Jeffrey Steynor, one of the latest winners of the Oil Scholarship, hopes to one day work on bringing alternative sources of renewable energy to Bermuda.

The Oil Scholarship is a new award granted by the Oil Group of Companies to two Bermudian students involved in undergraduate or graduate study. This year Mr. Steynor won it along with Theodore Francis.

Mr. Steynor recently put some of his ideas on show in a fun way at the last Non-Mariner?s race held a few weeks ago. His entry featured a tall windmill like structure powered by the hot air of local politicians.

?The Non-Mariners race was great,? Mr. Steynor said shortly after the non-race. ?My entry was designed to give the idea that wind power is an option for Bermuda, but it is not only wind power we can use; there is wave power as well. There are some really cool things that they are testing in Scotland right now that Bermuda could really benefit from it.

?There were about ten to 15 other entries in the race. Everyone came down with some good ideas and we all had fun putting them together on the beach. I planned mine for about a week before. I got to practise some engineering while working with it.?

Mr. Steynor received the $25,000 scholarship to continue his studies in mechanical engineering with renewable energy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

?I just study hard and do what I have to do,? he said. ?I went into the interview for the Oil Scholarship holding nothing back. I think what I am doing is good. I have a plan and I have ideas. I went in and showed my confidence.?

Mr. Steynor is currently a summer student at Belco in the environmental department.

?Working at Belco opens up doors,? he said. ?Whenever I go back to university I can apply what I have learned in the classroom. It allows the real world to actually tie in with the classroom.?

He would love to one day work on an outdoor windfarm. He is particularly interested in a source of renewable energy called the Pelamis, otherwise known as ?the floating snake?.

?It floats in the water and creates electricity by the waves,? he said. ?If I could get experience working with these things, I could come back to Bermuda and try to introduce them.?

Mr. Steynor was not quite as keen on solar energy for a number of reasons, including expense.

?There was a study done a few years ago that found that because Bermuda is so densely populated we don?t have the surface area to actually provide a usable amount of power this way,? he said. ?However, it would be great if more people could use solar power to heat their hot water. People need to start realising that everything that they consume makes a difference. If there are six million people in the world and everyone uses a hot water heater for 20 minutes a day and you add that all up then you are looking at 120 million hours of using the water heater. If we were all to use solar power to heat water then we are saving the earth for future generations. One of my favourite sayings is you do not inherit the earth from your ancestors, you borrow it from your children.?

He said Bermudians often don?t realise how much energy they are wasting just driving to the store down the street.

?That milk then doesn?t cost $3,? he said. ?If you put a dollar value on the environmental hurt, the milk goes up to $7. If you walk to the store it is still $3. When everyone had the power outage, the average Bermudian flicked a switch and expects power to be there.

?People are very good at ignoring problems until they really pose a threat. The problem with the earth is it is a filter. It has a capacity to deal with pollution, but the effects of 50 years ago are still being dealt with today.?

Mr. Steynor warned that global warming is a ticking time bomb that won?t be ignored for much longer. He said that because of global warming, the number of hurricanes each year has increased from six to 18. ?Soon the number of hurricanes each year might go up to 50,? he said. Mr. Steynor admitted that he himself does not use solar power because he is not financially independent yet.

?I am still too young, and I don?t make enough money,? he said. ?It is expensive. When I finish school and I have my house, I will have hot water heated by alternative means, and maybe a little wind turbine. I may have solar panels, but solar panels are going through rapid changes right now. If you have so much area, and the sun hits it you only get four percent of the sun?s energy. Now they are up to six or seven percent. It is quite difficult to take the heat and create electricity out of it. It is a very complicated process.?

He said he would like to be the kind of person who only creates a neutral impact on the environment around him.

?Ninety-nine percent of the population makes the environment worse,? he said. ?I want to be that one percent that doesn?t.?

Unfortunately, while good in sentiment, even he finds it difficult to carry out. He admits that he still sometimes takes his bike to work when he knows he could use the ferry. Even using public transportation takes up resources.

He said that his life was changed when he left Bermuda to attend the United World College on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

?Bermuda is my home and I love it to death, but I was feeling a bit confined as to what I could do,? he said.

Later he went to France, somewhat disastrously, to study chemistry.

?I did not speak French. I had done beginner French at UWC, but only passed because they lost the exam papers,? he said. ?I went to France and studied under the French school system. Because of the Bermuda British passport I was able to study in France for about 150. I studied as hard as I could. In chemistry class I had my translation dictionary, papers and pens and text books. I tried to understand the teacher in French and I couldn?t understand a word. All the other students would laugh. I didn?t figure it out until a few weeks later when I made friends with some of my classmates. One of my friends said, ?you know why we laugh at you? Because we don?t understand what the teacher is saying and we speak French. You have a translation dictionary, how the heck are you going to understand???

The friend turned out to be right, and Mr. Steynor failed his chemistry class.

?It was the first time I actually failed in school,? he said. ?It was a slap in the face. It made me wake up and say, ?I can?t do everything. I have to have certain skills to do what I want to do and I need this language?. I stayed in France for another year. Now I speak fluent French.?

One experience that helped him learn the language was acting as a nanny for two children in Nice.

?I showed up in Nice at 9 a.m. with a bag on my back and $1,000 in US cash and nothing else,? he said. ?I slept in the train station on the first night and then I found a hostel. Then I found a lady who needed me to baby-sit for ten hours a week and teach her children English. This was in the hills, ten kilometres away from Nice. I would drive them to and from school and then go to university, and then pick them up from their father?s house and take them home. Living in this family arrangement showed me role models and showed me what it would be like to be a dad. It was demanding but it taught me a lot. It was really good.?

When he finished with his gap year, he had nine months to kill before he started his studies at the University of Edinburgh. He decided to spend his time studying advance maths at the Bermuda College to keep his brain agile. ?The French, besides allowing me to talk to French girls, will help me later on in terms of being able to travel in France and feeling comfortable in any situation,? he said.