Discussion on newsgroup on Belize Energy Policy
The Government is a follower of private sector individuals and is not an initiator. There is no money to do Research and Development at the government level. Besides the obvious, that 9 to 5 bureaucrats with timed coffee breaks and chat breaks, do not have any incentive to develop anything. ( They are salaried and not hungry )
Ray Auxillou
Exactly Ray,
Currently there exist no Government department that takes and active role in energy policy production. The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment really only deals with pollution control, environmental protection and mineral resources.
We also do not have a Government agency dedicated to for the promotion of sustainable energy. Even after the fact that the PUC, under the National Energy Plan project, advising the GOB to promote sustainable energy use and renewable energy source uptake.
What we need to do first and foremost is an energy strategy and to develop this, we have to preemptively develop a comprehensive National Energy Policy, which will give us the necessary data we need to do things like an energy audit, which is a tool to improve energy efficiency in buildings.
Several studies have told the GOB that we need to start assessing renewable energy sources such as biomass, wind and solar energy.
Charles Leslie Jr.
Leslie Street
Placencia Village
Stann Creek District
RE: Energy policy in Belize, There are plenty of studies out there. Below I name a few which might be of interest:
UNDP Belize (2009): Belize and Climate Change: The Cost of Inaction
CLICK HERE
Page 34 talks about the Belize energy sector.
Another one, Waight & Associates (2008) already three years ago recommended that Belize should develop and implement a National Energy Policy (p 27):
CLICK HERE
The Organization of American States explored the problem of sustainable energy policies for other countries in the region back in 2007:
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY POLICY INITIATIVE REPORT FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
CLICK HERE
I also recommend e.g. REEEP for more information: http://www.reeep.org/
Timo