The Jamaica Gleaner reports that Jamaica has just received a $30 Million under the US Clean Energy Finance Facility, to pay for legal, consultancy and engineering costs for a new renewables project.
Jamaica Gets First Grant Under US Clean Energy Finance Facility
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded the first grant through the Clean Energy Finance Facility for the Caribbean and Central America (CEFF-CCA), to help develop a 37 megawatt solar farm in Westmoreland.
CEFF-CCA will provide support to Rekamniar Capital Limited, the project developer, to partner with independent power producer Neoen on forming the Eight Rivers Energy Company, which will build the solar facility, according to a release from the US embassy in Kingston.
The purpose of the grant is to support selected legal, consulting and engineering costs in late stage project development, it said.
…
US President Barack Obama launched CEFF-CCA on April 9, 2015. The programme seeks to encourage private sector investment in clean-energy projects in the Caribbean and Central America.
…
Does anyone think this $30 million grant to assist the Jamaican renewables legal process will deliver any value to the Jamaican people, other than a few well connected bureaucrats? But cancelling the grant will stir up diplomatic trouble for President Trump. Diplomatic trouble with Jamaica could impede joint efforts to stamp out drug smuggling into the USA.
Better than bombing them I suppose.
Ah, you mean like oh!bummer! has done. Yes, Trump will be a VAST improvement.
You have no shame.
Well, if you lived in Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or Oman you’d have good reason to suspect Obama might bomb you (as in he actually bombed you).
Good thing he won the Nobel Peace Prize early in his term.
Javert, care to explain why you put Oman in your list?
maybe this, 4 eyes … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman#Human_rights
Oooops – left off Lybia
Trump will change you to.
Change him to what?
“Trump will change you to”
Trump will change you to what? A Penguin?
He changed me into a Newt!!!!
An averaged world citizen is more likely to be bombed by an Obama than by a Trump. Trump will work to reverse the disastrous US interventions in Syria and Lybia for instance.
An averaged world citizen is more likely to be bombed by an Obama than by a Trump.
Give him a chance ptolemy2, He hasn’t even got the nuke codes yet.
“tony mcleod January 2, 2017 at 1:46 am
He hasn’t even got the nuke codes yet.”
Ask how many times previous PotUS has lost those “codes”. You will be surprised.
“Ganja man something for the head”—as I entered Jamaica to start my graduation reward to myself for completing nine years of college (night) in 1971. Seems things are NO different today. Our current POTUS might have gotten his STASH there and this is a qui pro quo.(sarc) Just sayin’
Yep. There’s a surely several ironies to be found in reporting this from the, “Jamaica Gleaner.”
‘Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Some ancient cultures promoted gleaning as an early form of a welfare system.’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning
Trolls will be trolls.
It really is to bad that you have decided to never say anything relevant.
Trump shouldn’t even care about that piddling amount of cash- just NOT give them any more. That $30 million will vanish into the ether and accomplish less than nothing beyond lining pockets.
Let Soros give $30M to Greenpiece and let Greenpiece give the money for the project.
US taxpayers are off the hook and Soros gets to be the good guy.
What’s not to like?
Greenpeace give away money???
Now that’s funny.
Since the money is earmarked as Legal Fund and engineering costs, some will go into engineering firm coffers for figuring out how to design and build the facility but most of it will go into lawyers pockets. Zero will go to the cost of building and maintaining any power production facilities so zero benefit to end users
It would be nice to know how much of it goes to Mr. Soros.
Perhaps, but just look at what happens to a taxpayer citizen who makes a simple error on their tax returns. Watch how the government will rationalize a reason to make an example of the unfortunate citizen.
Re-purpose the loan to assist in building a coal plant to boost their energy infrastructure. Cheaper electricity will win him more good will than anything else.
All Trump needs to do is get a law though congress making it a requirement of all aid being the complete and open disclosure of where every cent goes, and into whose pocket.
Along with guidelines canceling any aid that gets diverted from its’ intended task and cancellation of future aid for a period if aid is misused.
