XenogyRE – humble beginnings

The motivation to start xenogy really originated out of my love for and interest in energy – clean, renewable and sustainable energy – and thus the name. My primary interest in energy sprung from my love of physics and by extension electronics and electrical, all of which I was exposed to at Holmwood Technical High School located in the cool hills of Christiana, Manchester (congratulations to the girls for reclaiming their title as ISSA GraceKennedy Girls Champs 2013).

Growing up I was never the avid reader (or writer) of any form of social commentary. Throughout secondary school and the three years I spent pursing an undergraduate degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of the West Indies, I was always more interested in crunching numbers and read and wrote only as required by the courses I undertook.

I think I have come a long way since writing my first article titled “solar basics” which I recently added to my collection of articles here on wordpress.com. Xenogy started out as a page on facebook.com using the website’s note feature to tailor articles to, then, a small number of followers. I lost some content as a result of the facebook’s abrupt decision to block a plugin app I was using to facilitate my content formatting, so I decided to move to weebly.com where I had more control. I, however, opted to migrate to wordpress.com shortly thereafter as the burden of formatting and content management was taking away from the writing.

Having edified myself up to the post graduate level, I am now at a junction where I desperately desire to share my acquired knowledge and interest in energy. This urge is tightly coupled with my love for the environment, my country (yea man) and my progeny (she’s a bundle of joy), which have pushed me to the point that I spend long hours researching and writing articles on subjects ranging from solar photovoltaic to shale gas, when I should be sleeping (I glanced at the time: 1:39Am and sigh!).

There is no doubt that Jamaica is in a very sticky position. Why? Because, energy is the force driving and sustaining all activities in our society and we are suffering from an energy crisis. Our current economic state is closely tied to our antiquated energy systems and until we (the people and the government) get serious and address the energy problem then we will never live to see the back of the IMF and the fiscal cliff will be towering above our heads.

I do feel that we the people are the key to saving our nation. As a result, I have decided to zoom in on solar, wind and hydroelectric systems for the rest of the year (2013). I am doing this because I am convinced that solar, wind and hydroelectric (a mature technology) are the solutions we so desire in the land of sunshine, wind, and water (I am changing the phase from “land of wood and water”).

I started out writing this post with the intention of sharing with you a simple infographic on solar pv systems, however the idea shifted and the title of the article changed, but I refuse to deprive you of the information so I decided to attach the infographic below: all credit goes to www.solarenergy.net. Edify yourself and feel free to leave a comment!