Tag Archives: Energy

LA GENERACIÓN DE ELECTRICIDAD EN CUBA

Analysis Original: La generación de electricidad en Cuba

¿Qué es el esquema Boot y por qué no se utiliza más en Cuba para invertir en fuentes de energía eficientes?

Por Omar Everleny,

OnCuba, enero 13, 2022


El año pasado la prensa dio a conocer ampliamente la llegada a Cuba de una nueva central flotante para la generación de electricidad. Operada por una empresa de Turquía, se puso en funcionamiento en el Puerto de La Habana, cerca de las instalaciones de la termoeléctrica de Tallapiedra. Se trata de la segunda central flotante de este tipo después de otra de la misma empresa que ha estado funcionando en el puerto del Mariel.

Ante los problemas con la generación de electricidad para responder a la demanda sin los incómodos apagones y mantener los ciclos de mantenimiento de las termoeléctricas existentes, la decisión adoptada de contratar el buque turco parece muy adecuada a las circunstancias. La tecnología existente permite esta solución rápida y eficaz.

Pero también nos hace caer en una especie de déjà vu. Cuando hace unos años atrás estábamos en apagones y búsqueda de soluciones, se tomó la decisión de empezar la llamada Revolución Energética o “una Revolución dentro de la Revolución”. La salida en aquel entonces fue establecer plantas de emergencia o grupos electrógenos de diferentes tamaños y potencias de generación. Esto permitía, entre otras bondades, las siguientes:

  • Contar en poco tiempo con capacidad instalada, adecuada a las necesidades, sin grandes y costosas construcciones civiles.
  • Tener instalaciones desplazadas por toda la Isla, muy útiles en caso de desastres naturales, sabotajes o un conflicto externo.

No obstante, al parecer de algunos expertos esta decisión, si bien resultaba muy conveniente para soluciones inmediatas y hasta estratégicas, no parecía la mejor a largo plazo. Y la vida les ha dado la razón, toda vez que:

  • Las tradicionales termoeléctricas siguen siendo las plantas de generación más eficientes comparándolas con los grupos electrógenos. Los problemas de aquellos tiempos comenzaron con una importante rotura en la Central Termoeléctrica (CTE) Antonio Guiteras de Matanzas. Pero hoy la Guiteras sigue siendo de las más eficientes del país.
  • El costo del fuel-oil o del diésel, utilizados en los grupos electrógenos, es más elevado que el del crudo que emplean en las tradicionales Centrales Termoeléctricas, incluso cuando para estas últimas hay que adquirir disolventes/diluyentes para poder utilizar el pesado crudo cubano.
  • Los grupos electrógenos generan la capacidad instalada y se adaptan menos a los cambios en la demanda puntual. Las CTE pueden más fácilmente generar o reducir generación, según los picos de la demanda de electricidad.
  • Los grupos electrógenos funcionan con motores de combustión interna, menos duraderos que las unidades de generación de las CTE, es decir, se descapitalizan más rápido.

La decisión tomada en aquel entonces pudiera haber sido muy acertada para una solución inmediata y a corto plazo, pero no parecía una decisión que solucionara el problema a largo plazo. Los problemas de hoy parecen demostrar esta idea.

También pudiera pensarse que no había otra salida debido a lo costoso que sería erigir nuevas CTE, al margen de lo que demoraría su construcción. Es cierto que el país no pudo contar con financiamiento externo o recursos propios para construcciones de estas magnitudes. Sin embargo, hay variantes.

En el mundo hace tiempo existen los contratos conocidos como Boot (del inglés build, own, operate and transfer) o «construir, mantener la propiedad, gestionar y transferir», una forma moderna de conjugar recursos públicos y privados para viabilizar obras públicas de envergadura o para atender necesidades de infraestructura sin tener que invertir el dinero público. Esto permite que un inversionista construya algo, durante unos años mantenga la propiedad del bien construido, gestione el negocio y después le transfiera la propiedad al Estado.

Los años de conservación de la propiedad permiten al inversionista amortizar la inversión realizada y obtener una rentabilidad en unos años adicionales después de la amortización del bien. Este esquema le permite al país no tener que movilizar recursos frescos en nuevas y costosas inversiones, ni ocuparse del mantenimiento de los activos mientras son propiedad del inversionista extranjero.

Lo curioso del caso es que Cuba tiene experiencias de este tipo. En 1999, antes de la Revolución Energética, con un esquema similar se aprobó una empresa cubana de capital totalmente extranjero de Panamá, conocida como Genpower Cuba S.A., para la generación de electricidad en la Isla de la Juventud. Se cumplió todo lo pactado en ese tipo de negociación.

Han pasado 16 años desde el comienzo de la Revolución Energética en 2005, y se sigue con una solución que parece coincidir con el otro nombre común de los grupos electrógenos de emergencia.

No es de extrañar entonces que se haya tenido que acudir a las centrales flotantes turcas si en todos estos años no se ha encontrado una solución más estable y duradera a los problemas de generación de electricidad en la Isla.