“All Trump needs to do is get a law though congress making it a requirement of all aid being the complete and open disclosure of where every cent goes”
Needed in the UK too. Also, the need to check where the funding of NGO lobbying groups comes from. If it’s the same place that will benefit then consider the lobbying invalid.
The article sez: “The purpose of the grant is to support selected legal, consulting and engineering costs in late stage project development”
Lawyers and consultants can blow through $30 million without breaking a sweat.
“All Trump needs to do is get a law though congress making it a requirement of all aid being the complete and open disclosure of where every cent goes, and into whose pocket.”
I’m betting there will be a lot of $10,000 toilet seats, hammers, etc.
Just because something sounds expensive, doesn’t mean it’s a rip off.
The toilet seat that is often mentioned as an example of fraud, was designed to go into a submarine. It was stainless steel, water tight, came with clamps and had to withstand almost 100 lbs/in sq of pressure. It wasn’t a Wal-mart special.
The coffee pot that is often mentioned was designed to go into a bomber. It had to be able to pressurize itself in order to make coffee, because the atmospheric pressure in the bomber was well below sea level.
The hammer was an example of billing. In older contracts, instead of including the cost of negotiating a contract as a seperate line item, that cost was evenly divided amongst all the separate items listed in the contract.
I’m not saying that there is no waste in military contracts. What I am saying is that you need to understand what you are criticizing if you want to reduce actual waste instead of just sounding like you are whining.
As the maintenance won’t be paid for this will soon be a white elephant. Like tractors to Africa.
So why not invest in R&D in Jamaica? They aren’t blessed with fossil fuels so why not try and find a reliable, renewable energy source?
This could be spent setting up a wavepower test bed.
It will still break down but the knowledge gained would be a saleable asset for Jamaica.
No-one needs a few dusty solar panels and squeaky wind turbines.
From memory, not sure if the waves are big enough for long enough for good wave power.
Don’t worry to much about if waves are big enough or long enough to suffice, Since 2000 Jamaica has been visited by no less than 15 hurricanes with at least 3 being cat. 2 or greater and several being direct hits. Several years saw 3 hurricanes in a season. Those SOLAR Panels will become SOLAR Sails quickly enough and wave action will be inconsistent
It’s an island – desal and hydrogen fuel cells are logical.
Wind along with flying debris should take care of the solar panels in short order.
exactly…last year Jamaica almost had to file bankruptcy..debt was ~150% of GDP
They can’t afford this…or afford to maintain it
Why are US taxpayers giving them any money (I mean other than to line the aforementioned pockets)?
Jamaicans look happy; they aren’t starving…and they have lots of ganja.
Did they even ask for $30,000,000?
“No-one needs a few dusty solar panels and squeaky wind turbines.”
Are you aware of the fact that one of the benefits of the new “green” economy is a huge number of rewarding and high paying jobs for solar panel squeegee boys (and girls) and wind mill oilers.
I gather that the $30M will not be building anything. So maintenance shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ve read about experiments trying to take advantage of the temperature differences between surface water and deep water. The most recent was near Hawaii.
“I say, I say, I say; my wife has gone to the West Indies!”
“Jamaica?”
“No, she went of her own accord”
Matilda – she take all my money and she run Venezuela.
“My wife has gone to Indonesia.”
“Jakarta?”
“No she went by plane.”
” …. will produce some of the lowest cost electricity ….. ”
So why does it need a grant, then?
But a guid new year tae aw wur readers and lang may yer lums reek. (In other words, keep burning the coal.)
“Does anyone think this $30 million grant to assist the Jamaican renewables legal process will deliver any value to the Jamaican people, other than a few well connected bureaucrats?”
BINGO! That’s exactly where that $30mil will go.
I wonder if Obama has plans to move to Jamaica…
$10mil (after “local expenses”) would still buy a nice house.
Just ensuring the continuation of his supply, Andy.
“I wonder if Obama has plans to move to Jamaica?”
Ah, then it would be worth every penny.
