FANTASY or FACT
The first is fantasy BUT could be true. The second is fact and applies to us all.
A benevolent Uncle had a nephew and said to him “I will give you the money you need to prospect for oil on your island”.
The young man did just that and was rewarded. He drilled two oil wells both of which were productive and delivered 150 & 200 barrels of oil a day. He was very pleased and a big oil company collected the oil and paid him $50 a barrel. Within a year he could provide help to his fellow islanders.
Of course this is FANTASY but could apply to one of the islands in the South Atlantic.
The second is TRUE but not nearly as positive. The rich uncle said to a second nephew living on an island in the Caribbean, “You have a volcano; I will give you the money to prospect for geothermal energy”. The young man did as his uncle asked and was also very fortunate. He drilled two wells which between them produced 3.5 megawatts of energy.
This is where the tale takes a turn for the worse, the nephew went back to his uncle and said “ I have done as you asked but I need the funds to provide a power plant to convert the energy into electricity which will be cheap and thus benefit ALL of the people on my island.
However the uncle responded and said: ”Now I want you to drill a third well, and after that I will consider if you are worthy of the additional funds for a geothermal power plant but it will be four years before I give you the money.
The nephew was dismayed and pointed out that the “EXPERTS “who had tested the wells had said that the energy available would provide power for the island for 20 years . To this day the 2 wells lie forgotten and unused!
The nephew being very keen to help his fellow citizens collected data and came to the following conclusion. Had his uncle given him the money for the plant when he asked the electricity bills would have been reduced. Based on oil prices as they were (NOT $140 a barrel), in the time between the test report and a point some years hence it would have been possible to save 50% of their electric bills.
There are 3200 consumers on his island and with an average saving of $300 per month over the period the amount available would have gone a long way to purchasing the plant. One does not have to go far to realise that “ GOVERNMENT” is by far the largest user (witness all the air conditioned buildings)
Include their savings and we could have two geothermal power plants.
We all live on this second island and our UNCLE for whatever reason is not ready to help us. WHY WHY WHY?
Our government and our benefactors must answer the question.
NOTE The figures quoted are rough estimates only and vary with the cost of oil. The policies put forward by DFID make no sense except to justify statements already made in their year end reports.
Keen follower