¿Fue negativa la experiencia con Genpower Cuba? ¿En todos estos años no hubiese sido posible encontrar inversionistas extranjeros para erigir nuevas CTE bajo el esquema Boot? ¿No son las CTE más eficientes que los grupos electrógenos y más duraderas en el tiempo?

A los turcos hay que pagarles la electricidad comprada por Cuba, pero la propiedad del buque seguirá siendo del dueño extranjero. Mientras, una CTE construida bajo esquema Boot, al final pasaría a ser propiedad de Cuba. Es algo así como comparar la adquisición de una casa con financiamiento que al final del pago de la hipoteca será sin restricciones totalmente de uno con vivir toda la vida en alquiler.

Con el auge de las energías renovables, la intención es reducir la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero y cambiar la matriz energética, de manera que las primeras ocupen un mayor porcentaje en el total de la generación. Pero cabría también hacerse otras preguntas: ¿no es posible encontrar inversionistas extranjeros dispuestos a construir plantas eólicas, fotovoltaicas u otras de energías renovables bajo el esquema Boot? ¿En la Zona de Desarrollo del Mariel no se han acercado inversionistas extranjeros con propuestas de plantas de energía renovables? Aunque está la excepción de producir energía eléctrica por paneles fotovoltaicos por la empresa Mariel Solar Energy GSY Ltd. de Reino Unido, en proceso inversionista desde agosto de 2017.

En la más reciente Cartera de Oportunidades de Inversión para 2022 aparecen nueve proyectos para la construcción de Parques Solares Fotovoltaicos con la propuesta de producir unos 220 mw en conjunto en algunos territorios del país, sumado a cinco propuestas para construir bioeléctricas en algunos centrales, con un promedio de inversión de 130 millones de dólares, algunos de 120 millones y otros de 140 millones de dólares. ¿Estarán creadas las condiciones para que el inversionista extranjero invierta esas cantidades en el país?

Se espera que el Estado cubano esté pensando en no caer más en la necesidad de apagar amplias zonas del país, dada la falta de producción eléctrica en determinados momentos. Entiendo que las autoridades no lo deseen, pero esos deseos tienen que materializarse en inversiones sólidas y a más largo plazo. ¿Estarán en plan esas nuevas plantas de producción eléctrica en el futuro? Ojala que sí.

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CUBA BUSINESS REPORT: ELECTRICITY GENERATION STRATEGY.

CUBA’S STRATEGY FOR ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Complete Article: Electricity Generation Strategy

TURKEY’S KARPOWERSHIP JOINS THE FLEET IN CUBA

Turkey sends electricity barges to Cuba. An interesting component of Cuba’s energy infrastructure.

Complete Article: Karpowership

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ENERGY PACT SEES CUBA SIGN UP TO CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

Original Article: Cuba-China Energy pact

Stephen Gibbs, Caracas

The Times, Tuesday October 19 2021,

President Xi meets Fidel Castro during a visit to Cuba in 2014

Cuba has signed up to an energy cooperation pact with China, solidifying relations at a time when the US has been cautioning against the Asian giant’s growing influence in the region.

Chinese companies will be invited to upgrade Cuba’s ageing energy sector. The financing for the project is expected to be backed by the Chinese government.

The announcement comes as the Biden administration attempts to convince countries in Latin America to turn away from China’s Belt and Road trade and public works programme, which critics say traps recipients in unsustainable debt, while providing Beijing raw materials and geopolitical leverage for decades to come.

At a conference of the “Belt and Road energy partnership”, held in Qingdao, a delegation from Cuba said it would “deepen ties” between the two countries. Cuba’s industry minister, Liván Arronte Cruz, said the pact would “promote solidarity and international co-operations in favour of developing countries”. Green technologies will be prioritised, the minister said.

The other countries in the region which have signed up to the broad Chinese cooperation agreement are Bolivia, Suriname, and Venezuela, all of which have left-wing governments.

ver the past 15 years, China has become the biggest trading partner for most of the big economies in Latin America, overtaking the United States. More recently, China has spent billions of dollars buying up several key energy companies in the region, including the largest electrical company in Peru.

Earlier this month, President Biden’s deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh visited Colombia, Ecuador and Panama, all of which have conservative governments, as part of a pitch for US-backed infrastructure funding, called “Build Back Better World”. US officials say the so-far undefined projects on offer will be built to higher environmental and labour standards than those China is financing, with full transparency for the terms, in contrast to Beijing’s secrecy.

Singh however has insisted that Washington is not asking the region to make a stark choice between the US and China. “We’re there to compete because we do think we have a better product,” he told the Financial Times. China’s arrangement with Cuba, a political ally and one of the smallest economies in the region, is not seen as likely to trouble the Biden administration, given it maintains the US’s decades-old embargo on the communist island, prohibiting most American companies from doing any business with its ruling regime. But it is seen as symbolic of Beijing’s increased clout at the doorstep of the United States.

Already Cuba is China’s largest trading partner in the Caribbean. China is helping Cuba build a modernised port in the city of Santiago, as well as undertaking dredging operations, and setting up wind and solar farms. ChinaPetro, the state oil conglomerate, is running drilling rigs in Celimar and Boca de Camarloca. China’s direct investments in Cuba reached $149 million at the end of 2019.