It is worse than you think because the federal government will have to borrow that $30mil. I estimate that the money the federal government is borrowing today will end up costing the tax payers more than 12 times the amount borrowed to repay over the next 180 years. So to us tax payers it is in excess of $360mil.
We don’t even bother to borrow any more. The Fed just invents a trillion bucks a year. Who would lend us money?
Americans will still pay, but through their dollars being worth less. A stealth tax.
The federal government runs a deficit of a trillion a year on a four trillion dollar budget, which isn’t really a budget but a series of continuing resolutions and sequestrations. Taxes cover three trillion of the four trillion. Congress knows that taxpayers wouldn’t vote to fund the whole mess.
The inflation tax is a tax that congress never votes on or approves. It is really stealing value from anyone who holds US currancy and with intrest rates at rock botton it has been forcing money into the stock market and forcing up stock prices. It is my feeling that the founding fathers intended for the federal government to establish a stable monitary system and not what we have now.
One of Reagan’s tax changes was to index the tax rates. Prior to Reagan, individuals were being pushed into higher tax brackets just merely because their incomes were keeping up with inflation. The result was that tax revenue would go up every year.
Needless to say, the Democrats, who try to pass themselves off as the protector of the little guy, fought this change tooth and nail.
It could leverage money to encourage Jamaica to continue to use the long obsolete degrees Fahrenheit so the USA doesn’t become completely alone with their use.
It’d be a lovely world if we all spoke the same language.
Overseas aid is just another gravy train
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4078904/The-fattest-charity-fat-cat-Foreign-aid-boss-MILLIONS-1-5billion-handed-charity-British-taxpayers.html
I wonder what sort of project will incur $30 M in what amounts to bureaucratic overhead. This grant has all the earmarks of standard Government Issue international pork project spending, set up to grease all the right wheels. But to what end? Actually, to no end at all. There is no overarching policy or diplomatic goals getting advanced here. Just $30 M getting spread around. Any bets on whether the project gets built and goes on line and stays online for (lets say) 60 months?
In a larger sense, it appears to me that a country with a government/bureaucracy/society which supports investment, development and industry does not need such grants. If the country does not have the necessary factors for development, then that development simply will not happen. The money simply gets looted out by corrupt officials and their business and industry cronies.
and Who did the ” selected ” bit.
Bon nouvel à tous
With a whiff of methane
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F9fee70e4-cf69-11e6-ad0d-c147166a63d6.jpg
They ought to spread some of that $30 million around to the U.S. veterans who can’t get timely health care, or spend it in Chicago to reduce the unbelievable murder of so many people there. It’s like a shooting gallery.
And another poster above is correct in saying the $30 million is borrowed money, or at least half of it is, since it is estimated that the U.S. borrows *half* the money it spends every day (almost $3 billion borrowed daily).
We need someone who knows how to run a business to be in charge. We are going to get that in 20 days! 🙂 I wonder how much more money Obama can waste between now and then. 🙁
I’m going to celebrate my Happy New Year on Jan. 20, 2017. Happy New Year to all!
I think this next year of 2017 is going to be one for the ages. Don’t get discouraged by the constant negativity of the MSM. They are going to attack Trump from every direction for his entire eight years in Office, and Pence for eight years after that, so get used to it and just tune them out because they are only relevant to the sheep, and as Trump succeeds, there will be fewer sheep for the MSM to influence, as the sheep wake up from their Leftist delusions and join the real world.
I just hope he doesn’t get it in his mind to start handing out presidential pardons and sentence commutation to people like Charles Manson or Richard Davis.
Crime control is a state issue. Crime in Chicago won’t go down until the people who live there want it to go down. Until that happens, no amount of federal money will make a difference.
I think it’s quite simple… Obama needed to buy somebody. Their price was $30m.
Now that is truly High Proced Prostitution
The plant cost should be about $74 million, as per this source
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64746.pdf
A $30 million award for engineering and miscellaneous costs is pure pork barrel and smells like there’s some sort of corrupt deal going on. This really needs to be checked by a congressional investigation committee.
