As I said in my last post of 18th December, 2021, I am going to offer to interpret His Majesty’s most riveting 114th National Day Speech, beginning with this first installment.
To me His Majesty’s body language on that day was clear – it was not one of surrender – it was one of absolute resolve. It was clear for all to see - that the days of words are behind Him – He will now act. His closing words were as follows:
“There is nothing new in what I am sharing today. These are part of daily conversation among our people while expressing their concerns, hopes and aspirations. Rather than leave these concerns and sentiments within the confines of their homes, I re-articulate them today as the King’s Command on this National Day”.
Before I begin my series, I would like to remind you of another of my interpretations – that of His Majesty’s 111th National Day Celebration in Samtse, during 2018. You can read it at the following:
https://yesheydorji.blogspot.com/2018/12/that-creed-of-humanoids-called-civil.html
I broke down His Majesty’s 114th National Day speech into numbers. The statistics, as they show up on my computer screen, are as follows:
1,906 Words
30 Paragraphs
216 Lines
107 Sentences
Number of lines may vary, depending on your choice of font, page margins and font size choice – other numbers will not change.
Scanning through the 107 sentences that made up the total speech, significantly, the first in order of the many concerns His Majesty expressed dealt with - hydropower. He spoke as follows:
Sentence 29th: For example, hydropower today is an important source of our wealth.
Sentence 30th: With rapid advancements in harnessing nuclear, hydrogen, fusion, solar, thermal and wind energy, hydropower may soon lose its competitive edge.
Sentence 31st: We may soon become a net energy importer.
Sentence 32nd: Therefore, it is imperative to seize the opportunity and enhance the capabilities of our people, and strengthen the economic and governance framework to harness the potential ushered in by these rapid and dynamic technological changes.
What His Majesty is endeavoring to point out, in fact He is saying it clearly in His 31st sentence – that Hydropower will cease to be the technology of choice in the coming years. He is clear that emerging and advancing alternate sources of energy harnessed from nuclear, hydrogen, fusion, solar, thermal and wind – will render hydropower - REDUNDANT.
In one of my 67 blog articles on the subject of hydropower, the following is what I had said, on 23rd of January, 2018:
“Let us be responsible to our future generations and make a pledge today to keep some of our rivers free flowing. In any event, solar power is fast emerging as a serious competition to hydro-power. In 1977 solar cells used to cost US$ 76.67 per watt. By July of 2016, per watt cost of solar cells had dropped to US$ 0.26. It will not be long before hydro-power is nudged out of the competition. Thus even from the point of view of investment, it looks like we are putting our debts behind a loser.
Let us stop further hydro-power projects. It is pretty clear that in the next 5-6 years, energy generated by hydro-power projects will no longer be competitive. Even worse, water may no longer qualify as a renewable resource, caused by global warming”.
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