President Xi last visited Cuba in 2014, when he met the former dictator of the island Fidel Castro. “The common dream and pursuits have brought China and Latin America closely together,” he told a conference later. “Let’s seize the opportunity, work hard, advance hand-in-hand and create a beautiful future for the China-Latin America relations”, he said.

Others suspect more nefarious aims, and there are suspicions that Beijing bases some of its regional intelligence on the island. US media reports have claimed a Soviet-era signals station near Havana is operated by China to intercept communications in the US.

Any further help China can offer to improve the Cuban energy network will be welcomed by its communist leadership. Electrical blackouts since June have fuelled discontent, which in July broke out into street protests, the largest seen since the 1959 revolution.

Following those protests, after the US sanctioned Cuba’s national revolutionary police and its top two officials, China said: “The recent US sanctions against Cuban institutions and officials severely violate the basic norms governing international relations.”

HAVANA IS A WILLING ALLY FOR XI
First it was the Soviet Union, then it was Venezuela (Stephen Gibbs writes). Will China now step in as Cuba’s next patron to ensure the survival of the last communist bastion in the western hemisphere?

Cuba’s dependence on China is growing. In 2014, President Xi visited Fidel Castro and assured the retired revolutionary that he would “inject new impetus” into bilateral relations.

By 2017, China had become the island’s main trading partner. Cuba joined China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative in 2018.

The evidence of Beijing’s influence is everywhere. Yutong buses and Geely cars are common sights in Havana. Modern Chinese trains can occasionally be seen on the island’s decrepit railways. A brand new Haier fridge or washing machine has become a status symbol among those few Cubans that can afford such luxuries.

Chinese companies have also played a key part in Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure, a role which some see as having sinister undertones. During anti-government protests last July, the government shut off the internet in demonstration hotspots, using technology thought to come from China.

Those protests were partly fuelled by weeks of power cuts in high summer. Finding the fuel for Cuba’s old-tech power stations has long been a challenge.

During the Cold War, Cuba would get most of its oil from the Soviet Union in exchange for sugar, a spectacularly good deal on the Cuban side. More recently it has been receiving subsidised fuel from Venezuela, but its own economic collapse means Caracas has become far less generous, sending about half as many barrels per week as it once did.

China has far deeper pockets and sees Cuba as an important foothold to expand its influence in the Americas. Propping up an amenable Cuban regime is part of that strategy.

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An Energy Crisis Is Putting Cuba’s Post-Castro Leadership to Its First Test

William M. LeoGrande | Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019

Venezuela’s economic collapse and Washington’s new sanctions on companies shipping Venezuelan oil to Cuba have plunged the island nation into its most severe energy crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In response, Havana is looking to its old ally Russia to plug the hole in energy supplies left by the decline in Venezuelan shipments. But the crisis is hampering plans to implement economic reforms that Havana hopes will respond to popular demands for economic liberalization while retaining the Communist Party’s political dominance.

Continue reading: An Energy Crisis Is Putting Cubas Post-Castro Leadership to Its First Test

Image result for cuba energy refineries gas

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CUBAN ECONOMY TODAY AND PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FUTURE, SUMMARY OF FINDINGS OF 28TH ANNUAL ASCE CONFERENCE

(An Excellent Summary Overview on the Cuban Economy from the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, 2018.    A.R.)

By Joaquín P. Pujol

November 13, 2018

The 28th Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy  (ASCE) was held in Miami, Florida, July26-28, 2018. This conference differed slightly from prior meetings in that it had a higher participations from Cuban-based economists and students. In fact the two students that won the competition for the student essay awards live in Cuba.

The papers presented summed up the disastrous state of the Cuban economy and the very poor prospects for the immediate future, short of finding a new Sugar Daddy like the Soviet Union or Venezuela to subsidize Cuba.

The Complete Article: CUBAN ECONOMY TODAY AND PERSPECTIVES FOR THE FUTURE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Measurement of the performance of the Cuban Economy

Impact of the 2010 policy reforms of Raul Castro’s 

Agricultural Policies

Petroleum

The issue of the Multiple Currency Regime

Public Sector Finances

Trade & Foreign Debt

The Impact of the Hurricane Irma

Political Oppression

Investment Requirements for Growth

Joaquín P. Pujol

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FINALLY, AN LNG PROJECT FOR CUBA?


By Jorge R. Piñón, Director, Institutional Relations – Mexico, The Office of the Vice President for Research, The University of Texas at Austin.

Personal Communication, 16 April 2018

Is an LNG Floating Storage and Regasification (FSRU) unit in Cuba’s energy future?

Industry press reports indicate that France’s Total is looking at a LNG Floating Storage and Regasification (FSRU) unit able to supply a 600MW power plant in Matanzas, Cuba.

