what? another one? how many does that make? six, i believe. every time the government faces a crisis, such as the current electricity situation, it does a Google search and comes up with some technological developments. then, it issues a press release to inform the public that the company responsible for that development is on its way here, as we speak. three months later, all is forgotten. it is to laugh!!

When petroleum gets to 15 bucks a barrel this stuff will be worth its weight in whatever

i am glad you said that, GC. they did not seem to consider that these plants are only economically profitable if oil is at around 90 dollars per barrel. in this country, with electricity costs, it is probably more like 110 per barrel. if oil is at 50 dollars per, they are worth their weight in whatever!

Maybe there is another benefit, a method of reducing the trash/garbage load this country has.

pajarobobo, if the consideration is the disposal of the garbage, it is quite simple to just incinerate it. the steps of producing ethanol, and electricity, would be redundant.

It is good to have a diverse energy base whereas there is alot of trash in the streets as well. I never understood how such a beautiful place can just throw out trash and ruin a wonderful environment. I see it everyday in my barrio (not to mention the rat problem as a spillover costs).

Both trash can be recycled and/or burned, along with sugarcane and prairie grass to produce either electricity and E85 respectively. As a oil investor, I know the price will go down and I will lose money in the short term (especially with a recession). However, in the intermediate and longer term oil will come back! It is just an issue of a growing demand in the world & new teenage drivers each year against a very fix supply of oil. Right now, the pendulum is just swinging the other way.

The RD needs diverse energy sources including Nuclear and an efficient National Rail system like in Europe to move goods across country & to/from ports cheaper & faster as well as people (lower old cars/buses

it has been said on numerous occasions

JD:
I do agree with all you said above as far as the transportation system to be in place . What i don't

agree is, burning sugar cane bagasse to create electricity .Sugar cane in the hands of good tech.

has lots of biproduct including fine paper as well as ethanol and nitroglicerine among others.

Two or three atomic power plants will solve the problem,w/o going to corn that the nation uses

for food. The jobs they speak of above will not be for Dominican, since they don't cut cane

but for Haitians.Natural gas could be imported from the smaller Antilles to propell those turbines

that will generate electricity instead of coal or petro.

They should start thinkng about solar & wind power that the nation has plenty of and leave the

ethanol production to Brazil in Brazil. If the US wants ethanol bad enogh they could get it from the

corn surplus in the USA. w/o affecting the consumer as it would in DR. The US gvt subsidises

its farmers & controls them.

J_D Dominguez,
I thank you for bringing such an important point. There is already enough out of control air pollution in DR air with the motoconcho, and just burning the garbage, and releasing it to the air we breathe is not a smart choice, besides, if burning the garbage to control street littering, DR barrios would be super clean, sadly they are not. That would reduce the landfills and street garbage dumping.

Forget Nuclear energy! DR does not have the personnel to maintain and protect the piping from radiaction induced gas generation (helium) that leads to metal and/or concrete cracking nor does it have an emergency plan for accidental releases! And the nuclear waste and contaminated water ? Good luck! Thermal degradation of garbage? You mean volatizing all kinds of chemicals, RCRA metals,and other noxious gases (NOx, SOx, and CO2) just to heat boilers? Getting chemical energy (ethanol) from agricultural commodities or heat from burning garbage is inefficient, polluting, and eventually will cost more to society. Better to get electricity from solar, wind, oceanic waves (and tides), and hydrothermal if possible!

greenwave, thank you for an enlightening post. this whole idea of ethanol from municipal solid waste is absolute nonsense. nobody has resolved the technology, as we speak. it is inefficient, the yields are not worth it, and i think that the government better not get stupid and finance any part of it. can you say SCAM? in order to avoid the volatilizing of chemicals and metals, there would have to be a most time consuming separating process, with the cellulosic material on one pile, and the useless and toxic stuff on the other. once again, a great post!!

Greenwave:
Who said Dominican tech would be involved in the atomic energy? no diferent from PR where the
Gringos are using it already,or in France where 60% is atomic energy and they did not have the first accident like they did in Russia and almost in Long Island, where they had to shut it down.
So why don't they let France built enogh power plants for Haiti & DR? France is a member of the international atomic agency. If you ask me the entire power generation and distribution shoul be
taken away from DR gvt who only uses it for political purpuses and subsidy to the party in power.

Over all your article is very interesting :hydro-electric power,wind power ,solar power,oceanic waves(and tides).As to hydro-thermal i don't think we have existing active volcanic seapage so as to produce enogh power or harnes the power from it.

Again where would the capital for investment come from? Not from the DR gvt who is always borrowing money from the w/b for the smallest project?