More industries went green in 2008; Prepa announces major diversification plans including renewable-energy projects
In terms of environmental awareness, 2008 was a great year. Every sector of the economy jumped onto the “green” bandwagon by either adopting green practices and/or offering consumer goods.
For instance, plans for the Trump-branded Coco Beach residential, tourism and entertainment complex in Río Grande feature enough ecofriendly initiatives to make it one of the most sustainable projects of its kind in the world.
During Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá’s administration, the Department of Natural & Environmental Resources acquired 20,000 cuerdas (one cuerda is 0.97 acres) of land for conservation, including Costa Serena in Piñones (Loíza), where developer Joel Katz was proposing to develop a hotel project.
According to sources at the Solid Waste Management Authority (SWMA), the former administration also signed a contract with Windmar, owned by local entrepreneur Víctor González, to install an eolic (or wind) park in Guayanilla to provide wind-powered energy in the area. By year-end, the SWMA was still evaluating proposals to build two waste-to-energy plants.
The SWMA’s 2007 “Report on Recycling & Diversion Rates” revealed 847,153 tons of solid waste didn’t reach landfills—219,920 tons more than the previous year. That brought the proportion of total garbage that escaped landfills in 2007 to 18.75%.
Waste-deviation and -recycling rates increased notably in 2008 after Javier Quintana Méndez, the former SWMA executive director, prohibited disposal of yard waste (vegetative material) in landfills, representing 5.8% of total deviated material and contributing to a more than 3.4% increase in the 2007 recycling rate.
After five years of field investigation in Puerto Rico, a Yale University research team—led by Dr. Weslynne Ashton of the Center for Industrial Ecology—found sustainability is a growing interest for businesses as many realize actions to improve environmental performance can simultaneously address resource problems and achieve financial benefits.
Yale researchers studied 150 companies around the island and discovered great potential for industrial synergies, which is nothing but establishing agreements in which two or more businesses benefit from each other. For instance, the byproduct of one manufacturing company could be raw material for another.
On the negative side, just when the local recycling industry seemed to be coming together, it took a severe hit as recycling markets around the world came crashing down during the last quarter of 2008. What’s worse, according to industry experts, is that there is no way to tell when the market will return to normal.
Much of the turmoil is the result of the global economic crisis. The value of steel and aluminum, for instance, has dropped because of the crisis in the automotive industry. In a chain reaction, the value of plastic and fiber has decreased as well because manufacturers around the world are using less of these materials since consumers have reduced purchases of packaged goods.
Energy, particularly renewable energy, also had a good 2008. After several years of planning, study and permitting, the $74-million construction of the south-coast natural-gas pipeline began early in the year. However, the court put a halt on it later in the year, given doubts concerning its safety and dubious ways of getting permits.
Supposedly, the construction of the south-coast pipeline would reduce the island’s oil dependency and cut the cost of electricity in Puerto Rico by an estimated 10% once all pipelines are in place (scheduled for 2014), before the court’s determination to stop construction.
“The south-coast pipeline is but one of Prepa’s strategic projects to diversify fuel sources and reduce the island’s dependency on oil in the least amount of time possible. The strategy received endorsements from 17 state and five federal agencies,” said Juan Alicea, director of planning & the environment for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa).
Meanwhile, local industrialists, who insist the high cost of energy in Puerto Rico is the single-biggest impediment to industrial promotion, shrugged off the 10% cut as insufficient, arguing Puerto Rico needs a cut in the order of 40%-50% to be competitive with other investment sites.
Critics contend the rush to build natural-gas pipelines is diverting time and money from the objective of accelerating deployment of renewables. Nevertheless, Prepa argues Puerto Rico needs both sources, and the private sector is firmly behind its growth.
“Natural gas is a viable short-term alternative to reduce costs while the technologies of renewable-energy sources develop and become viable economic alternatives. The objective is to use renewable-energy projects for 20% of our generation by 2015. We are considering private investment to achieve this objective. Among them, wind energy, solid waste, gases from landfills, ocean-thermal and solar,” Alicea said.
Historically, natural gas has enjoyed a lower cost than diesel. U.S. Department of Energy projections indicate the cost will remain 30%-40% lower than diesel over the next 25 years.
