasion at primary school, plagiarized their academic work while Mrs Campbell's back was turned!) and are also more heroic, standing fast while I fled!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...-betrayal.html trump betrayed
http://www.japarliament.gov.jm/attachments/440_Climate Change.pdf
https://www.opic.gov/sites/default/files/files/BMR Jamaica Wind Limited.pdf
