This proposal is probably the most viable of all the ones that have been submitted thus far.
The North Coast of Hispaniola enjoys a fairly steady wind above the 15 knot windspeed required for producing energy from that medium due to the relatively constant Easterly Trade Winds impacting that area of the island.
In addition, Wind Farm electrical generation is virtually "non-intrusive" from an ecological standpoint if installed and maintained correctly.
If this construction proves out the theory of wind generation, there is the probability of additional 'windfarms' being installed in the mountainous regions where the wind is also of a constant nature.

TB

Good news. Wind energy is clean, environmentally friendly, and is modern way to capitalize on the natural beauty of DR. I'm glad these projects are being considered. I hope more wind farms with a high capacity of energy production will be built and along with solar energy projects.

E' Pa'lante que vamos !!

It's about time some body woke up in the D.R.First of all this should of been done years ago wind power would of solved the electricty problems all over the island.Now the D.R.can show the rest of the world how a small island can be no.1 in envirionmentally friendly in a few years to come.We all know that the biggest problem in the D.R. is not having enough power to run the country.These wind farms should solve most of the problems.Hopefully the price will come down for the average family can afford to pay.Congratulations M.R OMAR RAMIREZ your doing a fine job.Oh don't for get to install these wind farms in Samana and Las Terrenas.where the wind blows to.

A Great Step but still, SOLAR ENERGY Is Better and The Government Should Develop This Asset.

DR lacks oil but not sun rays; It is without a doubt the cleaness and pureress form of energy...

I read about this proposal last year, which at the time I thought was a great idea, what in the world is holding this outstanding project from going forward?.

yea this is a good step, i hope they put one Wind par also here in Bonao! :D LF the greatest president we have ever seen :D

Euromax;

Hate to rain on your parade, but Bonao, as with the rest of the Cibao, just doesn't have the reliable winds year around that such a venture requires. The North Coast does and so does the extreme SouthEast where the Trades blow fairly consistantly.
There was a Wind speed and direction study done in theDR several years back when they first started thinking about a project such as this. Sorry, but I don't have the link to that study and vaguely remember it's salient points of information.

TB

Please rank the most immediate priorities of the Dominican people:

Education

Health care

Reliable electrical service

Security from crime

METRO

KUDOS DR.

Now do not kill the golden goose with your greedy little attitude.

You’ll make money by not have to pay so much for energy.

Please, think first.

Yes your right josean sorry .Your right about education ,heath care and securty should come first for the D.R.What i should of stated is that ELECTRICTY is one of the biggest problems in the D.R.

josean;

As ALWAYS, you have NOTHING POSITIVE to contribute. EVERYTHING you post is NEGATIVE.
The items of "priority" you list area all important to the social and economic well-being of the Dominican Society. In that you are correct, but just because the government doesn't place their priorities in line with yours is no reason to denegrate the on-going efforts of that government to address things ONE AT A TIME until ALL are solved.
You seemto have theidea that all any government has to do is SNAP THEIR FINGERS and all these problems/deficiencies will simply go away.
While I and others realize that the DR government is corrupt, clientelistic, inefficient, etc., etc., it just can't possibly perform perfectly as you would assume it should.
Try to develop a little patience and a positive attitude.

TB

Texas Bill, as usual, provides us with logical reasoning. No government can provide all times to all people instantly, nor should we just sit back and expect them to.
Remember the government of the DR simply facilitated this project, it will not actually build or run the wind farms, per se. Private companies and NG organizations have a large role in all of this.
In addition, projects such as this tend to add value across the board.
All of josean's list is valid, but not all have to be addressed as separate issues necessarily. In other words, there is a certain dynamic and synergy that occurs with any step forward. If the electrical situation is alleviated the other issues will be much easier to address, and so on. Let's take one step at a time, and appreciate the ones that are taken.

josean please stop being so negative and for once in your comments say something positive. life to you most bee so lonely and desperate that the only thing you have to say it is negative comments about. please get up and move or let somebody else do it. stop crying and b. about everything. are you pro russia, china, and cuba. because that's the way you appear to be.

