Africa must move forward without them, using fossil and nuclear energy to build prosperity
By Paul Driessen and David Wojick
Africa has the world’s lowest electrification rate. Its power consumption per capita is just 613 kilowatt-hours per year, compared to 6,500 kWh in Europe and 13,000 in the United States, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina observed in July 2017. That’s 9.4% of EU and 4.7% of US electricity consumption. It’s equivalent to Americans having electricity only 1 hour a day, 8 hours a week, 411 hours per year – at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes, hours or days at a stretch.
It’s actually even worse than that. Excluding significantly electrified South Africa, sub-Sahara Africans consume an almost irrelevant 181 kWh of electricity per capita – 1.4% of the average American’s!
In Sub-Saharan Afria, over 600 million people have no electricity, and over 700 million rely on wood, grass and dung for cooking and heating. The region is home to 16% of the world’s population, and 53% of those without electricity. By 2050, its urban populations could increase by 600 million.
Determined to transform the “dark continent,” the AfDB launched a $12-billion New Deal on Energy in 2017 and a Light Up and Power Africa initiative in July 2018. It frequently emphasized that access to sufficient supplies of reliable, affordable modern energy – including fossil fuels – is critical for the continent’s social and economic development. Without energy, it is impossible to create jobs, increase productivity, reduce inequality, improve people’s health and wellbeing, or end poverty.
The bank’s lofty goal for its energy New Deal is 100% access to electricity in urban areas, and 95% in rural areas, by 2025. In July 2017, Mr. Adesina told the African Union Summit he was excited that “Japan has answered our call” to “adopt a balanced energy mix” that includes “its ultra-super critical clean coal technologies” that remove sulfur, nitrogen oxides and particulates, while greatly reducing CO2 emissions.
In 2018, the bank approved seed money for a Nigerian coal project and geared up to finance a 350MW coal plant in Senegal. It also initiated plans for a $2-billion coal-fired power station in the Kenya’s port city of Lamu, after the IMF, World Bank and other western lenders rebuffed Kenya.
But then Mr. Adesina and the AfDB caved in to carbon colonialist pressure. The bank now says almost nothing about coal or even natural gas. Its new themes include: responding to global concerns about climate change, gradually adopting a “low-carbon and sustainable growth path,” significantly reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and transitioning to “green growth” and “clean renewable energy,”
In September 2019, the bank announced that it planned to begin scrapping coal-fired power plants all across Africa, build “the largest solar zone” in the world, and pull funding for the Lamu power plant. “We’re getting out of coal,” Mr. Adesina said. “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future.”
So the AfDB has joined the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and other Multilateral anti-Development Banks in caring more about climate alarmism and avoiding criticism from the likes of Greta, the perpetually aggrieved and angry Grinch of Christmas 2019 – than they do about safeguarding the lives, livelihoods, health and living standards of hundreds of millions of electricity-deprived Africans.
This 180-degree flip-flop is delusional, dysfunctional and disingenuous. For many, it will be lethal.
First, there is nothing “green,” “clean” or “renewable” about wind and solar energy. The vast amounts of land and raw materials, mines and factories required to build wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and transmission lines – to harness widely dispersed, insufficient, intermittent, weather-dependent wind and solar energy to benefit Sub-Saharan Africans – are anything but clean, green, renewable or sustainable. In fact, trying to meet those needs would require millions of turbines and billions of solar panels.
Second, The AfDB cannot possibly achieve its Energy New Deal or Light Up and Power Africa goals with wind and solar. It will never reach 100% or even 25% access to meaningful electricity that way. No country has ever built or sustained a modern economy this way – and countries that have tried to by mandating wind, solar and fossil-fuel-free economies are paying a terrible price. Headlines tell the story.
Germany’s green suicide: Industrial job losses top 80,000. German wind industry faces extinction. 340,000 German families have pricey electricity cut off. British steel faces insolvency; British families are already deeply in debt to their energy suppliers, before winter even sets in. Meanwhile, the fossil and nuclear-based US economy added another 266,000 jobs in November and wages also grew.
Third, there is no evidence to support claims that temperatures, droughts and weather anywhere in Africa are unprecedented or due to carbon dioxide from fossil fuels – or from wood, grass and dung fires. They and other climate changes have been common throughout history, and an energy-rich, prosperous Africa will be far better able to deal with future changes than a poor, energy-deprived continent could.
