Jamaica's Response To The Energy Crisis

Abstract Jamaica’s energy conundrum is seen in this paper as the inevitable consequence of a much wider complication provoked by an endless growth economic idealism being practiced in a finite world. This was adopted on the crest of an overabundance of fossil fuels that has occasioned their profligate use and marked reduction in required research and development. Jamaica, in aping these stances, has grown comfortable with an over 90% dependence on imported products of this resource. Payment for this fuel has consequently grown to some 40% of the island’s revenues, or over 2 US$ billion per year. In the contemporary predicament of rapid oil price rises and unpredictability in supplies, the island is now faced with serious dislocations in its productive sector and hardships in society at large. There is therefore a scramble to refashion the island’s energy mix by revisiting a long standing policy to harness renewable energy with emphasis on conservation. This paper posits that this will not solve the fundamental problem of rapidly rising domestic per capita energy use without commensurate increases in production and productivity, which must respond to the clear limits imposed by island’s fragile environment. It is argued that this requires the acquisition of more advanced production technologies to drive new less polluting activities and more knowledge based jobs. A more nuanced economic architecture and a reasoned harnessing of the island’s natural resources for renewable energy supplies are therefore recommended. Essentially, the carrying capacity of the island has to be determined to estimate possibilities for population growth, industrialization, tourism and infrastructure expansion in a more sustainable economic formula. Selection, adoption and adaption of advanced renewable technologies, in well orchestrated short and long term strategies, marked by definite targets and responsibilities in the reduction of fossil fuel use, are pronounced as growing imperatives