Trinidad and To­ba­go has spent more than a cen­tu­ry mas­ter­ing the busi­ness of en­er­gy. The ques­tion now is whether that ex­per­tise can pow­er the coun­try’s next eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion—or leave it be­hind. Around the world, the race is no longer just to pro­duce clean en­er­gy. It is to man­u­fac­ture the tech­nolo­gies, fu­els and ma­te­ri­als that will de­fine the next in­dus­tri­al econ­o­my. It is well doc­u­ment­ed that T&T has a head­start in this race, not sole­ly be­cause of the in­fra­struc­ture that ex­ists at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, but al­so the ex­per­tise that lies in the na­tion’s hu­man cap­i­tal.

But hav­ing the in­gre­di­ents for suc­cess does not guar­an­tee the out­come. Across the coun­try, ques­tions re­main over whether T&T is mov­ing fast enough to at­tract green in­vest­ment, de­vel­op new in­dus­tries and pre­pare its work­force for the de­mands of the en­er­gy tran­si­tion.

Pro­fes­sor of Process En­gi­neer­ing at UTT, Don­nie Bood­lal, told the Sun­day Guardian this coun­try is in a pe­cu­liar po­si­tion.