What would have hap­pened if our coun­try had sup­port­ed the two alu­mini­um smelters that the Man­ning-led PNM gov­ern­ment want­ed to set up around 2010? A stronger econ­o­my and abun­dant forex? Would there have been low un­em­ploy­ment? Would we have grad­u­at­ed to first-world coun­try sta­tus with smooth roads, prop­er drainage, no flood­ing, and full em­ploy­ment? Would for­mer PM Man­ning’s Vi­sion 2020 di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion plan have been re­alised?

The es­ti­mat­ed price tag for both smelters was over US$2.5 bil­lion. The TGU pow­er plant was built to run the Alutrint smelter, but its 720 MW out­put now pro­duces half of our na­tion’s elec­tri­cal pow­er. That is on­ly be­cause there is no smelter, of course.

The then-UNC op­po­si­tion, of which I was a part, suc­cess­ful­ly led the an­ti-smelter cam­paign. That was one of the high­lights of my en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivism.

I am con­fi­dent that we saved our na­tion from se­ri­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal and health con­cerns. Did we forego a pos­si­ble US$13 bil­lion in rev­enue (if the two smelters were built by 2012), though?

An­oth­er PNM “gamechang­er” which I op­posed with great ef­fect was the “San­dals Project”. I have nev­er re­gret­ted my role in that project’s “demise”. I have writ­ten enough about that bad busi­ness deal and its en­vi­ron­men­tal detri­ment.

Our Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent sign­ing of MoUs for the con­struc­tion of a 300 MW da­ta cen­tre by Ernst & Young LLP and one of 150 MW by Hum­ming­bird AI Hold­ings LLC has set tongues wag­ging.

The MoU with Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion to restart the idled iron and steel plant at Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate has been heav­i­ly over­shad­owed by the un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­ments.

Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have failed to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my and at­tract sig­nif­i­cant FDI.

We are with­in our rights and with­in rea­son to de­fend our health and en­vi­ron­ment, but we can­not dis­miss every­thing with­out con­sid­er­ing the mer­its as well.

In 2008, our coun­try had the low­est debt-to-GDP ra­tio in the mod­ern era. We were in a much bet­ter eco­nom­ic po­si­tion to de­fend our en­vi­ron­men­tal­ism, so our “smelter block” still holds up as a good move.

This time around, we are hear­ing a lot about the con­sump­tion of wa­ter and pow­er by da­ta cen­tres. Can these chal­lenges be over­come? Are they worth the trou­ble?

Gov­ern­ment crit­i­cism of mem­bers of the pub­lic for ex­press­ing their con­cerns re­gard­ing the da­ta cen­tres is un­for­tu­nate.

This is the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­sult, en­gage, and al­lay their fears. Get the naysay­ers to buy in.

Strange­ly, the in­di­vid­ual who best pro­mot­ed the da­ta cen­tres, thus far, is Jef­frey Cern­yar, Eco­nom­ic Chief at the US Em­bassy.

He sug­gest­ed that the fa­cil­i­ties (es­ti­mat­ed to cost US$5 bil­lion) could be op­er­a­tional with­in two years, es­pe­cial­ly with our ex­cess elec­tri­cal ca­pac­i­ty (cour­tesy of our TGU plant?).

He al­so in­tro­duced the idea of set­ting up the da­ta cen­tres at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate.

I have heard talk about them be­ing placed in Debe or even at the Or­ange Grove Es­tate, but avoid­ing res­i­den­tial ar­eas en­tire­ly will def­i­nite­ly elim­i­nate noise com­plaints.

Cern­yar re­ferred to our coun­try’s de­sali­na­tion ex­pe­ri­ence, so per­haps a de­sal plant could be built for the cen­tres like TGU was built for the smelters.

On-site re­ten­tion ponds and processed waste­water could al­so in­su­late res­i­den­tial wa­ter sup­plies.

What about sit­ing them in flood-prone ar­eas? Would it still flood there, or would res­i­dents ben­e­fit from first-world in­vest­ment with safe­guards against nat­ur­al dis­as­ters in and around their as­sets? I have yet to hear com­plaints about flood­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with these projects.

As re­gards elec­tric­i­ty, as part of their cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, EY and Hum­ming­bird could sup­port so­lar and oth­er green en­er­gy projects, which would re­turn some of their con­sump­tion to cit­i­zens.

Da­ta Cen­tres are some of the largest buy­ers of en­vi­ron­men­tal cred­its in the world. Our gov­ern­ment needs to set up a frame­work to sell re­new­able en­er­gy cer­tifi­cates to them.

We can po­ten­tial­ly “green” our econ­o­my and turn the com­plaints ex­pe­ri­enced in oth­er lo­ca­tions in­to cheers from our cit­i­zens.

It could be said that I op­posed two par­tic­u­lar PNM mega-projects and that I want to sup­port this one from the UNC.

The dif­fer­ence is that I can see pos­si­ble so­lu­tions to the prob­lems posed.

The ques­tion is whether or not con­struc­tive crit­i­cism or sug­ges­tions will be tak­en on board by the gov­ern­ment.

The PNM Op­po­si­tion al­so has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn this in­to their own “an­ti-smelter” or “San­dals demise” if the gov­ern­ment rail­roads the pub­lic with the project like for­mer PM Man­ning was do­ing with the smelters.

If this UNC gov­ern­ment in­cor­po­rates the lessons we taught the PNM in 2010, these projects could pave the way for an­oth­er UNC elec­tion win in 2030.

Late last week, the Hadeeds al­most got to up­grade their cir­cum­stances to “house ar­rest” with a flur­ry of po­lice ac­tiv­i­ty at their Bayshore res­i­dence. How­ev­er, an emer­gency late-night hear­ing by an Ap­peal Court pan­el led by CJ Boodoos­ingh grant­ed the state an in­ter­im stay of their home de­ten­tion.

The State has been grant­ed leave to chal­lenge the re­lease or­der to the Privy Coun­cil. So there will be use of those KCs yet.

I con­tin­ue to fear the tax­pay­ers’ bill for an­oth­er Privy Coun­cil ex­cur­sion. I al­so hope that we won’t have to pay for the vi­o­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of my for­mer col­league Dr Jack Warn­er af­ter his decade-long chal­lenge against ex­tra­di­tion.