Is the Arundo Donax the Answer to Renewable and Efficient Energy in Belize?
During his interview with the media today, Executive Director, Doctor Colin Young of the CARICOM Climate Change Center also shared that the center has a number of adaptation and mitigation projects running across CARICOM member states. One of the projects being explored in Belize is the use of a wild grass called the Arundo Donax as a source of renewable energy. Young says the issue of renewable sources of energy is at the heart of the climate change conversation in the region because the member states are heavily dependent on fossil fuels which are fueling greenhouse gas emissions.
Colin Young
Dr. Colin Young, Executive Director, C.C.C.C.C.
“Belize is fortunately one of the leaders in the region in terms of the amount of energy it gets from renewable sources. Almost sixty percent of the energy that is used in Belize for electricity comes from hydro. The center has been doing research the last couple of years on a species of grass called the wild cane. This grass grows very common down south that looks like cane. That is the wild cane and it has a very high caloric value and the center has conducted tests in the burners at B.S.I. and the idea would be if this is an alternative feed stock, that this grass can be mass produced and grown on fields that are marginal, it means it grows in areas that no other crops can grow on. If that can be scaled up, then it means that there can be a greater amount of biomass feed stock that goes into the turbines that then can generate electricity. The reason why this is so important is two-fold; one, whenever a country could produce domestic sources of energy it becomes more energy secured and we don’t have to depend on Mexico for example to bring in electricity and obviously that would help with the balance of payments in that you don’t have to find US currency to buy foreign electricity and the third reason why this is very important is that hydro is susceptible to the impacts of climate change – when you don’t have rain the rivers don’t flow as much and in some cases if they get too low then you don’t have hydro resources to dispatch to generate hydro electricity.”
