Reliance on crude oil
At Issue: Reliance on expensive crude oil for power generation, the price of which is often beyond our reach.
Our View: Alternative sources of energy for power generation must be explored to meet future needs.
Resource-poor isles in the Pacific such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands rely heavily, if not, totally, on crude oil for power generation. As the NMI expands, so too must the supply of power generation.
Being a small archipelago, far removed from the mainstream of global business activities, doesn’t exempt these isles from influences that send the price of this commodity skyrocketing beyond our means.
Ours is simply one of a recipient: We smile when the price of crude oil takes a downward spiral or cringe of tidings that it has gone the other way. We can’t do without such modern convenience as electricity. Perhaps the greater question is whether we have to permanently embrace conventional wisdom or proactively consider other alternatives available right here in these isles.
Speaker Benigno R. Fitial has given Rep. Rosiky Camacho, head of the utilities committee, literature from Norway illustrating the use of wave energy to produce electricity. It may sound far-fetched, but it works in Norway, and leadership is ready to explore this alternative form of energy for power generation.
Fitial noted that on the northern tip of the island (south of Cow Town) is a natural bay where such a facility could be built. Wave action could be harnessed to turn huge turbines that generate electricity. And the cost of the project isn’t even half the proposed 80-megawatt power plant project which involves some $120 million.
Experience has taught us that any global drives the cost of crude upwards or its availability curbed at the height of the war. Or, when the Oil Producing Exporting Countries decide on volume reduction, the price of crude oil per barrel equally skyrockets almost simultaneously.
We haven’t an iota of say in the dictates of crude oil prices.
This makes it imperative that we explore alternative sources of energy to deal with future power generation needs fueled by expensive and unstable crude oil prices. Unless we proactively explore opportunities up this alley for realistic answers to alternative energy sources, we’d have to contend with OPEC’s decision on the price of crude oil. Crude oil is something we have NOT! Wave action is aplenty in an archipelago surrounded by the bast Pacific Ocean. Let’s explore its uses for our own purposes. Si Yuus Maase`!