Fourth, China, India, Indonesia and other countries are not going stop building coal- and gas-fired power plants – and emitting enormously more CO2. Why should Africa and the AfDb go down a different path?
Finally, banishing fossil fuels (and nuclear), and focusing on pseudo-renewable energy will mean millions of children and parents will continue to suffer and die needlessly every year from diseases of poverty and energy deprivation. This eco-manslaughter at the hands of climate activists and banks must not continue.
Africans have a fundamental human right to more than the few light bulbs, cell phone charging stations and one-cubic-foot refrigerators that can be supported by a wind turbine and solar panel economy.
Thankfully, Botswana, Tanzania and other countries recognize that their continent is rich in coal, oil, natural gas, hydro and uranium. They intend to utilize those resources, take charge of their destinies, develop their economies and improve their people’s lives – by building coal- and gas-fired power plants, hydroelectric facilities, and pebble bed modular or other nuclear power plants. They will also install wind turbines and solar panels in distant villages until electrical grids bring 24/7/365 power to the villages.
No single solution will work everywhere. But “under no circumstances are we going to apologize” for developing Africa’s oil, gas and coal fields, Equatorial Guinea energy minister Gabriel Obiang Lima has said, adding it is “criminal” for any non-African to suggest that Africa should ignore any resources it has.
“Energy is the catalyst for growth,” says Gwede Mantashe, South Africa’s new Mineral Resources and Energy Minister and national chair of its African National Congress. Africa has long exported its oil and gas to the rest of the world, while remaining energy-deficient itself, he noted during a recent Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town. That is no longer tenable. His new Integrated Resources Plan includes coal and nuclear, and all forms of energy, as appropriate to a given time and situation.
South Africa’s trade unions now see that solar and wind will not create jobs or prosperity; they promote coal power for inland areas where coal is plentiful, and nuclear for coastal regions where water can cool reactors. Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda all appear prepared to join SA in going nuclear – and Zambia has a new Zambian Atomic Energy Agency (ZAMATOM), headed by Dr. Roland Msiska; it has begun building a nuclear center and preparing for a new generation of small modular nuclear reactors.
“I am tired of being lectured by people in rich countries who have never lived a day without electricity,” says Nigerian Sam Bada. “Maybe they should just go home and turn off their fridge, hot water, laptops and lights. Then live like that for a month and tell us, who have suffered for years, not to burn coal.”
Energy deprivation perpetuates economic deprivation – and creates breeding grounds for terrorist groups in weakened African nations. Recent Islamic State attacks underscore this growing danger. Meanwhile, too many banks lack the moral decency to stand up for fossil fuels or nuclear, or question climate alarm doctrine. If they continue to balk, China could well step in – and gain greater influence and expanded control of Africa’s raw materials in the process. It would be much better if Africa stood up for itself.
Every new power plant generates electricity, jobs, better living standards, and more tax revenues to build more power plants, transmission lines and prosperity. Every country can do this, just as China, India and other nations have already. There’d be no better holiday gift than to banish Greta the Grinch from Africa.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of books and articles on energy, climate change and economic development. David Wojick is an independent analyst specializing in science and logic in public policy.
Greta the Grinch is just one of the very small COGS, (Constantly Offended Green Socialists) in the now out of control CAM (Climate Alarmist Movement).
When COGS and CAMs go out of sync, the result is always catastrophic destruction.
Let us hope, the Climate Alarmists COGS, realise they need to come back into line, and join the climate realists, before it is too late.
Happy New Year to all.
Personally, I think that they are a bunch of CRAP (Climate Religion Always Protesting) myself.
South Africa currently has two nuclear reactors that are not run very well based on their capacity factors. It’s almost impossible to find other safety metrics such as unplanned reactor trips. ESKOM, the utility that runs these reactors aggressively pursues affirmative action in their recruitment ads. Looking at the web site for the South African equivalent of the NRC one gets the impression that affirmative action is a higher priority than nuclear safety. Further, the instability of the South African electric grid presents an increased risk to the safe and efficient operation of these reactors. And South Africa is probably the most technically competent nation in sub-Saharan Africa.
