Government Chats

In a slightly odd turn of events, this week I ended up at a panel session with two members of the Chilean cabinet: Minister of Energy Jorge Bunster Betteley and Minister of Agriculture Luis Mayol Bouchon. They each gave a short talk, introducing their ministry and what they are doing at the moment, as well as giving a lot of background information.

Unfortunately, the Agriculture talk was unbelievably boring, and seemed to only discuss water supplies throughout the country in great detail, but the Energy talk was significantly more interesting. The Minister talked about the Chilean power network, gas prices, dependence on foreign powers for fossil fuels, and the increasing role of alternative technologies. Impressively, Chile has 35% of its energy coming from hydroelectric sources. The rest is made up of mainly coal and natural gas, with some other renewable technologies thrown into the mix (don't say my blog isn't educational...).

It also gave me an excuse to see the seriously nice (and expensive) Grange School where the talk was held, and who kindly invited me along...