Vallana Hill's article (of April 16) about nuclear energy clearly shows the way ahead, and how our leaders should be refocusing, especially when the OUR is now being confronted with the JPS's request for a rate increase.

Now that there is a new minister of energy, we hope he will take steps to listen to the technologists whose instructions were ignored by his predecessor once he was promoted to the position.

Clearly, the way of the future for Jamaica to be competitive is by securing a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. The funds which the JPS promises to invest could easily finance a PBMR and produce four times the energy at a tenth of the price, and if the JPS is not prepared to do it, other investors should be allowed to.

In that case, the JPS would concentrate on delivering energy and reducing the losses, and allow net metering which was suggested by Professor Anthony Chen, which would only be fair to the suppliers of power to their grid.

We note also that the graph in the article did not add the use of biomass for energy in the list. This does not mean that energy from this source would not be cost-effective. Biomass may well be more effectively converted than even nuclear, and affordable from an investment point of view, since the byproducts of such a plant would generate income from sale of organic fertiliser, cooking gas, ethanol, recyclable plastics and glass, and the like.

Utilising the over 1.2 million tons of garbage with modular trigenerators costing less than US$120 million for two SAGL Pyrolysis plants would not only produce over 100 Megawatts of energy, but income for the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) and a much cleaner Riverton City dump.

I am, etc.,

DONALD CHUNG

canjamma@yahoo.com

Kingston 6