I am a nuclear engineer and strongly support nuclear power. I don’t care if Africa gets its electricity from renewables or fossil fuels. But any more nuclear power for them is unwise.
My ignorant impression is that pebble bed reactors need little maintenance to run, thus I thought this would have been a good option for Africa.
Am I wrong Kevin?
My impression is the same as yours, Carl, and I think pebble-bed nuclear reactors, for both electric energy and distilling potable water, is the way to go in either under-developed or geologically risky environments.
We don’t know what the maintenance and operational requirements will be for a pebble-bed reactor until one is actually built for commercial use rather than lab prototypes operated by specialists. That’s why I caution those who are enthusiastic about thorium reactors based on the experience at Oak Ridge and other concepts just based on studies and computer simulations. It was Shippingport that demonstrated a commercially viable nuclear reactor and even then it took until the 1980s for commercial nuclear power plants to achieve capacity factors consistently above 90%.
You certainly would not want to deploy a new reactor concept in Africa. And it will be at least a decade and likely much longer before even a commercial prototype of any of the concepts is a physical reality. So nuclear power is really not a practical answer for Africa, sorry to say.
The low capacity factors (which are?) may be due to the grid not being able to handle the juice. In any case I do not share your pessimism. I am all for nukes for Africa.
While Gen II nuclear plants are designed with loss of the electric grid in mind, it does force the plant to dissipate a significant amount of energy very quickly. Such transients are precursors to numerous accident scenarios. Why take unnecessary shots on goal?
Why would you expect a nation that cannot reliably maintain its electric grid to be able to safely and reliably operate its nuclear plants? Would you want any nuclear facility staffed by affirmative action hires?
Ultra-supercritical Rankine designs are about 15% more efficient than super critical designs. That’s not “greatly reduced” CO2. And there are substantial materials challenges that have unproven long term solutions.
Reducing CO2 is of no concern. Plus I do not see what this has to do with my article.
We have members of our Church who do missionary in Sierra Leone. They drill water wells so people don’t have to walk to rivers. Biggest problem is lack of electricity, they said that they have some fuel run power stations but not the money to purchase fuel. The infrastructure is also missing. And if they had dependable power they could have powered wells.
Please do point them at the many organisations providing solar LEDs (as a commercial enterprise) in Africa.
a solar LED saves households having to spend on expensive kerosene and transforms what a household can do after dark.
Even if you believe it should be fossil fuel in the future, a solar LED works right now!
Agreed Griff, the solar charged lamps is giving a bit of light and may be slightly cheaper or practical, than kerosene lamps. I have something similar in my garden and it will not run my stove, sowing machine, freezer, air condition, the companies Internet server or any of the industrial machines in the metal workshop.
Solar is nothing new, but can ethically, ROE and economically never match other natural resources like fossil fuel.
How come I think we have been stipulating these practical facts before?
You would have to come with slightly more humane solutions for the Africans than some LED accumulator lamps, as stated in the article.
“griff December 29, 2019 at 11:22 am”
Ah, Griff has no idea about semi-rural and rural Africa. What happens when the solar lamps fail, and they will? There will always be a traditional kerosene lamp available.
Water wells have been dug since at least the start of agriculture. They have existed all over the world. Long before electricity. Why is it that outsiders must come in and dig wells for Africans? And why can’t they use a hand operated pump? It’s not like the villagers appear to be extremely busy as the digging of these wells is usually viewed by dozens of onlookers.
I’ve seen reports that the wells go dry quickly or the water gets contaminated by poor waste disposal practices. Does any of this really help?
Kevin
Of course helps. There are clear correlations between the volume of water consumed per person per day and overall health. Just being clean is a big benefit.
Hand pumps are for people who can’t afford a real rural water supply system. One tap per house is a pittance compared with the cost of an offshore wind scheme.
Africa lives in the misery it does because, in large part, their resources are extracted with little local benefit and the cronies who do gain, are assisted by massively corrupt multinationals. The absence of an international regulatory and governance scheme makes it possible to continue this way indefinitely.
My well is 300 feet deep. I could not dig it but it pumps just fine. Pumping water is probably electricity’s highest use.
Translated: Africans don’t deserve nor will ever achieve 24x7x365 electricity without fossil fuels or nuclear energy and no one speaks up for them because it can only increase their standard of living, population, and the CO2 demon.
but they could have had fossil fuel or even nuclear any time in (say) the past 50 years… it hasn’t delivered.
why would it in the future?