Wind energy will meet a large portion of the DR's energy needs. Please check out www.medioambienterd.org for regular updates on renewable energy in the DR.

rym, that is left to be seen. hopefully, they will incorporate the expertise of people like Texas Bill, who has knowledge and experience in this field, instead of loading up all the critical positions with the nephews of politicians, who are better known for breaking wind!!

Maybe I'm wrong, but there seems to be an underlying movement here in the DR by the "younger set" to begin doing something productive for the country instead of pooping off all their parent's money on frivolities.
Yes, they aare still "having fun" but underneath that facade beats hearts that are compassionate for the "other people" who suffer through their daily lives on so much less.
The "Old School" seems to be getting weaker. I firmly believe we will begin seeing a change in the overall sociological makeup down here,

We certainly won't see the end of it in our brief lifetimes, but the changes are taking place as the oldsters die off.
higher educational opportunities are gradually seeping down, so don't give up yet. It took the WWII GI Bill to raise the educational opportunities in the US.

TB

you know something, Texas Bill; i am seeing the same thing myself. i, probably incorrectly, attribute it to exposure to the outside. we must realise that the countries which offer the best hope for a more cosmopolitan outlook are Great Britain and the USA. the ex-british colonies had a headstart, since their citizens first went to england, then ,in the mid 1950's , started to go to the united states in droves. in the 1950's, dominicans were still living under trujillo. and those who did leave for foreign shores tended to go to spain, not exactly a bastion of enlightened thinking. now that dominicans are heading to the usa in droves, many of them getting college educations, things are slowly changing. the hope lies in guys like Baldoria and Frank, who have high powered minds, and have seen the other side of things firsthand. hopefully, the young of the country will be voting for them in the near future for public office.

As a young Dominican, I certainly believe youth are going to lead the DR and the rest of the world towards a different, more sustainable, and more equitable path. We are already being immersed in all kinds of positions that our parents held many years after our age. In the end, it will be us who will inherit the future, so it's up to us to make the old ones accountable for doing the right thing now. But we're not just pushing for accountability; we're taking things into our own hands and leading the way too.

I wish the young turks all the best but you need to kill off the old relatives first to dislodge the greed, corruption and everything else that stinks! You have a tough path since being and acting like scum is so ingrained.

Escott, that is perfectly on point. it will be to no avail if the young kids get the exposure and education necessary for advancing the country, then choose to operate like the pirates the preceding generations were. if they can disabuse themselves of the greed, selfishness,corruption and amorality which paralyses this society, there is hope!

Remember these numbers...2012, 2016, 2023

2012 - Light problem solved

2016 - extreme poverty eliminated

2023 - Developed country

E PA LANTE QUE VA RD!!!!

hey Edward; how's it going? you left out a date that i was hoping you would include: educated society 20...?

hi, good... how are you? highly educated society probably by 2018. :-)

so , by your projection, we are going to eliminate extreme poverty before we educate the people? how is an uneducated populace going to generate the kind of productivity to reduce poverty?

well it's just an estimate and I wasn't talking about normal poverty. I meant like "2 dollar a day poverty"! lol

well, Edward, if the productivity index remains the same and the population increases, there is a chance that poverty will increase. if the technical education capacity is not improved, the productivity index will either stagnate or recede.( all other things being equal). if input prices keep rising, because of escalating energy costs, which affect everything, any simple regression analysis will arrive at an increase in poverty.

The population is not going to increase by much. The DR has done a remarkable job of reducing population growth rate. I read that the average Dominican woman now has 2 kids and the annual increase in population is now less than 1.5% and it continues to drop. This is a great indicator of progress in health and education. The Dominican population will probably not even reach 20 million in this century.

I believe that the productivity will increase because more and more people will graduate college. Also the energy costs will start going down once those wind parks and solar energy generators are installed. Being the ultimate optimist that I am, I think DR will be fine and development will continue to accelerate despite all the obstacles. I wouldn't be surprised if between 2010 and 2020 the Dominican Republic is in the top 10 countries in economic growth and development for that decade.

