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Virgin Islands Energy Office Blast

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Energy Office spokesman Don Buchanan Boys & Girls Clubs Aluminum Recycling Moves From Anna’s Hope to Peter’s Rest St. Croix residents can recycle aluminum and steel cans again. The Boys & Girls Club collection project will start April 15 at a new location. Residents can donate cans by dropping them off in a designated 20-yard bin at Waste Management’s Peter’s Rest Convenience Center. The center is two blocks west of the original Anna’s Hope recycle center and will be the island’s first separated waste/resource facility.
The opportunity for Boys & Girls Clubs of Virgin Islands to have a designated recycling bin is the result of collaboration between Boys & Girls Clubs, St. Croix Recycles, Waste Management, Diago USVI and Paradise Waste.
Recycled materials will be processed off site by Paradise Waste using Boys & Girls Clubs’ equipment purchased in 2009. The clubs will receive a percentage of the profits for programs. St. Croix Recycles will receive a smaller portion of the profits for marketing and education outreach.
Keep Virgin Islands Groundwater Clean The Virgin Islands, like many regions in the world, struggles to reduce sediment-laden runoff during storms. The territory’s coastlines are threatened by erosion caused by construction.
Kala Fleming, Ph.D., on Friday, April 19, at 9 a.m., will present Human Dimensions of Water Quality Impairment at the St. Thomas UVI campus in 204 Classroom Administration Building.
The talk, open to the public and funded by the Water Resources Research Institute, examines the human behaviors that drive interactions with the environment across the Virgin Islands. The talk will provide an overview of how GIS and surveys will support work over the next year. Dr. Kala Fleming is an environmental engineer and community development advisor who uses the history and culture to inspire research.
Energy Office Spokesman Connects Energy Abuse to Environmental Abuse Energy Office spokesman Don Buchanan spoke in late March to the Rotary Club of St. John about how energy use affects the environment. He incorporated into the presentation information from a course on sustainability from the University of Illinois.
One of the core elements of that course is called the “Tragedy of the Commons.” It is defined as “Multiple individuals acting independently and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen,” by Wikipedia.
Buchanan told the club members gathered at the Westin Resort and Villas Beach Café for the weekly meeting that the concept came from an essay by Garrett Hardin. The essay focused on population, but many find it applies to sustainability issues facing the world today.
“The human race is doomed if it does not begin to follow intelligent principles instead of falling for propaganda and advertising,” Buchanan said.
Using Hardin’s example, Buchanan discussed what happened when a Swiss community used a common piece of land for grazing cows. Buchanan said it worked fine when each resident had only one cow. He added that when one farmer weighed the benefits of adding a second cow to the commons, the benefits outweighed the losses. However, when every farmer followed that line of thinking it reached a point where the land couldn’t support the increase.
“This concept is easily related to fisheries and global warming,” Buchanan said.
Bringing his remarks to a local level, he said that consumers would balk if the Water and Power Authority said it was going to raise rates so it could go to more renewable energy.
There are three approaches to solving energy issues, according to Hardin’s theory. For starters, people can take individual responsibility by doing things like recycling, turning off lights and unplugging chargers.
Second, pressure from peers can convince others to reduce energy consumption. He said this can be evidenced in the environmental groups on the Virgin Islands that work together on environmental problems
Last, and the option that’s more difficult, governments can regulate energy usage. However, the world is vast and people in places like China are more concerned with using their polluting heat source to warm their food than stopping global warming.
Still, change is possible, Buchanan said. In an earlier era, people dumped excrement out into the street. That doesn’t happen anymore. He explained that people need to redefine exactly what freedom is. He asked, “Who really has the right to pollute our atmosphere. Just because it doesn’t kill people immediately doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be prohibited, just like robbing banks is prohibited.”
He ended his presentation talking about the extinction of various species. He said that scientists would predict that in the last century two mammal species would have gone extinct. In fact, 79 species have gone extinct. He showed a graph that showed the arrival of Homo sapiens to a continent and the rate of extinctions. The rate of extinctions always jumped rapidly after the arrival of the homo sapiens.
“Is there something connected here?” he asked.
Grants Available for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) is offering financial assistance to agricultural producers and rural small businesses in Virgin Islands to purchase, install, and construct renewable energy systems; make energy efficiency improvements to non-residential buildings and facilities; use renewable technologies that reduce energy consumption; and participate in energy audits, renewable energy development assistance and feasibility studies.
The program provides assistance to qualified applicants to finance renewable energy (renewable biomass, anaerobic digesters, geothermal for electric generation, geothermal for direct use, hydroelectric (30 megawatts or less), hydrogen, small and large wind, small and large solar and ocean (including tidal, wave, current, and thermal) and energy efficiency projects. It expands the existing private credit structure by providing a credit enhancement via a loan guarantee.
The REAP Renewable Energy System Grant and Loan Guarantee provides financial assistance to agriculture producers and rural small business for the specific purpose of purchasing, installing and constructing renewable energy systems. This type of assistance may require that a business level feasibility study be completed by an independent qualified consultant as part of the application.
The wind must have been nice last month on the hill above La Reine. The St. Croix Reformed Church reports last month that its wind turbine generated $704 worth of energy more than the church used. The turbine was purchased with an Energy Office grant.
Earth Day Is Coming Events marking Earth Day will be held on St. John 19 and 20, and on St. Thomas at Coral World on April 20. The St. George Botanical Gardens on St. Croix will host that educational celebration of the environment two days next week – the Eco Fair. The Virgin Island Energy Office will be participating in each event.
For information on energy efficiency or alternative energy, visit the V.I. Energy Web site at www.vienergy.org or call the VI Energy Office at 713-8436.

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