FSRU’s are former LNG carriers capable of transporting, storing, and regasifying LNG onboard and deliver natural gas to on-shore power plants.  They typically cost about 50-60% less than a land based facility.  There are today over 100 FSRU projects in operation, construction or in various stages of development throughout the world; including in the Caribbean –Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

This could be a LNG supply agreement for a reported October 2015 Russia’s Inter RAO $1.4b usd deal with Cuba’s EnergoImport to install four 200 MW power plant units; three (600MW) in the Santa Cruz del Norte power plant and one (200MW) in Mariel.  The Santa Cruz del Norte power plant is 52 kilometers east of the deep-water Matanzas crude oil terminal.  The Inter RAO project financing is reported to be provided by a Russian 4.5 percent interest ten year loan.

France’s Total has been active in Cuba since 1993 in partnership with CUPET (ELF Gas Cuba S.A.) as a distributor of liquid propane and butane (LPG) bottles in Santiago de Cuba, used as home cooking fuel.

Total has two major LNG projects;

  • Russia’s Yamal LNG (20%), one of the largest and most complex LNG projects in the world, where in partnership with Russia’s Novatek and China’s CNPC is developing the enormous South Tambey gas and condensate field.
  • Ichthys LNG project (30%) in partnership with Japan’s INPEX is developing large natural gas and condensate reserves found in deep waters off Australia’s northwest coast.

If the report is correct this could be the best strategic long term decision that the Cuban government has ever made toward a comprehensive National Energy Policy that would allow it to react to changes in price, geopolitical events and or supply-demand disruptions.

A clear road map could finally be emerging toward a balanced energy matrix of renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass; and cleaner burning natural gas (compared to high sulfur fuel oil) for base-load generation, which still would represent 76% of its 2030 energy matrix.

LNG to the FSRU could be supplied from T&T, West Africa or eventually from the U.S….even through Mexico from Altamira.

As far back as 2010 we have been advocating in support of LNG as a fuel for Cuba’s based load needs: https://www.cubastandard.com/?p=3048, and in 2013 in Havana, during the IV Congreso Cubano De Petróleo Y Gas (Petrogas’2013): http://www.cubacienciasdelatierra.com/PROGRAMA

Whether it becomes a reality or another Cuban “pipe dream” we will have to wait and see.

Saludos, Jorge

 

LIQUID NATURAL GAS IS KEY TO CUBA’S ENERGY PLANS

By Jorge Piñón

Cuba Standard, Friday, October 29th, 2010

Cuba produces today approximately 1.155 million m³ of associated natural gas per year, an increase of 55 percent from 2005 levels of .743 million m³. Cuba’s natural gas production is all associated natural gas found within the crude oil reservoirs. The island’s geology to date has not proven to be a major source of dry, non associated natural gas reservoirs.

Associated natural gas production is being used as fuel for onsite power generating plants of 400 mw total capacity owned and operated by Energas, a joint venture between Canada’s Sherritt and Cuba’s Cupet and Unión Eléctrica.

A LNG re-gasification facility to receive Venezuelan-sourced LNG is currently being planned for the southern coast port city of Cienfuegos by CuvenPetrol, a joint venture between Venezuela’s PdVSA (51%) and Cuba’s Cupet (49%). Two 1-million-ton re-gasification trains are planned for 2012 at a cost of over $400 million.  The natural gas is destined as fuel for that city’s thermoelectric power plant, and as a feedstock (hydrogen) for the Cienfuegos refinery and future petrochemical/fertilizer plants.

Liquefied Natural Gas 

LNG is natural gas that has been super cooled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius). At this temperature, natural gas condenses into a liquid taking up to 600 times less space than in its gaseous state, which makes it feasible to transport over long distances.

The chilled natural gas, now LNG, is then loaded onto specially designed tankers where it will be kept chilled until it reaches its final destination. The typical LNG carrier can transport about 125,000-138,000 cubic meters of LNG.

Once the tanker arrives at the regasification terminal, the LNG is offloaded into large storage tanks, built with full-containment walls and systems to keep the LNG cold until it is turned back into a gaseous state and moved into pipelines which will deliver the natural gas to the various end-users.

Venezuela

It is estimated that Venezuela has 176 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves the second largest in the Western hemisphere behind the United States. Venezuela’s PdVSA plans to build three liquefaction trains at the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho natural gas complex in Guiria. The project would source gas from the Plataforma Deltana and Mariscal Sucre natural gas projects. Total investment in the three projects could approach $20 billion, with first exports by 2013.

Atlantic Basin LNG exporters such as Trinidad and Tobago (the only country in Latin America with liquefaction facilities), Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria and possibly Angola could supply Cuba with LNG if Venezuela’s supplies are not available at the time of the completion of the Cienfuegos facility.

Cuba’s neighbors, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are the only other Caribbean countries with LNG regasification facilities.

Environment

Natural gas, as the cleanest of the fossil fuels, emits fewer harmful pollutants, and helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury.

Smog and poor air quality is a pressing environmental challenge in Cuba where high-sulfur (3%) crude oil and fuel oil are burned as electric power plant and industrial fuel for the cement, nickel and steel industries. In 2009, high-sulphur fuel oil accounted for 64 percent of Cuba’s petroleum consumption.

Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is fast becoming Cuba’s oil refining and petrochemical center.

