Renewables and Electric Transportation on Bermuda

I just got off the plane from Bermuda, and thought I’d write a quick post before bed.  What a reminder this trip was of the reason I got into this subject in the first place: the fascinating confluence of science, business, and politics.

Unfortunatley, renewable energy is something that won’t happen easily on Bermuda — for a combination of each of these three reasons.   Their power source, diesel, is quite dirty — and no one likes it; the smell of the fumes and the residue of the particulate matter sully what would otherwise be an immaculate setting.  But the 90 mW diesel plant does have the merit of ramping up and down nicely according to hour-to-hour demand. And we’re talking about 22 square miles of land — every acre of it quite valuable — so I can’t recommend huge solar farms.

They need offshore wind, but it will be expensive to implement, and politically, it will fly in the teeth of the power company’s monolopy, which is extremely well protected politically.

So the issues militating a switch to clean energy aren’t as straightforward as they may be in a different geography and cultural climate.  But even with all this, electric transportation is a slam dunk.  Even with the world’s dirtiest method power generation method, EVs will represent a significant net improvement in the pollution that befouls their air and contributes to the overall increase in global greenhouse gases.

But again, complicating matters are the business and cultural aspects of the problem.  As we have in the US, there are entrenched corporate interests desperately holding onto the status quo in terms of transportation and energy.  As I obseverved first-hand from my two days of meetings, they won’t be easy to dislodge.