Kate and I moved to Eleuthera 8 months ago. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been here forever, other times I step back and marvel at this place. It’s hard to describe life down here, and this became more of a “what we do.” For those with ADD, here are some pictures.
The Island School
It all started with The Island School, an experiential, semester abroad program for high school students that Kate’s sister Sophie attended back in 2001. The Island School is 9 years old, and was started by Chris Maxey, a Yale graduate turned Navy Seal turned history teacher at Lawrenceville (in NJ). The school has spawned a number of different entities, and the Cape Eleuthera Foundation (a US 501(c)3 non profit) was created to support all of them.
The crux of the school’s vision is teaching sustainability, and helping people understand their impact on the world (both positive and negative). A lot of the learning is place-based, meaning that Eleuthera and The Bahamas play an important role.
Eleuthera
The Island School is located on Cape Eleuthera, the western tip of the whale’s tail on South Eleuthera. The school is located on the site of the former Cape Eleuthera Resort, the remains of which were destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Eleuthera is really a fascinating place, experiencing several booms and busts over the last half-century. These days, Atlantis is what people associate with The Bahamas, but the rich and famous have been coming to Eleuthera for a long time, from Harbor Island in the north to Club Med in the middle to Cotton Bay in the south.
South Eleuthera specifically has a sordid past, and is virtually tourist free these days. Kate and I live in Deep Creek, a small settlement 5 miles from the Cape. We have a 2 bedroom apartment in “The Compound,” a Melrose-esque complex where 11 staff from the foundation live. We enjoy luxuries such as wild chickens and dogs, cable internet and occasional brown outs.
Deep Creek Middle School
Kate works for the Deep Creek Middle School (DCMS), a grade 7-9 middle school (33 students) for Bahamians started by The Island School. It’s an interesting place, and melds the cultures of the Bahamian students and the US/UK/Canadian teachers. Kate’s one of six teachers at the school, teaching science and leading a community outreach group. DCMS introduces a lot of the same experiential learning from The Island School into their curriculum, and the kids eat it up. Most of the incoming seventh graders can’t swim, and by the time they graduate they’re all SCUBA certified. Some of the students even go on to US boarding schools, a huge accomplishment considering that some have never left Eleuthera.
Cape Systems
The Island School generates most of its energy from solar and wind power, and makes biodiesel out of used cooking oil from passing cruise ships. Repeated efforts to eat our sustainability-brand dog food have provided lots of valuable lessons and insights. This generated enough outside interest that a company was formed to serve the requests for help. Cape Systems is about 2.5 years old, and serves as a consultancy for renewable energy, biofuels, and most recently carbon. Just like any startup, we have been experienced tremendous growth and lots of obstacles. We have installed solar water heating, solar power, wind power, and even offset carbon.
Utility power is really expensive out here, because it’s all from diesel generators. Most of you in the states are probably paying ~5 cents per kwh, down here it’s ~34 cents and rising. This makes alternative energy very compelling financially, but current legislation does not allow net metering, a fancy way of saying that you get a credit for the excess power you’re putting back onto the grid.
Freedom 2030
The Bahamas is at the front lines of climate change, as a low lying nation of islands. To promote the need for change, we have created a campaign called Freedom 2030. The vision is an Eleuthera (meaning Isle of Freedom) freed from its dependency of petroleum products by the year 2030. This is definitely an ambitious, and also feasible, goal. We have been working with the monopoly Bahamas Electricity Corporation, the government, the Inter American Development Bank and developers to figure out how to fund a study and pilot projects to make this vision a reality. Here’s a good write up from the symposium we held in February.
Biodiesel
This is probably our most compelling story. There’s a good article here, the summary is that we’re hoping to create a million gallon per year biodiesel plant in Nassau. We’ve partnered with Bahamas Waste, the waste management company for the island, and we plan on using used cooking oil from cruise ships and restaurants. We’re not sure if/when we’re get government approval, but this could be huge!
Carbon
The sale of carbon credits is harder to explain but the basic takeaway is that there is clear evidence linking an increase in green house gases (ghg) to climate change, sea level rise, and increased storm activity. You can reduce your carbon “footprint”/impact by being more energy efficient, switching to renewable energy sources (solar power) and generally being more considerate of your lifestyle/actions. BUT, there are some things that you can’t find a “green” equivalent for, one large one being air travel. Instead of sailing to The Bahamas, you can choose to pay a third party for their investment in reducing/offsetting ITS carbon emissions. This is far more efficient and also encourages businesses to invest in “greening” their own operations. Because this is an emerging market, it’s hard to know what’s snake oil and what’s a legitimate investment in ghg reduction. We provide only high quality, credible sources of carbon offsetting that principally come from renewable energy projects. We’re not at the scale yet to create these offsets from our own projects, so we have joined a US exchange where we can broker the purchase of credits for resale.
We’ve also created the Caribbean Carbon Exchange, which will serve as a market for creating credits and promoting eco-tourism in the region. My vision is that we’ll have a portfolio of large scale renewable energy projects that produce clean power, provide carbon offsets, and reduce the country’s dependence on a dwindling foreign oil supply (that also costs 12% of its GDP annually).
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