The Editor, Sir:

In the same way the monopoly of Cable and Wireless on telecommunications was removed to the benefit of consumers, we should open up the field of electricity to benefit Jamaicans in the long term.

Since the JPS is using its monopoly status to threaten not to invest one billion US dollars if it is not granted the increase, the Government may have no option but to give it to the company, but to do so with conditions.

The company's plan to invest one billion dollars to introduce the use of coal and coke technology may have some benefits if the reduced cost of production is passed on to the country. However, this has never been the case in the past and cannot be expected to be in the future of any monopoly.

What the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) should also do is to allow "netmetering" so other, more efficient, producers of electricity may be allowed to enter the market.

"Netmetering" allows investors to produce electricity to add to the grid provided by the JPS, which would save them the need to invest in coal and coke generators which are neither beneficial to the consumer nor to the environment.

This will also give Jamaica a chance to produce energy from the fourth generation-type nuclear reactors which are completely failsafe and modular. A small pebble-bed modular reactor costs no more than US$400 million and can generate more than 350 megawatts at 2.5 to three cents per KWh, compared to 15-25 cents proposed by JPS, so it it far cheaper than coke and coal which we have no local stocks of and would have to import and dedicate many acres of land to stockpile. This would encourage the bauxite/alumina companies to reopen and diversify their production since the cost of energy would be more competitive internationally. Why can we not compete with other countries when our bauxite is closer to ports and will cost even less to produce and deliver?

Small-scale vertical wind turbines from 4 KWh to 250 KWh can be encouraged and would pay back their costs in two or three years at the current rate at which JPS proposes to charge the consumer. Even solar trigeneration technology could be viable at their high prices charged to consumers.

The diversification of our agriculture to produce microalgae for biodiesel and bio-pharmaceuticals should be encouraged since this is a billion-dollar business in the Far East. With the new Everlast batteries and improvement on nanotechnolgy fibers, we can provide electricity without the use of imported, environmentally-destructive petroleum products.

Jamaica needs to take a quantum leap forward with technology and not tie itself to any monopoly.

Housing concepts can also be improved to provide affordable units using prefabricated houses from China which can withstand Category 5 hurricanes and earthquakes at magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale. These will reverse the trend of escalation in the prices of houses at a time when we are feeling the effects of the problems in the US economy.

High interest rates regime

President Obama has enough problems on his home front and will not have time to address our high-interest-rate regime which is fattening the banking sector at the expense of the productive sector which should be driving the economy and not vice versa as pointed out by Claude Clarke.

Our solution is to start building family clusters of low-cost houses with their own energy and water supply and introduce the concept of Islamic style banking. Since using money to make money is sinful, our banks should invest in companies to produce profit and be a part of their growth and not just collect interest. This would pay off more in the long run and benefit the productive sectors, rather than use their money to be interest-gatherers and charge enormous amounts for services, and give loans to people who can only dig themselves into deeper holes.

I am, etc.,

DONALD CHUNG

dontruly@yahoo.com

Mississauga

Ontario