Cuba is looking to increase its supply and use of renewable energy sources, but does not want to use to sugarcane to develop ethanol fuel, because of Fidel Castro’s opposition, to mass scale use.

The country is looking at the quality of their sugar mills and not so much the quantity of them, even though the electricity created by production has decreased from 10 percent to just around 5.6 % over the last decade.

Cuban expert Julio Torres, had this to say in response to the use of renewable energy sources in his country, “the first source of renewable energy remains sugarcane biomass, and if the strategy for the future is to produce energy in a decentralised manner and with diversified sources, this should be one of them.” He goes on to explain that “investment must be made in technological changes to make the electricity generating industry more efficient,” and that “the problem does not lie in the number of mills that are working, but in the quality of the mills.”

Torres concedes that “sugarcane biomass could be the start of the road towards sustainable energy production for Cuba.”

via [ IPS ]