Let's Build Gonave, Haiti!

While La Gonave doesn't have any power plants, the discussion of many is how to provide an island of over 100,000 people with adequate power.  Some suggest renewable energy, others say build fossil fuel plants. Renewable energy seems like a good choice due to the fuel source being free or virtually free.  Things like wind and solar rely on what La Gonave has plenty of.  Biofuel and Biomass plants will allow for plants that are grown to supply the power.  The big problem with renewable energy is that they don't harness all of the energy they product.  So in other words, solar and wind tend to not supply the full net of power.  You also face problems with mother nature.  The wind may not be at constant speed needed to make wind power viable.  There could be days or weeks where extreme cloud cover affects the effectiveness of solar.  While there are benefits of free or near free fuel, renewable energy isn't always dependable.  They, at t...

Last year I wrote about ways to power the island, and some of it focused on Coal, Solar, or Wind power plants.  All of these types of plants have their advantages, and disadvantages, which I went over briefly. What is a simple and cheaper way?  Diesel Powered Generators.  Many third world nations use these systems as their only source of power, Nigeria comes to mind.  Using these systems work well when money and time are a major problem.  These plants run on diesel or gas, and can be expandable.  I am posting three videos about such systems.  I think this is something that Gonave and maybe even Haiti should consider to solve power issues.  This is a 13.2 MW power plant in Saudi Arabia that uses 4 engines. This is an animation of how a plant can be customized for the environment, and how the system can be expanded over time.  It talks about the type of engines possible. The last video is also an animation from a dif...

Alternative to supply power to Gonave The island of Gonave could really benefit from a stable source of power.  I have mentioned in other blogs my thoughts on how to do this.  This ranges from solar, wind, and even building it's own coal plant.  While these are still very viable, they are very expensive, and still there is another alternative. An idea to keep coal plant pollution away would be to connect Gonave to the power grid from the Caracol Industrial Power Plant.  Now this 10 MW plant can be expanded, but not at the expense of Gonave.  Possibly the island could purchase power under an agreement with Haiti. While this is a cheaper approach, it is also a faster approach.  Under water power lines would have to connect the island to Haiti, and then several miles of utility lines would have to go from the coast to the industrial park. This is something that could start the development gears on Gonave, and should be something that is looked into. ...