I agree that renewables are the way of the future. But there is no way that, given the present technology, we can get the same amount of energy through wind, solar, or thermal for the same price. It is just not feasible. I remember doing the calculation for meeting the entire country demand with just wind power. It is theoretically possible, only if we are willing to give up two or three provinces for this. I personally believe nuclear power is the only way to eliminate once and for all this problem in DR. Nuclear is by far the greenest technology available.

saturnc, do not hold your breath about nuclear in the DR. as i said a gazillion times before, it is too close to puerto rico. the us congrsss would hold all kinds of hearings and sabotage nuclear in the dr. they would think of scenarios such as chernobyl, and figure out what the dr could do to respond in the event of a nuclear accident. it is a non starter!

I find that I must agree with dreadlocks viv-a-vis nuclear power for the DR.
To begin with the DR does not have the experience in the basic technologies necessary to build andrun a nuclear facillity. Welders alone would negate using local labor in theconstruction of any nuclear plant since the welds must be perfect, without voids and skips. Enev in theUS, where the expertise in this skill is amoung the highest in the world, about 25% of the welds don't pass the rigerous inspection critereon and must be completely redone. The proficiency level jsut doesn't exist in the DR for such demanding work. Then there is the cement work, the exacting electrical work, etc., etc. I need not go further into the Engineering qualifications, the judgement factors, et. that accompany such a project and operation. Maybe in 20-30 years from now, but not as things stand currently.
Then there is the storage/disposal of the depleted Uranium rods.

TB

Texas Bill, thanks for elaborating on the rigorous standards for nuclear installations. some may take offense to what you say, but the reality is that there does not exist any pool of sufficiently proficient skilled labor for building a nuclear plant here. not to mention running one. lets try to figure out fossil powered electricity first.

Dred;
Whether people like it or not, the facts speak for themselves in a project involving nuclear power.
Not to mention the numerous "shortuts" that would accompany such construction. he cost alone would negate such construction to begin with. I think the cost ofanuuclear plant today is in the neighborhood of 20-30 million US$. That doesn't take into account the cost overruns that would take placein the DR, where every level of politician would have to get his/her sticky fingers into the act with claiming "commissions" that didn't exist, or the outright cooking of the books to maximize their take.
Siting wouldprobably be in/around SDO and there is an entire national population at risk should a "meltdown" occur because of faulty circuits, inattention to warnings. Should an accident of Chernobl magnitude take place, the normal wind patterns would cover the entire island, Cuba and Jamiaca with highly contaminated toxic fallout.
TB

thanks, Texas Bill. you forgot to name Puerto Rico, which is a US territory, as possible victim of wind blown fallout.

Dread;
Puerto Rico probably wouldn't be affected since theTrade Winds blow from East to West at fairly steadr 20-40 mph.
The areas that would be affected are everything to the West of the DR, ie., Central America and Mexico, parts of South Texas, Southern New Mexico, Arizona and California. The fallout might even reach the Hawaiian Island, depeding on the dissapation factor. If the fallout reached into the sub stratosphere, then Africa and Europe could be affected since the winds way up there flow from West to East.
Other than that, things would be ok.

TB

you are correct about wind patters, Texas Bill... i stand corrected. however, there is no way in which the dr could respond to a nuclear meltdown..it would be a monster catastrophe!

I don't thin the DR can build a nuclear plant even if they wanted. The USA would not let us do it.

The US has nothing to do with whether or not the DR wishes to take on the responsibilities of nuclear power, DaniDR.
It'sa matter of having the expertise and the funds to bankroll a projectaof that magnitude and the DR has neither.
I have never seen so much paranoia over theUS. You say the US won't let us do this or that and that's a bunch of BS. The DR is a soverigh nation andcan do whatever it is financially strong enough to do, whenever it wants to do it.
The US may advise strongly gainst such, or even impose sanctions. Do you really think the rest of Latin America would stand still for such an action?? You can bet your bottom dollar they wouldn't.

TB