Your ignorance in how many areas of Africa are poorly governed is funny. Have you missed the part about high level corruption and dictatorships in Africa?
His world view extends to what he reads at The Guardian. No real world experience in the countries he comments on, especially those in Africa.
“So the AfDB has joined the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and other Multilateral anti-Development Banks in caring more about climate alarmism and avoiding criticism from the likes of Greta, the perpetually aggrieved and angry Grinch of Christmas 2019 – than they do about safeguarding the lives, livelihoods, health and living standards of hundreds of millions of electricity-deprived Africans.
This 180-degree flip-flop is delusional, dysfunctional and disingenuous. For many, it will be lethal.”
….Follow the money….right to African Development Bank (AfDB) President’s offshore bank accounts !
After reading this post, the first thought I had is why does the MSM in the US and other Western Countries not inform the public of the scandalous effect of denying the greater part of Africa entitlement to the basis right of access to electricity.
The answer is that they have been seduced by the siren false call that renewables are now cheaper than coal and gas and they don’t really care about prolonging the suffering of Africans in a deluded effort to “ save the planet”.
Colonialist green pressure indeed!
These banks are handing Africa over to China. If they’re American, then they’re selling out their country and expecting to make a lot of money off of it. The rare earths that China will get from these countries will end up in the electric car and wind turbine components that they export to this country, to say nothing of solar panels.
If Africa has the lowest electrification rate, then that’s a clear failure of fossil fuels to provide a grid or electricity.
And now renewables are providing: in Morocco and Kenya for example they are heading to reaching the whole population
Again your ignorance of history in Africa is why you don’t understand why they are far behind the rest of the world.
From CIA Factbook:
Kenya
population without electricity: 13 million (2017)
Electricity – from fossil fuels: 33% of total installed capacity (2016 est.)
Electricity – from hydroelectric plants: 34% of total installed capacity (2017 est.)
Griff can lookup Morocco for himself.
Griff
What nonsense!
Therefore 600m people in Africa whose lives powered by renewable energy – in the form of wood, dung, charcoal and agricultural wastes.
So Africa is well ahead of the rest of the world terms of “switching to renewables”. I look forward to you Westerners catching up. Get outside, hack a few tree limbs off the cherry trees lining your street and cook something. All you need is three stones and a pot.
Mr. Adesina said. “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future.”
He is mistaken. Renewable energy is the present and very large number of people want to dispense with it.
When the Iringa hydro scheme is fully developed that could power half the continent in terms of electricity. The future of Congo is very bright in terms of minerals, energy, food and forestry.
Crispin, I was pleased to read your last paragraph, positive statements of truth are in short supply in recent times. I want to be positive about the future, for all of us.
Excellent and informative article, gentlemen. Thank you.
Africans can have electricity any time other people are willing to pay to build the power plants, pay to stoke them with fuel, and maintain the distribution network. Otherwise, it just ain’t going to happen.
Glenn, have you been watching “Zulu” again?
Building a power plant in almost any African country is a waste of money.
The African ‘problem’ is a fundamental, a conceptual problem, not a missing one thing problem.
These are dead countries that have never worked. Millions of people living in shacks, with no electricity, no running water,
… these shack ‘cities’ are found around dilapidated tiny city cores, or along roads.
Africa has institutionalized chaos which explains why Africa has 600 million people without access to electricity and almost no Africa manufacturing.
What Africa needs is a place where companies can locate and where people can go to work with standard benefits including education, health care,job training, and cheap housing.
…City states that will grow into small countries with unique cultural and specialization.
Africa needs a “Marshall’ type plan that could/can work, not more money thrown at dead countries.
What Africa needs is not just electric power, they need city states where the city provides unbiased law and order, electricity, roads, road maintenance, and the functions of a city, bill collections, and so on…
… zoning, land development, budgets, taxes, and so on,
… and the bounders of the city state are US/UK/Canada/Private and so on protected
….And the city is run by private companies that specialize in using local labor with a mixture of non-African workers to develop standard good work ethic and honesty.
