Country Name: Bahamas
Author: Adam Davis

What does an innovative school in the Bahamas have to teach the rest of the world? The Ecosystem Marketplace finds out.



When Jack Kenworthy accepted a job as a science teacher at the Island School in the Bahamas six years ago, he had no idea he would soon become chief operating officer of a for-profit business leveraging international interest in climate change, but that's just what happened.

Located on the island of Eleuthera, The Island School first opened its doors to 22 high school students and six faculty members in 1999. Seven years later, students come from over 160 institutions across the U.S., Canada, and The Bahamas to participate in the school's unique approach to learning by doing.

As the Island School has grown, Kenworthy has helped develop its educational and physical infrastructure. And in both endeavors, he's made sure sustainability has been at the core of his work. The school's infrastructure expansion, for instance, included wind, solar and hybrid energy, recycled building materials, and a wetlands system for wastewater treatment. In what grew to be a hallmark of the Island School approach to learning, these facilities then provided the basis for significant parts of the curriculum.

Once these programs were up and running, Kenworthy started a laboratory to turn waste vegetable oil from the cruise ships that stopped at Eleuthera—some 150 each year—into biodiesel fuel. "We're now producing about 16,000 gallons of biodiesel a year which runs the entire bus and auto fleet, and we're doing it at a cost of $1.20 per gallon," says Kenworthy. Since conventional diesel now sells for $4.15 per gallon on the island, and regular gas for $5.00, this is a significant savings.

At the same time, the cruise ships save money because they actually have to use diesel fired incinerators to combust waste vegetable oil, along with other organic waste on board. Don Furdock, a spokesman for Princess Cruise Lines which initially provided the waste oil for conversion, says, "I was very happy to learn this material has value for his use, and of course, that this usefulness is a plus for the planet's ecosystems as well."

As Kenworthy gained experience in producing biodiesel, the possibility for expansion seemed obvious.

Cape Systems

"There are about 150 cruise ship stops at Eleuthera each year," says Kenworthy, "but next door on Nassau there are closer to 1300." So, perhaps still in the spirit of learning by doing, the Island School, a non-profit corporation, spun off a for-profit subsidiary, Cape Systems, in 2003. In its first major project, a joint venture with two other Bahamian companies, Cape Systems will produce between 500,000 and 750,000 gallons of biodiesel annually in Nassau, with 100% of its share of profits going back to support the activities of the school.

The facility is being designed so that leftover glycerin, a natural byproduct of the biodiesel production process, can help fuel production, along with waste heat from a medical incinerator on an adjacent property. As a side benefit, and as another possible learning opportunity for the Island School students, Cape Systems is teaming with the Bahamas Waste company to compost any leftover glycerin. Bahamas Waste will combine the glycerin as a small proportion of a composting recipe that also includes yard waste and cardboard.
Cape Systems has also come to realize that every gallon of biodiesel (B100) fuel provides a 78% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the use of conventional diesel. This means that the new Nassau project will produce at least 4000 tons of CO2 emissions reductions. And since the Bahamas is a Kyoto signatory, Kenworthy is intent on taking advantage of this additional benefit.

As part of a recent trip to Europe to meet with biodiesel conversion equipment manufacturers, he met with London based Climate Care and inked a deal paying him up front for the right to buy the first 30,000 tons of CO2 reduction from the Nassau project at the rate of $5.00 per ton. While this rate is lower than the average price per ton paid by Climate Care for emissions reductions, Cape Systems is essentially getting the benefit of the up-front CO2 sale as a form of interest free capital.

"We are very pleased to be working with Cape Systems as they are taking a waste product and turning it into a high grade fuel to displace diesel in the Bahamas' road vehicles. This is exactly the type of project that needs promotion if we are to achieve the resource efficiency needed to make a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the next few years," says Tom Morton, managing director of Climate Care. "We were impressed with the research and market building that Cape Systems have put in place and are very pleased to be able to give them the financial support required to get the project off the ground."

Of course, all this means that Kenworthy and the Cape Systems crew have had to immerse themselves in the world of carbon offsets and climate change—a not insignificant investment of time and attention given all of the other tasks at hand. In order to retain the confidence of its buyers, Climate Care insists that all of the emissions reductions it buys be verified by a third party, additional to actions that would have occurred in any event, and free of 'double counting'—that is, it will only buy CO2 reductions that go over and above those that governments are already required to make.

Heady stuff for someone who only signed up to be a science teacher on an island paradise, perhaps, but Kenworthy is excited about the challenge. "Our use of waste vegetable oil from cruise ships will fund an education program that is founded on the lessons learned by putting sustainability principles into action," he says.

Lessons for the Mainland

It looks like a lot more action is heading Kenworthy's way, too. Cape Systems is already negotiating a deal for a larger facility for the Dominican Republic that will produce between 3 and 5 million gallons of biodiesel each year. This project is being developed in partnership with the Dominican Republic based Integral Development Institute, and will utilize oil in seeds from a locally farmed plant called jatropha, a shrub native to the Caribbean, in addition to waste oil from cruise ships. "The great thing about jatropha is that it doesn't compete with normal agriculture the way some biomass or oil crops do," says Kenworthy. "It grows in marginal soils, and doesn't require any fertilizer or irrigation." Cape Systems is also analyzing potential projects in Costa Rica and Grand Turk.

Fortunately, the sale of carbon offsets looks like it can grow to accommodate the increased production (Climate Care's sales have doubled every year for the past six years). In the meantime, the school will mainly rely on the cost savings provided by the biodiesel over the high cost of importing conventional diesel to the island in order to fund the project. And in the long run, the combination of the carbon revenues and the cost-savings make the project finance look even better.

In a way, these two motivations, fuel cost savings and the value of emissions reductions, exactly reflect the lessons that island living has to teach the rest of us. "Anything that comes out here, stays here," says Kenworthy, "So being able to utilize the material we have to make the fuel we need just makes sense." Perhaps that's something for the U.S. to think about as it uses 29% of world oil while having just 3% of world oil reserves.

And as for the value of emissions reductions, the value to island dwellers everywhere is far higher than the present value on the carbon markets. Without meaningful change in the increasing rate of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the combination of severe weather events and rising ocean levels may make life impossible in places like the Bahamas.

An island is a useful metaphor for a planet, all by itself in the middle of an ocean, and because they are subject to various selective pressures more quickly than the mainland, they provide the rest of the world a glimpse into our collective future. Since $5.00 a gallon gas may not be that far off for us non-island dwellers, we might do well to look to projects like the Island School as we fashion our responses.

Adam Davis is a gun-toting, Guinness-swigging fisherman. He may be reached at adavis789@sbcglobal.net

First published: October 11, 2006

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