We can’t continue governing with our heads buried in the sand like this

Jun 06, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I refer to a letter from Andrew McBean captioned “Cheaper, cleaner and Guyanese: What a gas-to-power plant would mean for electricity”
The selling price of electricity in Trinidad is highly subsidized by the government. We should not be looking there for our strategy, we should be looking at Venezuela, which since the 1960’s took the oil money which is finite, and they built the Guri Dam which is in line with our latitude, and therefore in basically the same mountain chain. From it, they produce 10 Megawatts per hour [the fifth largest hydropower dam in the world], which according to reports, generates 98% of Venezuela’s electrical requirements.
And the reason is simple. In the most recent study in the US entitled “Average Power Plant Operating Expenses for Major U.S. Investor-Owned Electric Utilities, 2006 through 2016” the following was discovered: the numbers are quoted in Mills per Kilowatthour; Nuclear 19.57; Fossil Stream 29.85; Hydropower 6.46; Gas turbine 59.56.
As can be seen, Hydropower is by far the cheapest way to generate power, four times less than fossil steam and more than nine times less than Gas turbine. A Mill is equal to 1/1,000 of a U.S. dollar, or 1/10 of one cent. To convert mills per kWh, to cents per kWh, divide mills per kWh by 10. But most importantly which part of forever versus limited time don’t these people understand?
(https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_04.html)
The oil find in Guyana at the extraction rate quoted is estimated to last 15 years. You do not use the gas to build electrical generation, you use the oil money to build Hydropower once you have the potential, and you sell the gas to less fortunate people. With hydropower generation, we will give our business community electricity at less than 4 cents a kilowatt, and still not be subsidizing it, and our businesses will flourish more competitively as a result.
We cannot continue governing with our heads buried in the sand like this. At this very moment, the fisheries industry in Guyana has been asking for duty-free fuel for processing – which they were getting under the PPP – to continue, since they can’t compete with overseas fish processors who have access to cheap electrical power, but they have been told no, that the government needs the revenue.
This means that to collect the pittance in duties on fuel which they are collecting from our fish processors who are competing with international processors, and are forced to generate their own power, since the GPL is unreliable and expensive, Govt. is prepared to let our fish processors close down rather than waive the diesel fuel tax. It means more foreign exchange losses for Guyana. In this same country during the early years after independence, to fuel the growth of agriculture, all diesel was tax-free. To deny this duty-free request now, this close to our being an OPEC nation, defies all logic.
The economy will not expand by 3.8 % in 2018, as predicted in the 2018 budget. I agree with the analysts, it will probably contract even further than the 2.1 in 2017, and then we will restrict money leaving the country and start that nonsense all over again.
It means that in two years, 2016 and 2017, this government mismanaged the economy badly, and now the numbers which are coming up, are supporting the cries we have been hearing from our business community as early as January 2017, that “tings bad”.
Yours faithfully
Tony Vieira

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