Cuba joins world rush for alternative fuels (sugar/ethanol)

[Mika]

Cuba joins world rush for alternative fuels
http://www.mercopress.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=8192

Cuba plans to triple sugar production to 3 million tons and join the world rush for alternative fuels, the official AIN news agency reported this week in Havana. “The Sugar Ministry is working to expand production by planting an additional 30% area thus increasing the annual harvest to three million tons”, added AIN.

However meeting that target is a great challenge and huge increase over the 1.2 million tons of sugar expected to be harvested this year.

"The international situation with the surge in sugar and ethanol prices, and prospects of further increases, provide new production incentives for the industry” said AIN.

Luis Galvez, director of an institute that conducts research on products derived from sugar, said at a conference earlier this week that Cuba planned to launch a program to quadruple production of alcohol from sugar cane to take advantage of world demand for alternative fuels. International Sugar Organization chief Peter Baron said at the same forum that a project of the scale planned by Cuba would require an investment in the range of 100 million US dollars.

Good for Cuba. Cuba's good relationship with Brazil (which has a highly developed sugar - ethanol program) should help on this development in Cuba.

[lumpy]

1. Verily

v

[Bacchus39]

4. cars run on rum??

interesting idea, somewhat wasteful though.

[KurtNYC]

2. So instead of a "gold rush" this is a Sugar Rush! nt

[Judi Lynn]

6. Oh, yeah. Good one!

[Sammy Pepys]

3. Cuba's already ahead of the curve on alt fuel....

You should see what some of the cars there run on...

[jwirr]

5. Great. Cuba is also in a good position to utilize Wind and Solar.

[Mika]

8. Cuba is already utilizing solar power

Some good articles here, as well as some articles on the US gov banning Americans from attending solar energy conferences in Cuba.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Thanks for the invitation to use a link to more info. It's an eye-opener.

I've heard of Cuba's use of solar power for rural schools and their needs since around 2000. It's a great solution for a country on a small budget to get electricity to places buried high in the mountains.

From Global Exchange, an organization identified with Media Benjamin:

U.S. Citizens Prohibited from Attending Solar Energy Conference in Cuba

Global Exchange
April 16, 2004

U.S. Citizens Prohibited from Attending Solar Energy Conference

This past week, scientists, engineers, and renewable energy advocates from around the world are converging in Guantanamo, Cuba for an international renewable energy conference. Canadians, Europeans, and Latin Americans will be witnessing first-hand the amazing projects Cuba has accomplished with photovoltaics, visiting rural communities powered by micro-hydro systems, and seeing sugarcane factories feeding biomass produced electricity into the grid. But, where are the renewable energy enthusiasts from the US? Unfortunately, we are prohibited from attending.

Eleven US citizens were planning to travel to Cuba to attend the 6th Annual Cubasolar Renewable Energy Conference this April. This was a delegation organized by Global Exchange, a non-profit organization which has sponsored legal, licensed delegations to the last five Cubasolar conferences. One week before we were to meet in Miami for the short flight to Cuba, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency within the US Treasury Department, sent a letter to Global Exchange stating that attending the conference was an illegal activity, and the trip must be cancelled.

Our delegation consisted of an artist, a teacher, a lawyer, a publisher, a journalist, an editor, three students, and three retirees. How these people attending a renewable energy conference presents a threat to US security is beyond reason. OFAC's action undermines its ability to effectively fight terrorist activities against the United States. OFAC plays a highly important role in stopping the transit of illegal funds to terrorist organizations. Tracking down and punishing renewable energy enthusiasts traveling to a conference in Cuba is a tragic misuse of OFAC's resources.

This latest blow to U.S. citizens legally traveling to Cuba is a part of a growing trend to halt communication between the United States and Cuba. Two weeks ago, OFAC denied licenses to over 70 American scientists and doctors on their way to Cuba for an international conference on coma and brain death. A month earlier, the music charity, Send a Piano to Havana, lost its license to ship used musical instrument parts to a needy conservatory in Cuba......
(snip/...)

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/cuba/1745.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. This is an interesting turn, isn't it?

This is breathing new life into Cuba's sugar industry now. Looks like a winner.

From the Houston Chronicle:

June 21, 2006, 5:08PM
Cuba Plans to Increase Ethanol Production


By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

HAVANA — Cuba is investing in its ethanol refineries with hopes of increasing its production of the renewable fuel fivefold as it bets on growing ethanol demand in the face of rising petroleum prices, a leading sugar expert said Wednesday.

Luis Galvez of the Cuban Research Institute for Sugar Cane Derivatives said by 2010 Cuba hoped to be producing 500 million liters (about 130 million gallons) of ethanol annually, which he said would be a fivefold increase of what it produces now.

Galvez spoke to about 200 representatives from a dozen countries at an international congress on sugar and its derivatives. He did not give a current production figure for Cuban ethanol, but did say the island had 17 distilleries capable of producing up to 180 million liters (about 48 million gallons) annually.

To increase production, Galvez said, Cuba must modernize 11 of those existing plants and build seven additional new ones. He did not say how much the improvements would cost.

"We are going to significantly improve the capacity we have now," Galvez said.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/3990851.html

[nealmhughes]

10. When has the US ban ever stopped a normal US citizen from going to Cuba?

I know a great many academics who have been both on sponsored trips and then as tourists. They just fly to Merida or Montreal and then on to la Habana.
There are actually Cuban consulates there -- what a concept!

[Judi Lynn]

11. A few years ago, reports started gathering of increasing incidents

of US government agents showing up in airports outside the country, going through passenger manifests to find U.S. citizens coming back from Cuba before they arrived. Foreign airport workers did not like this brusque intrusion into their business, and spoke out, but the practise remains.

~snip~
..... reports in newspapers throughout the United States have revealed
that federal agencies now spy on U.S. travelers in third countries
disembarking from flights from Cuba for connecting trips to the United
States, where they are cited for unlicensed travel. On several occasions,
travelers have been interrogated by U.S. customs officials in Canadian
airports. The Associated Press has reported "surveillance of Americans
getting off flights at foreign airports."

Such police spying has raised ire in broad layers of public opinion. "I'm
not against travel to Cuba," wrote syndicated columnist Howard Kleinberg, a
former editor of the Miami News, in a recent typical piece. "I'm opposed to
the selectiveness by U.S. authorities and the impingement on my right to
travel anywhere I want. The issue is not whether to close
loopholes but what form of covert activity this country is engaged in on
spying against its citizens overseas."
(snip/...)

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/2001jus/GOVERNMENT_THREATS_AGAINST_CUBA,_US_TRAVELERS_SPARK_WIDE_OPPOSITION

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's really heavy handed, and something people need to think about. Why would Americans really want their own government forbidding them to visit an island, anyway? What IS the government afraid Americans will find there? (It's probably the fact we've been wildly deceived about Cuba, and kept completely in the dark about our own government's history with Cuba over the last 50 years, and when a great number of Americans go there in person, the truth will be impossible to hide for long.)

[CanSocDem]

14. "What IS the government afraid Americans will find there?"

Just guessing here, but maybe:

-Successful use of alternate fuel

-successful application of social democracy

-happy, healthy and articulate brown people

-a model for self-improvement

....just to name a few.

[Vidar]

12. Kudos to Cuba.

[Vidar]

13. Kudos to Cuba.