Jagdeo’s Eureka moment!

Mar 29, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – There is a well-known story about Archimedes, that mathematician and scientist. One day he leapt from his bath and ran sprinting naked through the streets, shouting “Eureka!” “Eureka!”  upon discovering the principle of buoyancy.

The theory of buoyancy, first explained by Archimedes, describes why objects float or sink in a fluid. It states that any object placed in a liquid (or gas) experiences an upward force called the buoyant force. This force is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. If the buoyant force is greater than the object’s weight, it floats. If it is less, the object sinks.

One imagines upon seeing Archimedes, the neighbours were less impressed with the physics than with the spectacle. Still, history has been kind to him. After all, when a man discovers something profound, we tend to forgive the theatrics.

Which brings us, in a somewhat less naked but no less triumphant fashion, to Bharrat Jagdeo, who appears to have had his own “Eureka” moment at the 124th Special Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED). There he unveiled a revelation so startling, so paradigm-shifting, that one half expected him to dash out of the conference room clutching a towel: the idea that the binary choice between fossil fuels and renewable energy is flawed.

Flawed! Not merely inconvenient, not politically awkward, but philosophically unsound. For years, we poor mortals laboured under the illusion that energy choices existed along a spectrum with two poles: fossil fuels (dirty and deeply unfashionable at climate summits) and renewables (clean, aspirational, and prone to disappearing when clouds gather, drought hits or winds sulk). But now, thanks to this revelation, we are told that the dichotomy itself is the problem.

What does Bharrat Jagdeo mean by this? In essence, he argues that framing energy policy as a stark choice between fossil fuels and renewables oversimplifies reality. Countries, particularly developing ones, need a mix—an energy portfolio that balances economic growth, reliability, and environmental responsibility. Fossil fuels, especially natural gas, can serve as a “bridge,” providing relatively cleaner energy than traditional oil or coal while renewables scale up to meet demand.

It is, on its face, a reasonable position. Sensible, even. One might call it pragmatic—though in politics, pragmatism often arrives fashionably late.

Because here is where the story takes on a strange twist. Wasn’t there a time—say, 2009—when the same Bharrat Jagdeo championed something rather different? The Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), that ambitious document of ecological virtue, had as its stated objective the transformation of Guyana’s energy system from “nearly 100% dependence on fossil fuel-based electricity generation to nearly 100% cleaner renewable energy supplies.”

Nearly 100% to nearly 100%. That doesn’t sound like a nuanced rejection of binaries. That sounds like… well, a binary. A wholehearted embrace of the very either/or proposition that has now been declared flawed.

At the time, Guyana was, by its own admission, about 97% dependent on imported fossil fuels for electricity generation. The LCDS was presented as a moral and developmental imperative: a clean break from fossil fuels, a leap—perhaps even an Archimedean leap—into a renewable future. Hydropower, solar, and wind were the destination.

And now, suddenly, the destination has become a waypoint. The binary is flawed. The spectrum is nuanced. The bridge fuel beckons.

One cannot help but notice—purely as a detached observer, of course, in the spirit of scientific inquiry—that this philosophical evolution coincides rather neatly with Guyana’s discovery of significant natural gas resources. Natural gas, for the record, is not renewable and certainly not “clean”, at least not in the way solar panels are clean. But it is cleaner than traditional fossil fuels and, perhaps more importantly now abundantly domestically available.

This raises an uncomfortable, almost Freudian question: if Guyana had not discovered natural gas, would the binary still be flawed? Or would it remain a moral absolute, a guiding principle etched into policy documents and international speeches?

In other words, is this a case of intellectual growth—or geological good fortune? The truth is that nations tend to discover the virtues of whatever resources they happen to possess. After all, Guyana which is supposed to be the clean energy capital of the Caribbean is now considering building a fossil fuel refinery. It has even found, the rising oil prices, a justification for doing so.

The reality is that the Caribbean, including Guyana, remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels for electricity generation. This is not a secret; it is an infrastructural fact. Transitioning away from that dependence is complex, expensive, and slow. The original LCDS acknowledged this challenge but framed it as a problem to be solved through decisive movement toward renewables.

Now, the problem is reframed. The binary itself is the issue. The solution is balance, flexibility, and—one might add—natural gas.

None of this is to say that the current position is wrong. On the contrary, it may be more realistic than the earlier vision. But realism, like Archimedes’ bathwater, tends to reveal truths that were always there, waiting to be noticed.

The only difference is that, in this case, the “Eureka” came not from displacement of water, but from the discovery of gas. And thankfully, everyone kept their clothes on.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Archimedes, Eureka, Jagdeo, Peeping Tom

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