That is the irritating part. The $30M does not even go toward building or installing the panels. I worked on a project for the City of San Diego installing prefab toilets in local parks and we had to allot 40% of construction cost for ‘City project management’. The contractor only charged 15% for project management, overhead, AND profit. So the next time someone tells you the state is more efficient because they don’t make a profit, call them on it.
Also, how long do you think a solar facility will last in hurricane alley?
“I wonder what sort of project will incur $30 M in what amounts to bureaucratic overhead. “
I still can’t see where the $30 M figure comes from. I couldn’t see it in the linked article. How do we know – $30 M?
Nick,
Three grants, each of $10 M, “to pay for legal, consultancy and engineering costs for a new renewables project”.
Can’t say. I see that you asked earlier, below.
Perhaps you should direct your query to the post author, Eric Worrall.
Thanks.
“Perhaps you should direct your query to the post author, Eric Worrall.”
I did, below, but no response yet.
“The purpose of the grant is to support selected legal, consulting and engineering costs in late stage project development, it said.”
“The overall CEFF-CCA grant pool ceiling for USAID is US$10 million. Within this ceiling, there is no limit to the number of applications or awards. Responses will be reviewed on a rolling basis.”
Nick the above are from the link that Eric Worrall. provided.
Odd If it is a late stage project why the need for eng. and legal costs? Should not those be done first?
Also by the wording people can make claims for grant moneys until March 31. WTF They don’t even know who is going to call dibs on the grant money.
I thought that there were set procedures for issuing grants one of which the exact recipient is listed along with the exact sums required. Silly me…
“The funding opportunity will remain open until March 31, 2017 or until funds have been completely allocated, whichever occurs first.”
michael
“WTF They don’t even know who is going to call dibs on the grant money. “
As I read it, that just says that the scheme overall is taking grant applications up till March 2017. And it’s for late stage project development. It’s not clear to me whether the $10M is the total funding for the scheme, or for each grant. But I still can’t see $30M anywhere. Was it just made up?
Nick Stokes January 1, 2017 at 1:23 pm
Nick I can not find it ether. Maybe Eric will add a bit later.
At a time when the country is so in debt I see no reason to fund projects in places like Jamaica. They have a huge tourist industry so they should be able to pay or finance their own infrastructure.
michael
“Maybe Eric will add a bit later.”
$35M?
Rekamniar Capital Limited is a management consultancy company whose registered address is in London. Now this is clearly stated as money for legal, consulting, and engineering purposes. That leaves me thinking that few if any Jamaicans will get any of it. Building a power plant, if that ever happens, will require a whole lot more money, and then a few Jamaicans might be graciously granted labouring jobs.
Neoen are French: http://www.neoen.fr/en/ They will presumably use the engineering share of the money on site evaluation and preliminary design.
I’m not suggesting any wrong-doing on the part of any person or company; if you’re going to build a power plant, management, legal, and engineering work HAS to be done first, and it’s not cheap. I just note that the major beneficiaries are an English company and a French company.
Richard,
Just curious if you or anyone else noticed that “Rekamniar” is “Rainmaker” spelled backwards. Rainmaker Capital, just thought it was funny.
What I want to know is why President Obama is interfering in the affairs of a British Commonwealth country?
Surely this is calculated to affect the outcome of elections in Jamaica? I think Jamaica should immediately place sanctions on the USA…P
Small potatoes.
Remember when Obama interfered in the UK referendum for BREXIT by threatening that the UK would be at the “back of the queue” in any trade deal with the US if the country voted for BREXIT?
I think that was after he tried to influence the Israeli election (before selling them down the river)
It’s a good thing Farage and Putin did not try to influence the US Presidential election eh!
Where’s the evidence that Putin tried to influence the US election and so what if he did?
Obama’s showing himself for the whinny cry baby that everyone intelligent knew him to be, when he complains about others interfering in our elections after he has spent 8 years poking his nose into the elections of other countries.
