Dear Editor,
I was pleased to read Professor Suresh Narine’s letter ‘Briquetting technology potentially can reduce GuySuCo’s dependence on firewood’ (SN, Jan 9). I agree with the general ideas of the letter that briquetting can burn more efficiently and that once the sugar growing problem is solved GuySuCo can eventually sell electricity to the grid system. I have always believed that on the supply side a portfolio of renewable energy sources – bagasse, coconut waste, rice husk, small hydroelectric plants, wind and solar – should be fed to the grid system and possibly connected with a smart grid. I believe this approach also makes national security sense – both military and financial – instead of placing all eggs into the Amaila US$1 bill basket. On the demand side, there is need to consider energy efficient building models, miles per gallon for vehicles, efficient lighting and other measures.
It should be noted that pre-independence Guianese – the planters and the African cane growers in particular – knew that bagasse should be used as a source of energy. In the 1880s the sugar industry of British Guiana faced many of the challenges it is facing today, in particular how to produce at a unit cost below the world price. Emerging in the 1880s were more efficient cane sugar producers and beet sugar provided stiff competition for British Guiana’s sugar. The sugar factory owners were already making the transition from wood to bagasse in the 1880s. African Guianese sugarcane growers were bargaining for a better price from the factories because they felt the owners were paying a price which did not take into account the fact that sugar cane not only makes sugar, but also rum, molasses and bagasse (it can make more). They knew that in the 19th century, but 21st century pamphleteers are still debating the possibility.
Editor, I understand that in Guyana political logic trumps everything else – both among government and opposition types – and that Guyanese instinctively must pull each other down. Nevertheless, I feel I should drop a few lines expressing my gratitude to Professor Narine and his team at IAST, particularly since researchers and scientists are an endangered species in 21st century Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Tarron Khemraj
