{"id":117653,"date":"2021-08-30T17:40:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T00:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=117653"},"modified":"2021-08-30T17:40:58","modified_gmt":"2021-08-31T00:40:58","slug":"our-power-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/08\/30\/our-power-fiasco\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Power Fiasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Minister\nGammanpila  is reported to have said that we will have to face a\nmassive export bill to import fuel for the unending cadence of motor vehicles.\nHe is right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also reported that our\ncountry is pleading with supplier countries to buy on credit not only fuel, but\neven lentils. I read of Lentils on credit in a news item yesterday! I had a\nlast laugh as we can produce all the lentils we need in one chena cultivation-\nin just a few months but we dismantled our agricultural extension service-\nfirst by the World Bank dictate in around the early Eighties that our\nagricultural extension officers should not use cooperatives and such\norganizations but meet farmers individually- mind you an Agricultural\nInstructor has around 5000 to 13,000 farmers to cater for, and later by President\nPremadasa who promoted all trained agricultural overseers to be Grama\nNiladharis that was in about 1992 and since then we have no trained official at\nthe village level and since 1992 till now our agricultural plans are only on\npaper.! The sad fact is that our experts and leaders do not yet realize this.\nThe World Bank bribed us with loans to get that done, documented by me in my\nbook: Administering Rural Development in the Third World: The\nUniversity Press, Dhaka, 1983. President Premadasa acted in\nignorance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To back track to Power and\nFuel for it. The Power problem would not be there today  if only our\nleaders had read, understood and acted on the ideas in my Paper published way\nback in 2016. It reads: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer\nblowing in the Wind <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Published on December 22, 2016, 9:30 pm\u00a0in The Island<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is the only country where wind turbines are put up in\nthe coastal areas. In Lanzorette in the Canaries, firstly the authorities built\ntwo turbines on the coast, but later they realized their mistake and built up\ndozens of turbines inland, on their hills. They have no mountains as such. In\nSpain and in the US, where I frequently undertake road travel, I have seen them\nusing the mountain power of the wind to turn their turbines. There are hundreds,\neven thousands of wind turbines located on mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are the losers, while countries like Spain have harnessed the\nmountain wind power and even sell power to France. Sri Lanka lags behind. Last\nyear, I went to Kalpitiya to spend a night to assess the wind power there. It\nwas nothing other than a coastal breeze. I have worked in Hambantota and Matara\nand know the power of the coastal breeze. It is nothing compared with what I\nhave experience at Ramboda, at Madugoda, at Kadugannawa in my almost weekly\nvisits when I did work in Nuwara Eliya, Kegalla and Kandy. That was on the road\nside. Thanks to my irrigation inspections- climbing hill and dale, I know that\nthe wind has an enormous power at vantage points. When I stayed for the night\nat the Ohio Forest Circuit bungalow, I feared that my car would be blown over.\nYet we keep building turbines on the coast, and this time it is in Mannar! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gather that some foreign experts are being consulted to tap our\nwind power. These days not only foreign experts but also the IMF carry out\nclandestine operations to ensure that we will remain stuck in the mire of\ndebt.  The IMF told us to import freely, use foreign exchange freely\nand gave us loans. This is how we were lured into debt! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May our leaders find the time to read John Perkin\u2019s book “Confessions\nof an Economic Hit Man”, where he admits that his role as a foreign\nexpert was to research, fabricate facts and figures to provide foreign aid to\nEcuador, for a plan that in some manner would send the aid back to the donor\ncountries, while at the same time leaving the host country indebted. Aid now\ncomes to our countries to make us more indebted so that our economy would never\nrecover. That someone who  is trying to prove that trying to tap wind\npower is not worth the trouble is of the \u2018John Perkins\u2019 type. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We produce wind power at Rs. 25 per kw while the US gets wind\npower at five cents a kw. When recently some wind power producer offered us\npower at fifteen rupees our mandarins were surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, Power Expert, my friend Tilak Siyambalapitiya has said\nthat we are heading for power cuts in 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All what I have said in my wind power papers is valid; they are\non Lanka Web,  Island.lk and Asian Tribune for\nanyone interested to read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need only a few hundred wind turbines sited at Ohio, Ramboda,\nMadugoda, at Ritigala, at Batalagala in Kegalla District. At Kirigalpotta in\nRatnapura and Hayes in Matara. We should set up a “Land Development\nDepartment” once again and appoint an official of the calibre of J. V.\nFonseka, a civil servant and the task can be accomplished within one year. That\nwas the manner D. S. and Dudley worked once. Later, I was a chief lieutenant\nunder JV Fonseka  in the Agrarian Services Department and we did\nbuild large stores in double quick time. One engineer and Land Development\nOfficer M. P. Jayasinghe was the mastermind of the operation. We used to test\nthe strength of concrete structures ourselves by tapping concrete with a\nhammer. One contractor had to redo all the foundations. It was a blow that made\nhim die. That happened in Anuradhapura. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few hundred wind turbines are the answer and I am sure there\nwill be able officers in the Administrative and Engineering Services who can\naccomplish that task. It will be a Program that offers employment to thousands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now my Papers on wind turbines have been compiled into a book:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wind Power for our energy requirements,  published by Godages in 2019. I personally\nsent copies to all- to our President, his Secretary, to our Prime Minister and\nto Minister Dullas. Sadly the books are all in the dustbin now. However I\nplough along.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least I hope one of them will now have a read of it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be a task done employing thousands of our people, with\nlittle or no foreign exchange because the turbine motor can easily be done by\nour local Pump Specialist Company- Jinasena.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US did it, Spain and Germany did it and turned the wind that\nhowls and blows into Power. We too can do it if only we want to do it.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne Ph.D.\u00a0
Former G.A.Matara\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30 August 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne Minister Gammanpila  is reported to have said that we will have to face a massive export bill to import fuel for the unending cadence of motor vehicles. He is right. It is also reported that our country is pleading with supplier countries to buy on credit not only fuel, but even lentils. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}