Caribbean Export OUTLOOK 2016 - 2017

Clearing the Hurdles

St Kitts andNevis: The Greenest Place on Planet Earth? By Garry Steckles

According to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study, the earth’s intense heat – about 5000 degrees Celsius at its core, 6000 kilometers below the surface – continuously generates an estimated 44 terawatts, or trillions of watts, of heat. That’s approximately three times the entire global population’s total energy use. Picture this: Atiny tropical island, breathtakingly beautiful, steeped in history, an exclusive haunt of the rich and famous, blessed with an abundant source of affordable, squeaky-clean, never-ending energy that generates so much

electrical power it can export what it doesn’t need and no longer have to import expensive, environmentally unfriendly diesel fuel. This may sound too good to be true, but it’s a scenario that’s on the verge of becoming a reality in Nevis, the smaller of the two islands that make up the federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, the tiniest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere. With a population of around 12,000, this 36-square-mile dot in the Leewards – birthplace of both the Caribbean tourism industry and one of the founding fathers

of the US, Alexander Hamilton – is poised to start drilling before the end of this year for a geothermal energy plant expected to go into production in 2018 and to transform the island’s fragile economy, which currently relies largely on how many of its 400 or so hotel rooms are occupied. The plant’s objective is straightforward: to harness high-temperature steam rising from a large, inexhaustible geothermal reservoir below the island’s surface and turn it into electrical energy. The steam will be directed through a

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