(CNS): The Cayman Islands’ heavy dependence on imported diesel amid the current geopolitical environment has led to our own local crisis of affordability. Aa a result, Premier André Ebanks has said his government is supporting CUC in its endeavour to adopt liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a replacement.
In another blow to the transition to solar energy and other renewables, Ebanks recently spoke to an audience of Chamber of Commerce members about how to move from diesel, and asked, “If it’s going to be too slow and you can’t do it 100% with solar, do we need to look at LNG as a transitional fuel?”
He stressed the point that the enemy in this crisis is not CUC but the cost of imported diesel.
“Those of us who are 100% [for] solar, including myself, have to think how we’re going to get this done,” Ebanks said, at a time when the islands are still generating around 97% of its electricity from the most expensive, polluting fuel on the market and his administration has done little to actually increase the rollout of domestic solar installation.
Speaking at the recent Chamber Legislative Lunch, the premier said the problem of very high fuel costs cannot go on another political term, and Finance Minister Rolston Anglin has asked the utility regulator, OfReg, to take another look at “how we are going to get ourselves off of diesel”.
“Our country needs breakthrough relief now. So, we will be getting that report with a timeline as quickly as possible to assess our options to see what can be done in the next 18 to 20 months,” he said.
He said if the fuel factor line goes down for every household and every business, then “every piece of the cost of living in the country goes down”. He added, “It’s not just about energy, it’s about efficiency.”
But LNG, which is also a fossil fuel, is far from a silver bullet. It also raises many environmental concerns and is very unlikely to be a stopgap solution, as it has been described in the past by both CUC and government officials. It is primarily methane that has been supercooled into a liquid state.
Despite efforts to promote the fuel as a cleaner alternative to other fossil fuels, environmentalists argue that cooling it alone requires immense amounts of energy, often generated by burning other fossil fuels, releasing massive volumes of CO2 before the gas is even burned.
Methane degrades faster in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but it is 80 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat, and the gas routinely leaks into the atmosphere during fracking, liquefaction, transport and global shipping.
Even though it is considerably cheaper than diesel, LNG, like all fuels, is still subject to geopolitical issues, and the current supply has been severely impacted by the wars in the Middle East.
Recent cost increases, shortages and supply chain problems have driven some countries to replace LNG with coal, even as batteries for storing renewable energy are far cheaper and less affected by escalating wars and conflicts around the world that are disrupting fossil fuel supplies.
Nevertheless, CUC wants to invest in new infrastructure and convert existing generators to use LNG. It has argued in the past that without further investment in fossil fuels, it may not be able to meet consumer demand. It has also warned that without it, the company would have to revert to rolling blackouts.
CUC has said that LNG will give it the flexibility it needs during the transition to solar and other renewables. But the delay in the solar rollout, despite our 300 days a year of sunshine, is down to the push and pull between the regulator and CUC, and between the company as the owner of the grid and the growing domestic solar sector.
The current government has made attempts to resolve some of these conflicts, but there has been no increase in the pace of the solar rollout. Roadblocks constantly emerge to prevent people from installing and even running their own solar operations off-grid.
Meanwhile, James Whittaker, the chair of the Community Renewable Energy Association (CREA), has noted on numerous occasions these barriers should not exist. “So long as you have a rooftop, you can get solar panels,” he has said, making a simple argument for government to invest in and support Cayman’s fledgling solar industry.