Wind Power vs. Oil

Cuba: Wind Power vs. Oil

June 21, 2013

Isbel Díaz Torres



HAVANA TIMES — It would seem that local newspapers are intent on

misinforming the public – both at home and abroad – about the Cuban

government's priorities with respect to the development of alternative

energy sources.



A case in point was the news surrounding the recently-concluded congress

of the World Wind Energy Association and the Renewable Energy Exhibition

(WWEC 2013), held in Havana at the beginning of this month.



During a press conference, the director of Cuba's Center for the Study

of Renewable Energy Technologies (CETER), Conrado Moreno, declared that

Cuba plans on developing the infrastructure needed to generate at least

10 percent of its electricity with renewable sources by the year 2030.



In this connection, the official lauded "the great strides in the

development of wind power technologies" that Cuba has made in recent

years, adding that the country has "a program the world can learn from."



However, thanks to this impressive wind power "program", whose installed

capacity was less than 0.5 Megawatts (MW) in 2005, the country barely

produced 12 MW of electricity in 2010.



That Cuba should present the congress with such an out-of-date figure (a

figure which, in addition, is anything but impressive, representing a

mere 0.08 % of the country's entire energy output) should raise some

eyebrows.



This figure may help explain why it will take thirteen years for the

country to be able to generate 10 % of its energy with wind power and

the other renewable sources of energy used on the island.



The fact of the matter is that Cuba currently has 9,343 wind turbines,

15 turbines and 4 wind farms in operation, for an installed capacity of

11.7 MW, a figure which places it beneath 68 other countries around the

world.



As a way of comparison, in 2010 Nicaragua had a generating capacity of

40 MW (the equivalent of 5 % of the country's total installed capacity),

garnered from wind power technologies alone, while Cuba currently

generates a mere 4 % of its electricity via renewable energy sources in

general.



Local optimism, however, isn't dampened by any of this, and experts

continue to extol the virtues of Cuba's largest wind farm (with a

capacity of 51 MW), whose construction on the northern coast of the

island's eastern province of Las Tunas, a place of allegedly "ideal"

wind conditions, is expected to be completed next year.



It is estimated that the wind farm could generate some 153 GW/h a year,

allowing the country to cut down its fossil fuel consumption by some 40

thousand tons a year.



Not without a number of altercations at different levels, the Cuban

government has managed to secure the environmental licenses required for

the project from the pertinent agencies rather quickly, giving

technicians a mere week to collect the required data.



The Wind Energy Debate



Wind power is an abundant, renewable and clean energy resource which can

aid in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Cubans, however, have

never received any in-depth information regarding its benefits and

limitations, nor have we ultimately been consulted in connection with

its implementation.



Boasting of a relatively high Energy Return Rate* (18.1:1), wind power

is cursed by one, significant limitation: its intermittence, that is,

the fact that wind currents are not constant.



According to experts, wind currents on Cuba's northern coastline are not

uniform and are heavily influenced by local conditions, resulting from

the interaction of trade and local winds and seasonal meteorological events.



Because of this, wind power can only ever supplement, never wholly

replace, fossil fuel sources on the island, as the contribution of

conventional energy sources is indispensible. In addition, as these

conventional technologies operate in "backup mode" in this scheme, they

consume a lot more fuel per KW produced every hour.



Fossil fuels are also consumed during the process of constructing the

wind farm (during the mining of the materials, transportation and

industrial processing) and all subsequent, indispensable maintenance

operations.



Another inconvenient aspect of this technology is that winds must reach

a certain, minimum velocity to be able to move the blades of the

turbines. There is also a maximum wind velocity that, if exceeded,

causes the entire network circuit to shut down.



In addition to the noise they produce and the disruption of the natural

environment they represent, these wind farms reportedly affect the

routes of migratory birds or the areas where these birds avail

themselves of lateral winds, and the creation of access roads – and

regular human presence, in general – damages local fauna.



The limitations of this technology, and the impact it has on the

environment, ought not make us reject wind farms outright, but should,

rather, make us re-think the way in which we have been implementing the

technology and how congruous it is with the country's global development

strategy, as well as prompt us to demand accurate information in this

regard.



Cuba has been working in the renewable energy field for decades without

any type of legal regulations and without incurring any legal action

from anyone. Recently, the director of CETER claimed that "a team of

experts is working to implement it [the legal regulations] in a manner

that suits Cuba's economic development model."



The Oil Question



One of the more disquieting aspects of the wind power issue is how the

Cuban media portray its state of development on the island, selling an

image of a sustainable and ecological program, when, in fact, the

country is heading down the more profitable road, caring little about

its environmental impact.



Some statements we find in the press include:



"In recent years, Cuba has made great progress in the development of

wind power technologies." / "Cuba has developed a wind power

infrastructure (…) which only highly developed countries can boast of."

/ "Cuba's renewable energy program includes photovoltaic energy sources,

which have experienced considerable development since the 1990s." / "The

'solarization' of Cuba's energy generating system." / "The generation of

electricity with renewable sources of energy will grow by 949 MW."



