Mexican Power Crisis -- A Modest Proposal

The photo at left shows Laguna Verde, the site of Mexico's two nuclear reactors presently generating almost 5% of its electric power. Mexico has some oil and natural gas reserves, and has always been a net energy exporter. If you sense an irony in building a nuke plant in a place named Laguna Verde (Green Cove), don't make a big thing of it. They haven't had an environment-threatening accident since commissioning in1989, and recently Mexico announced its intention to convert the two reactors to operate on low-enriched uranium, greatly reducing its output of nuclear waste and reducing the possibility that waste from the plant could be used to manufacture a weapon.
Apart from the nukes at Laguna Verde, Mexico generates the bulk of its power from, you'll never guess, hydro-electric. Mexico has only two fossil fuel plants, each generating about the same power as the Laguna Verde plant. Total generating capacity in 07 was calculated at 50 megawatts (total US capacity is estimated at just over 1 MILLION megawatts). The economy of Mexico is centered around agriculture, light industry and tourism. Any jokes about the drug trade at this point would be in very poor taste. Mexico struggles; Mexico survives; Mexico finds it very difficult to live in the shadow of the world's largest consumer economy. Mexico needs a break.
Hence my modest proposal. The power utility in Mexico is government-owned. Mexican energy policy is already more progressive than that of the privately owned power utilities in the US, by quite a bit. Mexico's power consumption is estimated to grow by 6% per year for the foreseeable future (US power consumption is estimated to grow by half that much). The Vicente Fox administration, recently replaced by the slightly more conservative Calderon administration in 2009, has outlined ambitious programs for exploiting the wind and wave potential of Mexico's climate for power generation.
Why not make Mexico a solar test bed for the skeptics of the world? Mexico's governmental power rests heavily in the centralized administration of the Presidency. The initiatives for massive solar projects would not be held up by, for instance, wounded bellowing from oil-addicted naysayers whose last names rhyme with McConnell and Palin and Cheney. The problem, as is so often the problem, is money.
Mexico is relatively poor. Mexico is also beset by a thriving drug industry that operates within and without its system of laws and enforcement agencies. Mexico is Colombia ten years ago, in one sense. If the Chinese, Saudis, Venezuelans and other cash-rich groups want to foster the next emerging superstate on the globe, why not Mexico? The credit of the nation is not perfect; a credit crisis in 1994 was embarrassing; the recent US recession has prostrated Mexico's GDP for reasons that are widely discussed in the media. For good or bad, Mexico's economy is tied to that of the US.
What if Mexico had an energy surplus, a power distribution system that was spread over the country via solar PV farms and wind farms to permit the growth of local industry (and yes, i'm no fool, the possible relocation of more manufacturing jobs from US companies, to the detriment of the US job situation, already strained) and entrepreneurship by local and foreign interests?
What if Mexico could offer solar power constructed near the site of any proposed manufacturing facility, creating a national grid with flexibility and extra capacity to accommodate new growth? What if solar electric power came to the countryside and permitted the campesinos to farm more aggressively and operate light industry for export? what if every small city in Mexico had a solar plant to cogenerate along with the national grid and produce revenue and a bit of energy independence, leading to a more decentrialized economy?
What if? I don't know where the money will come from. But the world has money, and the world's creditors should be taking another look at a society that already has progressive energy policies, a workforce proven in its desire to earn higher wages (that's why they cross that river, Bob), and a centralized government in which things can get done without undue wrangling from a stubborn obstructionist ox-brained unlettered shrill-messaged war-friendly faux-religious opposition. Unlike any other society bordering Mexico, in any way at all, certainly.
Mexico is ready for alternative energy. The US is mired in denial and old-time religions centered around oil. The Mexican people are already motivated to pursue economic improvement, even to the point of moving to the US and sending their meager wages back home to loved ones. Mexico deserves a chance. An alternative energy boom in Mexico could take on the excitement of another gold rush, and the result can only strengthen a state that needs every advantage to deal with its internal problems.