The CuvenPetrol refinery is in the process of a $3 billion expansion project which would double its processing capacity to 150,000 barrels per day as well as improving the quality of its refined products production.

The Carlos Manuel de Cespedes electric power plant in Cienfuegos is already in the middle of an upgrading and revamping project which will allow her to burn natural gas in its 158 mw generating capacity unit number 3.

Natural gas will provide fuel to the refinery as well as hydrogen for the upgrading units scheduled to be completed by 2013. Natural gas will also be used as a feedstock for a planned $1.3 billion petrochemical complex which will include ammonia and urea producing facilities which will provide Cuba with much needed fertilizers for its agricultural sector.

All seems to indicate that Cuba is moving forward toward an energy policy which embraces energy conservation, modernization of the energy infrastructure and a balance sourcing of oil and natural gas in a way that protects the island’s environment.

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AFTER OFFSHORE OIL FAILURE, CUBA SHIFTS ENERGY FOCUS

By Marc Frank; Reuters; 1:00 p.m. EDT, August 11, 2014

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba has shifted its focus away from offshore oil, concentrating on renewable energy and improving output from onshore wells due to a lack of interest by foreign companies for further deep-water exploration, sources close to the industry say.
With so much oil readily available around the world, oil companies including those from allies China and Russia see little incentive in drilling off the Caribbean island, delaying the Cuban dream of oil wealth that could inject vigor into its socialist revolution.

With the U.S. trade embargo of Cuba further complicating drilling plans, the country is seeking investors in renewable energy such as biomass and wind while attempting to increase output from existing onshore and shallow water wells.

Russia’s state-run Rosneft and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) separately agreed last month to help Communist-run Cuba extract more oil along the traditional northwest heavy oil belt, but did not sign on to deepwater exploration.
The northwest heavy oil belt is a 200-mile (320-km) stretch of the northern coast from Havana to Villa Clara and reaching up to 3 miles (5 km) offshore. It produces poor quality oil that meets 40 percent of the country’s needs.

Rosneft and CNPC will also support the horizontal drilling of new wells from shore and join Canadian firm Sherritt International and another Russian state-run oil company, Zarubezhneft, which are already carrying out similar work. Cuba had hoped Russia and China, whose presidents visited in July, would explore deepwater offshore fields that it says may hold 20 billion barrels of oil and end its dependence on socialist ally Venezuela. Venezuela sends 115,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba under favorable terms.

“The Cubans have stopped talking about offshore oil exploration in the state-run media and in private appear more interested in new recovery methods for existing wells, biogas projects and windmill farms,” a European diplomat said.

Three deep-water wells drilled in 2012 by Spanish, Norwegian, Indian, Malaysian, Russian and Venezuelan firms came up dry. All but the Norwegian state firm Statoil ASA and Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA have pulled out, and those companies are inactive. Future drilling has been postponed for the foreseeable future.

Untitled-Scanned-43Pumping Petroleum, Near Cardenas, 1994

A BIG GAMBLE

Difficult geology from hard rock encountered while sinking the wells, alternative prospects elsewhere and U.S. sanctions that require oil rigs to carry less than 10 percent U.S. technology are discouraging further drilling, according to Western diplomats.
“Exploration is not a one-shot deal, but in Cuba due to many factors it is. Drilling is like playing once at a roulette wheel with $100 million chips,” said a diplomat whose country was involved in exploration.

Jorge Pinon, an expert on Cuban oil at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas in Austin, said, “They are shifting their focus and efforts to the known coastal reservoirs rather than on the unknown offshore deep-water reservoirs.”
Cuba’s heavy crude fields have a recovery factor of about 10 percent (10 barrels for every 100 barrels in a well), due to the viscosity of the crude and the porosity of the rock formations from which it is extracted, Pinon said.

“If successful, Cuba could increase its present recovery factor from 10 percent to maybe 17 to 20 percent adding an additional 12,000 to 15,000 barrels of new production if not more to their current level of approximately 50,000 barrels per day,” Pinon said.

Vice President and politburo member Marino Murillo told parliament in July that Cuba planned to invest $3.6 billion over the next 15 years in alternative energy, which is a priority for foreign investment. Murillo said 96 percent of energy generation came from oil and that the goal was to reduce that by 2030 to 76 percent, with the remainder coming from 19 bioelectricity plants attached to sugar mills, 13 wind parks and solar facilities. He did not mention deep-water oil exploration.

 

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Publication of the Papers from the 2013 Conference of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy

 

The proceedings of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy’s 23rd Annual Meeting entitled  “Reforming Cuba?” (August 1–3, 2013) is now available. The presentations have now been published by ASCE  at http://www.ascecuba.org/.

The presentations are listed below and linked to their sources in the ASCE Web Site.