PS: The so called interference amounted to nothing more than releasing embarrassing e-mails from Hillary and her pals. Had Hillary et. al. not spent the last 8 years finding new and inventive ways to bend the rules and outright ignore the law, there never would have been anything worth releasing.
Wouldn’t it be more effective to combine solar energy and CO2 in ganja and then burn that in the power plant instead of diesel?
You could listen to this excellent station if you had the good fortune to be downwind.
http://one-hundread-locks.playtheradio.com/
Obama is brilliant at picking the winners in the marketplace – and delivering vast quantities of other people’s money to them shortly before they go into liquidation.
Here he is explaining the reasoning behind his decision to bet on Abengoa (currently verging on becoming the largest bankruptcy in Spanish history) and Abound Solar (a total catastrophe and now bankrupt). What a genius he turned out to be: (all sarc). At least he had himself filmed being an an utter imbecile, so that we can deliver the proof as a warning for future generations:
Would you expect anything more from a community organizer who’s only managerial experience, in his own words, was running his campaign for President.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/specialreports/solyndra-scandal/
Solyndra scandal cost taxpayers $535 M, but, hey, they contributed to Obama’s campaign, so it’s all good.
Solyndra went bankrupt and the taxpayers were out $535,000,000 … but the Democratic/Obama supporters who ran Solyndra didn’t go bankrupt. They just ran to the bank with the taxpayers money.
(Imagine how prosperous “The Clinton Foundation” would have become if she had won?)
As follow up to my last comment:
I did a search “Bill Clinton Lippo Group Coal”.
Does this kind of thing sound like anything Obama is doing?
http://www.laissez-fairerepublic.com/indocoal.htm
(This was the simplest summation I found.)
Especially the “selected legal and consulting”. lmao.
It would not be so bad if it went into the pockets of the bureaucrats in Jamaica as that would then leak into the Jamaican economy and do some good on the ground. In actuality it will go to International lawyers and accountants who will filter it off into Swiss/Bermudan/Monaco bank accounts and it will never be seen again until it reappears as a new wing on Cherie Blair’s London Mansion or Amal Clooney’s Lake Garda Palagio.
Hopefully a right wing.
Or amnother Obama mansion, this time on prime Jamaican beachfront propert.
I really don’t think that cancelling the grant will “impede” any drug interdiction effort. The cops in Jamaica are absolutely corrupt, so working with them simply provides a back channel for information to the drug lords.
Second issue, I doubt Jamaica has the infrastructure to distribute 37 meg from a single source, their grid is really a bunch 12 gauge extension cords.
I make Jamaica my case study for energy solutions in an isolated island. Their system should be about 700 MW, and they do distribute this fairly well (for developing country standards). The problem with the 37 MW solar plant will be its intermittency. But since the country has a large set of liquid petroleum fueled generators, having some solar power in industrial scale with USA paying bribes and covering some costs, then it’s not a bad idea as far as Jamaicans are concerned. The USA tax payer is getting screwed. The better alternative would be to do the engineering to install an LNG de gasification plant and a 400 MW combined cycle gas turbine power generation plant.
‘we’ recently seem to be painting a picture of Obama as little more than a petulant child.
Please tell me this is not true – surely not the president/leader of such a large economy, group of people and military might. Please say its not so.
Why not make every taxi driver in New York swig an entire bottle of Jim Beam before they start work each day – much safer.
Unhappily it seems to be so. I was going to describe his current behaviour as infantile but petulant is a much better descriptor.
“Does anyone think this $30 million grant to assist the Jamaican renewables legal process will deliver any value to the Jamaican people, other than a few well connected bureaucrats? But cancelling the grant will stir up diplomatic trouble for President Trump. Diplomatic trouble with Jamaica could impede joint efforts to stamp out drug smuggling into the USA.”
The 30 million will not help the Jamaican people in any way, and your question makes clear that you know that as well as most readers of this site. The money will go to help some of the Democrat’s cronies — but I don’t know exactly which ones.
