Quite intriguingly, Honda chose the redundant sugar factory – l’Aventure du Sucre – as the venue to launch three hybrid cars in Mauritius. This excellent museum portrays, in graphic detail, the inhuman exploitation of good people of colour by the “then” racist Franco-Mauritian elite. We attended to publicly ridicule the hybrid green-wash propaganda but were pleasantly surprised…
First, because our sparring partner from Yale, and arch supporter of the hybrid deception, Vedant Seeam was guest of honour. Second, because Mr Yoshiaki Nakamura had the perfect repost to our katana-like critique. In his presentation, the President of Honda Motor Southern Africa declared that Honda is committed to an avergage 50% reduction in CO2 emissions from its vehicles by 2020. “How on earth did he expect hybrids to achieve that?” we asked. He replied that “Hybrids are but a stepping stone to fossil-fuel free transport, whether it be all electric or hydrogen.” Respect sir!
Vedant then jumped in with his tedious line about the high CO2 emissions from Mauritius’ electricity generators. And there was the irony of being at Harel Frere’s (sorry “Terra”‘s) obsolete mill. It is because of the inefficient burning of coal in the so-called “renewable energy” bagasse power stations that our greenhouse gas emissions per kWh are so woefully high compared with other countries. It is idiotic to shout proudly from the roof tops how much of our electricity comes from “benign” bagasse when the rest of it is so environmentally malignant. So is ethanol the answer? Not in the near term, as the infrastructure for storing it at filling stations is still non-existent. And in any case, our vehicles cannot handle more than a 20% mix (E20). However, Honda is ready to help us with vehicles it has specially designed to run on E85 and E100 in Brasil.
Our view? We maintain that Mauritius can easily be self-sufficient in energy AND have enough liberated land to meet our nutritional needs. How? We have a cunning plan… One that will finally deliver the social justice and wealth re-distribution that Mauritius has awaited for so long. And companies like Terra? Well, their shareholders should be afraid…very afraid!!! 😉