ASCE_logo_220

 Preface

Panorama de las reformas económico-sociales y sus efectos en Cuba, Carmelo Mesa-Lago

Crítica a las reformas socioeconómicas raulistas, 2006–2013, Rolando H. Castañeda

Nuevo tratamiento jurídico-penal a empresarios extranjeros: ¿parte de las reformas en Cuba?, René Gómez Manzano

Reformas en Cuba: ¿La última utopía?, Emilio Morales

Potentials and Pitfalls of Cuba’s Move Toward Non-Agricultural Cooperatives, Archibald R. M. Ritter

Possible Political Transformations in Cuba in the Light of Some Theoretical and Empirically Comparative Elements, Vegard Bye

Las reformas en Cuba: qué sigue, qué cambia, qué falta, Armando Chaguaceda and Marie Laure Geoffray

Cuba: ¿Hacia dónde van las “reformas”?, María C. Werlau

Resumen de las recomendaciones del panel sobre las medidas que debe adoptar Cuba para promover el crecimiento económico y nuevas oportunidades, Lorenzo L. Pérez

Immigration and Economics: Lessons for Policy, George J. Borjas

The Problem of Labor and the Construction of Socialism in Cuba: On Contradictions in the Reform of Cuba’s Regulations for Private Labor Cooperatives, Larry Catá Backer

Possible Electoral Systems in a Democratic Cuba, Daniel Buigas

The Legal Relations Between the U.S. and Cuba, Antonio R. Zamora

Cambios en la política migratoria del Gobierno cubano: ¿Nuevas reformas?, Laritza Diversent

The Venezuela Risks for PetroCaribe and Alba Countries, Gabriel Di Bella, Rafael Romeu and Andy Wolfe

Venezuela 2013: Situación y perspectivas socioeconómicas, ajustes insuficientes, Rolando H. Castañeda

Cuba: The Impact of Venezuela, Domingo Amuchástegui

Should the U.S. Lift the Cuban Embargo? Yes; It Already Has; and It Depends!, Roger R. Betancourt

Cuba External Debt and Finance in the Context of Limited Reforms, Luis R. Luis

Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Venezuela: A Tale of Dependence and Shock, Ernesto Hernández-Catá

Competitive Solidarity and the Political Economy of Invento, Roberto I. Armengol

The Fist of Lázaro is the Fist of His Generation: Lázaro Saavedra and New Cuban Art as Dissidence, Emily Snyder

La bipolaridad de la industria de la música cubana: La concepción del bien común y el aprovechamiento del mercado global, Jesse Friedman

Biohydrogen as an Alternative Energy Source for Cuba, Melissa Barona, Margarita Giraldo and Seth Marini

Cuba’s Prospects for a Military Oligarchy, Daniel I. Pedreira

Revolutions and their Aftermaths: Part One — Argentina’s Perón and Venezuela’s Chávez, Gary H. Maybarduk

Cuba’s Economic Policies: Growth, Development or Subsistence?, Jorge A. Sanguinetty

Cuba and Venezuela: Revolution and Reform, Silvia Pedraza and Carlos A. Romero Mercado

Mercado inmobiliario en Cuba: Una apertura a medias, Emilio Morales and Joseph Scarpaci

Estonia’s Post-Soviet Agricultural Reforms: Lessons for Cuba, Mario A. González-Corzo

Cuba Today: Walking New Roads? Roberto Veiga González

From Collision to Covenant: Challenges Faced by Cuba’s Future Leaders, Lenier González Mederos

Proyecto “DLíderes”, José Luis Leyva Cruz

Notes for the Cuban Transition, Antonio Rodiles and Alexis Jardines

Economistas y politólogos, blogueros y sociólogos: ¿Y quién habla de recursos naturales? Yociel Marrero Báez

Cambio cultural y actualización económica en Cuba: internet como espacio contencioso, Soren Triff

From Nada to Nauta: Internet Access and Cyber-Activism in A Changing Cuba, Ted A. Henken and Sjamme van de Voort

Technology Domestication, Cultural Public Sphere, and Popular Music in Contemporary Cuba, Nora Gámez Torres

Internet and Society in Cuba, Emily Parker

Poverty and the Effects on Aversive Social Control, Enrique S. Pumar

Cuba’s Long Tradition of Health Care Policies: Implications for Cuba and Other Nations, Rodolfo J. Stusser

A Century of Cuban Demographic Interactions and What They May Portend for the Future, Sergio Díaz-Briquets

The Rebirth of the Cuban Paladar: Is the Third Time the Charm? Ted A. Henken

Trabajo por cuenta propia en Cuba hoy: trabas y oportunidades, Karina Gálvez Chiú

Remesas de conocimiento, Juan Antonio Blanco

Diaspora Tourism: Performance and Impact of Nonresident Nationals on Cuba’s Tourism Sector, María Dolores Espino

The Path Taken by the Pharmaceutical Association of Cuba in Exile, Juan Luis Aguiar Muxella and Luis Ernesto Mejer Sarrá

Appendix A: About the Authors

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Cuba: Wind Power vs. Oil

Isbel Díaz Torres, HAVANA TIMES (Havana), June 21, 2013

Original Essay Here: Cuba: Wind Power vs. Oil

It would seem that local newspapers are intent on misinforming the public – both at home and abroad – about the Cuban government’s priorities with respect to the development of alternative energy sources.

A case in point was the news surrounding the recently-concluded congress of the World Wind Energy Association and the Renewable Energy Exhibition (WWEC 2013), held in Havana at the beginning of this month.