The biggest problem is that the American political/economic system since WW2 is essentially corporatism (some call it crony-capitalism). The government spending is now completely out of control and the evil of inflation is getting worse all the time.
The USA has no business or right to be giving money away to other countries or to NGOs as that money is taken by force from the America people via taxes. We need to stop all give-a-way programs at all levels.
As a side note; I am a little bitter that my uncle receives such poor care as a crippled Vietnam veteran while the government tosses money around to other countries. First take care of your own.
“… and the evil of inflation is getting worse all the time.” My better half talked to her broker/financial advisor a couple of days ago. His office is now estimating the actual inflation at approximately 7% per annum where the government is claiming only 1.7% as of December 15th of last year. I can guarantee that they (i.e., the government) don’t shop at the same food store we do.
Well a Cricket Lighter in the 1970s went for $1.49 and I can find them much cheaper today. 🙂
Obama is not only sending $30 million to Jamaica, he is sending even more to Asian cities:
http://www.wnd.com/2016/12/millions-more-for-global-climate-change-in-obamas-final-months/?cat_orig=politics
Obama sneaking in [One] final global-warming spending orgy
“The Obama administration is attempting to slip in another pricey climate-change initiative before Donald Trump takes office, potentially costing U.S. taxpayers another $90 million if it survives its unveiling – in Asia – next month. . .”
“USAID Resilient Cities Asia, as the initiative is known, would add yet another layer to the many dozens of U.S.-funded climate-related programs already under way in nearly 50 nations.
The new initiative will complement existing efforts in urban areas across Asia, according to a draft Statement of Work, or SOW, which WND discovered through routine database research.
The program’s particular angle is to provide assistance and services to secondary, rather than primary, Asian cities. Secondary cities typically cannot afford to prepare for and recover from catastrophic events purportedly caused by climate change, the agency says.”
end excerpts
No problem. The U.S. has plenty of money to throw around.
$30 MILLION DOLLARS will be eaten up in administrative cost before the sun shines
Never mind you are well shot of him, think of the damage he could have done if he or his democrats were still in. Only 19 days to go.
He was known to me as the windbag of Washington how very apt.
“Never mind you are well shot of him, think of the damage he could have done if he or his democrats were still in.”
I think about that just about every day. The U.S. got very lucky by rejecting Hillary Clinton. She would have been a continuation of Barack Obama.
Hillary would have been an English-speaking “Angela Merkel” who would turn the U.S. into the EU with insane immigration policies and attacks on the freedom of speech. We have been spared that thanks to this election.
From the article:
“Once completed, the Eight Rivers facility will generate some of the lowest cost electricity on the island, the release said.”
Yes yes, once completed solar is low cost. Fancy that, the fuel is free and the entire cost is capital. So apart from the capital and land expended, its ch aped than Da Coal.
$1m per MW just in pre project engineering? A property USC coal plant wouldn’t need $750m in studies – in fact, the engineering and BFS for a project in familiar with in the general area is about $40m. It will produce 20x the power, and run around the clock (this thing will average 7MW if ever built, but require the cabling for 37MW. 5x the infrastructure support cost.
“… once completed solar is low cost.” Really? In Hurricane Alley? I guess occasional ‘full replacement’ need not be included in ‘annual maintenance costs.’
Remember our friends in the insurance industry. That’s where a part of legal costs goes.
Of course, as we know, the tropics has extremely low year round cloud cover /sarc 😉
They could burn sugar cane. A fresh stick of raw sugar cane contains 40 calories and 10 grams of sugar.
but no fat
What do you bet there are no competitive bids, no defined outputs and a very loose schedule.
This is most likely simply money stolen from the taxpayers and directed to cronies.
Man, I can think of worse ways to make a living than to be a consultant in, say, Montego Bay for a few years. 🙂
Happy New Year, all! I just switched to my new 2017 Josh wall calendar!
A 2013 interview with the director of Rekamniar and Eight Rivers Energy, Angella Rainford-Heath:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/Cocktails-with—Angella-Rainford-Heath_14702957
Getting your hair done can cost a lot of $$!