Bahamas Power

Saw this segment on 60 Minutes about the Bahamas going solar. Great idea. While in Christmas Island (about a million years ago, although actually just about a year ago) I talked with a couple of guys looking to instal solar on small Pacific islands to replace diesel generators. It was part of a World Bank or government project. Tons of sense… inspiring, even.

Then there is the Bahamas… they don’t have an Australia or New Zealand to fund those projects and passing the costs down to the consumers isn’t really that realistic in a place where the median household income is officially about $33K in many places and probably well below that number in reality.

The solar array they are putting in Ragged is supposed to cost $3,000,000 to get power to about 100 people. That’s awful math. That doesn’t scale particularly well. I don’t think the 100 people of Ragged Island are going to be able to actually buy that power.

I’d love for this story to be real, but it has the feeling of a lot of window dressing. Still a long, long haul for the people of the Bahamas to recover from Dorian. The housing situation seems poor, at best, and the government seems to be all red-tape and sound bites. I’ll be there in a couple months and I’ll be curious if my impressions change after being there and hearing from the people directly.

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1 comment

  1. I did agree with the Bahamian Prime Minister in that they are victims of the larger countries of the worlds’ lack of response to climate change.

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