MAR 17

The Maldives announced yesterday a plan to go carbon neutral within the next decade. The project will cost $1.1 billion to install renewable energy across the nation's 250 inhabited islands.

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said that the nation would achieve carbon neutrality through 155 1.5-MW wind turbines, a half-square kilometer solar farm and forgoing fossil fuels. Since much of the nation's economy is based on tourism, greenhouse gases emitted by air travel will have to be offset with EU carbon credits.

The nation is privatizing their electric utility to open up funds for the effort and it will be looking for outside investments as well.

Island nations like The Maldives have been front runners for drastic climate change initiatives because they're likely to suffer great consequences from sea level changes and harsher tropical storms. The Maldives is the lowest country in the world, averaging 1.5 meters above sea level. Also, their smaller populations and remoteness make them great candidates for renewable energy.

In the U.S., Hawaii has been pushing for much greater renewable energy standards compared to other states, planning to get 70 percent of the state's electricity from renewables by 2030.

via Earth2Tech

Comments (5)

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written by macrumpton, March 17, 2009

I hope they are also planning on building some dikes or building up the height of the land because by the time the rest of the world wakes up they are going to be fishing in their living rooms.

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@macrumpton can you provide a timeline?
written by steelhawk, March 17, 2009

The coral reefs and barrier atoll systems should easily be able to track any sea level change. The reef will simply build itself a bit higher.

If however, you know of a hard date which has been scientifically modeled for an epic Hollywood style Maldives sea level disaster then please cite a reference.

Realistically, the Maldives is more at risk of another tsunami originating in the Sumatra area. Good tsunami preparation will keep them in good preparation for any sea level change too.

The Maldives could also be a better global citizen and purchase landfill by trading Coco Diesel for unwanted Chinese bricks, stone and industrial metallic waste. It is a win-win, the Maldives gets to raise itself up out of the water and earns carbon credits for exporting Coco Diesel to China. China gets a place to dump its unwanted landfill and gets paid for it with bio fuels.

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energy storage?
written by loleeGreen, March 17, 2009

I see that they'll try to be carbon neutral via renewable energy projects. How would the energy be stored? It might be difficult to have storage facilities in each of the 190+ island....

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energy storage?
written by Alistair Gunn, March 18, 2009

Flywheels or vanadium flow batteries at a guess, plus hopefully they can link at least some of the islands together into groups so as to reduce the number of sites that they need to install energy storage systems at.

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Stop C02 at Larger Sources First!
written by Uncle B, March 20, 2009

Extinguishing the Coal mine ground fires in the U.S. just might reduce C02 production cheaply and offend no-one. Also, in one of the ...'stans' a gas fire rages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week-put it out to reduce C02! The other concern is the burning off of sour gas at gas wells, is that still being done, and is there an environmentally safer solution? Beef in your diet? SEE:
“Cattle are fed prodigious quantities of corn. At a feedlot of a mere 37,000 cows, 25 tons of corn are dumped every hour. It takes 1.2 gallons of oil to make the fertilizer used for each bushel of that corn. Before a cow is slaughtered, she will eat 25 pounds of corn a day; by the time she is slaughtered she will weigh more than 1,200 pounds. In her lifetime she will have consumed, in effect, 284 gallons of oil. Today’s factory-raised cow is not a solar-powered ruminant but another fossil fuel machine.” SEE: http://www.earthsave.org/envir...hoices.htm
Now go for fish, or vegan substitutes and it can so help!

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