During a press conference, the director of Cuba’s Center for the Study of Renewable Energy Technologies (CETER), Conrado Moreno, declared that Cuba plans on developing the infrastructure needed to generate at least 10 percent of its electricity with renewable sources by the year 2030.

In this connection, the official lauded “the great strides in the development of wind power technologies” that Cuba has made in recent years, adding that the country has “a program the world can learn from.”

However, thanks to this impressive wind power “program”, whose installed capacity was less than 0.5 Megawatts (MW) in 2005, the country barely produced 12 MW of electricity in 2010.

That Cuba should present the congress with such an out-of-date figure (a figure which, in addition, is anything but impressive, representing a mere 0.08 % of the country’s entire energy output) should raise some eyebrows.

This figure may help explain why it will take thirteen years for the country to be able to generate 10 % of its energy with wind power and the other renewable sources of energy used on the island.

The fact of the matter is that Cuba currently has 9,343 wind turbines, 15 turbines and 4 wind farms in operation, for an installed capacity of 11.7 MW, a figure which places it beneath 68 other countries around the world.

As a way of comparison, in 2010 Nicaragua had a generating capacity of 40 MW (the equivalent of 5 % of the country’s total installed capacity), garnered from wind power technologies alone, while Cuba currently generates a mere 4 % of its electricity via renewable energy sources in general.

Local optimism, however, isn’t dampened by any of this, and experts continue to extol the virtues of Cuba’s largest wind farm (with a capacity of 51 MW), whose construction on the northern coast of the island’s eastern province of Las Tunas, a place of allegedly “ideal” wind conditions, is expected to be completed next year.

It is estimated that the wind farm could generate some 153 GW/h a year, allowing the country to cut down its fossil fuel consumption by some 40 thousand tons a year.

Not without a number of altercations at different levels, the Cuban government has managed to secure the environmental licenses required for the project from the pertinent agencies rather quickly, giving technicians a mere week to collect the required data.

Wind power is an abundant, renewable and clean energy resource which can aid in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Cubans, however, have never received any in-depth information regarding its benefits and limitations, nor have we ultimately been consulted in connection with its implementation.

Boasting of a relatively high Energy Return Rate* (18.1:1), wind power is cursed by one, significant limitation: its intermittence, that is, the fact that wind currents are not constant.

According to experts, wind currents on Cuba’s northern coastline are not uniform and are heavily influenced by local conditions, resulting from the interaction of trade and local winds and seasonal meteorological events.

The contribution of biomass to Cuba’s energy production in the period 2000 to 2011. Figures in the equivalent of thousands of tons of oil.

Because of this, wind power can only ever supplement, never wholly replace, fossil fuel sources on the island, as the contribution of conventional energy sources is indispensible. In addition, as these conventional technologies operate in “backup mode” in this scheme, they consume a lot more fuel per KW produced every hour.

Fossil fuels are also consumed during the process of constructing the wind farm (during the mining of the materials, transportation and industrial processing) and all subsequent, indispensable maintenance operations.

Another inconvenient aspect of this technology is that winds must reach a certain, minimum velocity to be able to move the blades of the turbines. There is also a maximum wind velocity that, if exceeded, causes the entire network circuit to shut down.

In addition to the noise they produce and the disruption of the natural environment they represent, these wind farms reportedly affect the routes of migratory birds or the areas where these birds avail themselves of lateral winds, and the creation of access roads – and regular human presence, in general – damages local fauna.

The limitations of this technology, and the impact it has on the environment, ought not make us reject wind farms outright, but should, rather, make us re-think the way in which we have been implementing the technology and how congruous it is with the country’s global development strategy, as well as prompt us to demand accurate information in this regard.

Cuba has been working in the renewable energy field for decades without any type of legal regulations and without incurring any legal action from anyone. Recently, the director of CETER claimed that “a team of experts is working to implement it [the legal regulations] in a manner that suits Cuba’s economic development model.”

One of the more disquieting aspects of the wind power issue is how the Cuban media portray its state of development on the island, selling an image of a sustainable and ecological program, when, in fact, the country is heading down the more profitable road, caring little about its environmental impact.

Some statements we find in the press include: “In recent years, Cuba has made great progress in the development of wind power technologies.” / “Cuba has developed a wind power infrastructure (…) which only highly developed countries can boast of.” / “Cuba’s renewable energy program includes photovoltaic energy sources, which have experienced considerable development since the 1990s.” / “The ‘solarization’ of Cuba’s energy generating system.” / “The generation of electricity with renewable sources of energy will grow by 949 MW.”

As these grandiloquent reports on “green” energy sources are published, oil prospecting projects across Cuba’s platform continue in almost utter silence. This means that the government continues to invest heavily in this polluting energy source.

Cuban oil experts and government officials had anticipated that the country would be producing 90 % of its electricity with domestic oil reserves by 2010, but were unable to achieve this.

According to recent declarations made by Jorge Piñon, Associate Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Program, Cuba could be producing as many as 250 thousand barrels of crude a day within five to seven years.