As these grandiloquent reports on "green" energy sources are published,

oil prospecting projects across Cuba's platform continue in almost utter

silence. This means that the government continues to invest heavily in

this polluting energy source.



Cuban oil experts and government officials had anticipated that the

country would be producing 90 % of its electricity with domestic oil

reserves by 2010, but were unable to achieve this.



According to recent declarations made by Jorge Piñon, Associate Director

of the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Program, Cuba could be

producing as many as 250 thousand barrels of crude a day within five to

seven years.



Enthusiastic Cuban government experts estimate that the Gulf of Mexico

platform could contain as many as 20 billion barrels of oil. The U.S.

Geological Service estimate is considerably more modest, calculating

reserve volumes there at 5 billion oil barrels.



To date, results have not been exactly promising. The "Scarabeo 9"

platform had to pull out of the so-called Exclusive Economic Zone last

year, following three unsuccessful attempts to find oil in the area.



To top things off, a few weeks ago, the Russian oil company Zarubezhneft

decided to push back prospecting efforts to 2014, reporting

"complications of a geological nature."



These fiascos do little to burst the oil bubble of the Cuban government,

which continues to spend millions in prospecting infrastructure.



Following the intensive modernization of the country's thermoelectric

plants ten years ago, Cuba is now working to expand its refinery in

Cienfuegos, construct an oil duct connecting Cienfuegos and Matanzas,

build a storage facility that can house 600 thousand oil barrels in

Matanzas and complete the vast commercial port in Mariel (a billion

dollar investment), and in many other related projects.



In the meantime, Venezuela continues to ship an average of 100 thousand

barrels of oil to the island every day, 30 thousand of which are

financed by PetroCaribe, as per a 25-year agreement with an interest

rate of only 1 % signed with the island.



What will Cuba do in 2030, then, when it has the infrastructure to

generate 10 % of its electricity using renewable energy sources? Will it

have found the oil it seeks by then? Will it abandon the idea of using

this oil for energy production? Will it sell it to the United States?



According to the most recent report issued by the National Intelligence

Council, the CIA bureau responsible for analyzing and anticipating

geopolitical and economic developments around the world, by 2030 the

United States (the world's largest importer of hydrocarbons today) will

be entirely self-sufficient in terms of oil resources, and the world's

oil market could well collapse as a result of this.



We must acknowledge that hydrocarbons continue to be the world's chief

energy resource and that, like the rest of the world, Cuba does not have

the infrastructure or programs needed to make the transition to a

post-oil economy.



Broadening Cuba's Energy Sources



Many experts agree that the diversification and expansion of energy

sources must become one of the pillars of Cuba's future energy

production scheme.



A broad range of alternative energy sources, from natural gas (the least

polluting of all hydrocarbons) to renewable sources such as ethanol

extracted from sugar cane, wind power, solar energy and bio-gas could be

developed in Cuba.



That said, according to Cuba's National Statistics Bureau, the amount of

energy Cuba produced using renewable sources in 2011 was nearly 2

million tons less of oil equivalent than in 2001. This report reveals a

marked decline in the use of these alternative energy sources in the

course of the decade, a trend which coincides with the "oil enthusiasm"

of recent years and the shutting down of numerous sugar refineries

across the country.



The greatest drop was experienced in the use of biomass (chiefly sugar

cane bagasse). Hydroelectric plants are the most widely used forms of

primary energy production, while wind power generators occupy the fifth

place among renewable energy technologies used on the island.



In recent years, experts in the field have voiced complaints that Cuba's

Electricity Law does not particularly encourage the use and commercial

promotion of renewable energy sources.



The truth of the matter is that none of these sources of energy afford

us one, magical solution to the problem of the energy deficit, and many

of these technologies pose serious bioethical questions. If anything,

they underscore the fact that the demands of contemporary society,

engineered by global capitalism, are insatiable.



The policy of development at all costs, planned obsolescence, the

alienation of individuals and collectives in productive processes, the

outsourcing of production, the deification of consumption, policies

which protect banks and international financial institutions, these and

many other problems are at the root of the crisis faced by the energy

sector and, I dare say, our civilization as a whole.



In the words of social anthropologist Emilio Santiago Muiño, "a

sustainable system which is not grounded in marketing implies a profound

change in lifestyle."



Cuban economists and politicians do not appear to be equipped with the

mentality needed to understand this. They are prey to the same ills

mentioned above, and they are irresponsibly supported, in their

policies, by a good part of Cuba's scientific community, which does

little to re-think the idea of "development" that prevails today.



At the recently-concluded world conference on wind power, Cuba sought to

put together a business portfolio with a view to signing international

agreements and broadening productive capacities in the sector.



This, which appears commendable, is congruous with the pragmatism of

calculating analysts within and outside Cuba, who seek a painless

reinsertion of the island's economy in the international market.

—–

*Energy Return Rate (ERR): Amount of primary energy that must be

invested in order to produce energy with a given source.



Source: "Cuba: Wind Power vs. Oil - Cuba's Havana Times.org" -

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=95091