More than a decade ago,
solar electricity changed the lives of several mountain communities in Cuba.
Now this and other renewable power sources are emerging as the best options
available to develop sustainable energy across the island.
"If the world's clean energy potential exceeds our
consumption needs, why do we insist on using the polluting kind?" asked
Luis Bérriz, head of the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy
Sources and Respect for the Environment (CUBASOLAR), a non- governmental
organisation that promotes the use of alternative and environmentally-friendly
power sources.
According to his calculations, the amount of solar radiation
Cuba receives is equivalent to 50 million tonnes of oil a day.
"If we covered the 1,000-kilometre-long national
highway with solar panels we would generate all the power currently used,
without using fossil fuels or occupying a single square metre of agricultural
land," Bérriz said to IPS in an interview.
Moreover, "nobody can block the sun; it belongs to all
of us," he added.
Bérriz is a researcher and long-time advocate of renewable
power sources who prefers to talk about "reversing" climate change -
which he says is caused by "the destructive actions of today's
societies" - instead of "adapting" to it.
In his opinion, adapting to what others destroy sounds more
like "conformism". Industrialised countries are responsible for 75
percent of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which cause global
warming. The leading GHG is carbon dioxide (CO2).
For Bérriz, the best course of action is to move from oil to
clean energy sources, which exceed power needs. The way to do this is to
develop the knowledge, technology and industry necessary to tap into the
various renewable energy sources most available in each area, he says.
Key components of this process, Bérriz argues, are the
training of scientists, technicians and skilled workers to cover human resource
needs, and the creation of an energy and environmental culture that will raise
the awareness essential for the development of solar power based on
"fairness and solidarity".
Cuba's greatest achievement in this sense is in the field of
scientific development and education, which it shares with other countries of
the region through |