Enthusiastic Cuban government experts estimate that the Gulf of Mexico platform could contain as many as 20 billion barrels of oil. The U.S. Geological Service estimate is considerably more modest, calculating reserve volumes there at 5 billion oil barrels.

To date, results have not been exactly promising. The “Scarabeo 9” platform had to pull out of the so-called Exclusive Economic Zone last year, following three unsuccessful attempts to find oil in the area.

To top things off, a few weeks ago, the Russian oil company Zarubezhneft decided to push back prospecting efforts to 2014, reporting “complications of a geological nature.”

These fiascos do little to burst the oil bubble of the Cuban government, which continues to spend millions in prospecting infrastructure.

Following the intensive modernization of the country’s thermoelectric plants ten years ago, Cuba is now working to expand its refinery in Cienfuegos, construct an oil duct connecting Cienfuegos and Matanzas, build a storage facility that can house 600 thousand oil barrels in Matanzas and complete the vast commercial port in Mariel (a billion dollar investment), and in many other related projects.

In the meantime, Venezuela continues to ship an average of 100 thousand barrels of oil to the island every day, 30 thousand of which are financed by PetroCaribe, as per a 25-year agreement with an interest rate of only 1 % signed with the island.

What will Cuba do in 2030, then, when it has the infrastructure to generate 10 % of its electricity using renewable energy sources? Will it have found the oil it seeks by then? Will it abandon the idea of using this oil for energy production? Will it sell it to the United States?

According to the most recent report issued by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA bureau responsible for analyzing and anticipating geopolitical and economic developments around the world, by 2030 the United States (the world’s largest importer of hydrocarbons today) will be entirely self-sufficient in terms of oil resources, and the world’s oil market could well collapse as a result of this.

We must acknowledge that hydrocarbons continue to be the world’s chief energy resource and that, like the rest of the world, Cuba does not have the infrastructure or programs needed to make the transition to a post-oil economy.

Many experts agree that the diversification and expansion of energy sources must become one of the pillars of Cuba’s future energy production scheme.

A broad range of alternative energy sources, from natural gas (the least polluting of all hydrocarbons) to renewable sources such as ethanol extracted from sugar cane, wind power, solar energy and bio-gas could be developed in Cuba.

That said, according to Cuba’s National Statistics Bureau, the amount of energy Cuba produced using renewable sources in 2011 was nearly 2 million tons less of oil equivalent than in 2001. This report reveals a marked decline in the use of these alternative energy sources in the course of the decade, a trend which coincides with the “oil enthusiasm” of recent years and the shutting down of numerous sugar refineries across the country.

The greatest drop was experienced in the use of biomass (chiefly sugar cane bagasse). Hydroelectric plants are the most widely used forms of primary energy production, while wind power generators occupy the fifth place among renewable energy technologies used on the island.

In recent years, experts in the field have voiced complaints that Cuba’s Electricity Law does not particularly encourage the use and commercial promotion of renewable energy sources.

The truth of the matter is that none of these sources of energy afford us one, magical solution to the problem of the energy deficit, and many of these technologies pose serious bioethical questions. If anything, they underscore the fact that the demands of contemporary society, engineered by global capitalism, are insatiable.

The policy of development at all costs, planned obsolescence, the alienation of individuals and collectives in productive processes, the outsourcing of production, the deification of consumption, policies which protect banks and international financial institutions, these and many other problems are at the root of the crisis faced by the energy sector and, I dare say, our civilization as a whole.

In the words of social anthropologist Emilio Santiago Muiño, “a sustainable system which is not grounded in marketing implies a profound change in lifestyle.”

Cuban economists and politicians do not appear to be equipped with the mentality needed to understand this. They are prey to the same ills mentioned above, and they are irresponsibly supported, in their policies, by a good part of Cuba’s scientific community, which does little to re-think the idea of “development” that prevails today.

At the recently-concluded world conference on wind power, Cuba sought to put together a business portfolio with a view to signing international agreements and broadening productive capacities in the sector.

This, which appears commendable, is congruous with the pragmatism of calculating analysts within and outside Cuba, who seek a painless reinsertion of the island’s economy in the international market.

*Energy Return Rate (ERR): Amount of primary energy that must be invested in order to produce energy with a given source.

Alternative energy source production in Cuba.

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Jorge Piñón: ¿Un futuro petrolero para Cuba?

Lenier Conzalez Mederos y Roberto Veiga Gonzalex entevistaron a Jorge Piñón , un cubanoamericano, que salió de la Isla como parte de la Operación Peter Pan, y tantos años después sigue hablando en primera persona cuando se refiere a Cuba. Se desempeñó como presidente para América Latina de la empresa petrolera AMOCO Oil, y  actualmente es investigador del Centro de Política Internacional en Energía y  Medioambiente de la Universidad de Austin (Texas). La entrevista tuvo lugar en el hotel  Meliá Habana, Cuba.

Here is the original interview:   Espacio Laical Entrevista a Jorge Pinon, June 2013

The original is at the web site of  Espacio Laical.

Camilo Cienfuegos Refinery

Jorge Piñón

 

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