Liberia’s Constitution was virtually a carbon copy of our own (as of 1847). Although it was suspended in 1980, it does not appear that Liberia’s development or social achievements for the century under its Constitution were very significant. I don’t think Liberia’s or Africa’s problems are due to governance.
Not at all. The largest hydro power plant in Africa is being built in Ethiopia, it already controls down flows in to The Nile river.
A good friend agrees with you 100% on city states being the savior of Africa. Each WALLED city state would have a private police force/army along with privately owned utilities.
The Romans used this methodology when colonizing new territories. The Romans would build a basic city with govt buildings, housing, plumbing, sanitation and police/army for law and order. The locals would see this great advancement in civilization and buy into the Roman way of doing things. In a modern example, Africans living in the city state would have western style living with clean water, abundant electricity, sanitation, unbiased law enforcement and property rights. Other city states would be built once seeing the success of the initial experiment.
The old style colonialists were in two general camps – those that openly exploited the colony to the max, without regard for the effects on land or people, and those who blended exploitation with a degree of development, patronizingly citing ‘the white man’s burden’.
These ‘higher purpose’ anti-carbon colonialists are the worst of both camps. For ‘the greater good’ they would enforce deprivation, famine and poverty on both developed and undeveloped nations. Except for the privileged elite who set up the new colonial system.
The greens greatest fear is healthy, happy, prosperous dark skinned people…
Loved this post…
You have air force generals saying any human can be delivered anywhere on the opposite side of the world in 1 hr. In a country where 50 million are on food stamps, an the taxpayers funded that kind of technology, it must be frustrating for the people who know if it could benefit the public that they have to keep quiet about it.
A rising tide lifts all boats. How many of those food stamp recipients DO NOT WORK? If all of the able bodied did work, the entire country would be more wealthy, and there would be well under 50 million getting food stamps. BTW national unemployment is 3.5%. I remember that as a young man the belief was that anything under 4% was FULL employment. The unemployed was just the people who were changing jobs or layed off due to changes in the business or fired for whatever reason. We are at full employment NOW, why are ANY able bodied people getting food stamps without a job?
Did you hear the screams from the left when the TRUMP! administration proposed rules changes that would require the able bodied to work, or they will not get food stamps. Sad. This country can afford OUR military because of the “judao christian work ethic”. That is all of US who worked our whole adult life, with an 8 for 8 attitude, 8 hours productive work for 8 hours fair pay, or 80 hours a week for most small business owners.
The problem with food stamps and all other welfare that goes directly to individuals is the destruction of that “work ethic”. We need to go back to “poor houses”. Make being poor more uncomfortable. But first, to get the data that Americans need to support the change, drug testing should be required monthly before a welfare recipient would get their EBT card reloaded. Drugs in your system, no money. The savings would be substantial.
Well let’s see how they deal with the corruption and political/religious/tribal instability they’re bound to have to overcome to fulfill their worthy dream.
rah, this is what people seem to miss, we talk about the country of Africa as though they are all the same people.
Africa has pockets of it’s population who live in a similar way to us, the people most in need are predominantly made up of tribes. These tribes each have their own beliefs in regards to tribal laws and language. Without a common language and access to a decent education, working together for a common goal is going to present it’s problems.
And in regards to complicated technology, well again without a decent education and basic needs being met it’s not going to work. Many tribal people are being treated as nothing more than slaves, and their lives are being put at risk. I can’t imagine an overlord practicing ‘Occupational Health and Safety’. I think it would be wise to keep things simple at this stage. I don’t pretend to understand how nuclear energy works but corruption is rife in parts of Africa and if their’s money to be made then safety will not be an issue.
As well as China stepping in with coal-fired electricity generation, Russia is helping sub-Saharan Africa to go nuclear. A Nuclear centre is to be set up in Uganda to service the area. Ethiopa has asked for a co-operation agreement. Whether the plants will be BOO [ build-own-operate ] or actually handed over to the locals has not been revealed [ except for Egypt who definitely intend to operate it themselves.] Regardless of the Gretarites, Africa refuses to be left behind. Good for them !!
With world population likely to peak at 11 billion it is a matter of great urgency that poorer nations get access to cheap affordable energy. Deliberately impoverishing a growing global population by restricting cheap energy access will likely unlock malevolent human forces difficult to control. When that happens environmentalism won’t have any relevance.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/11/10/extinction-rebellion-calls-african-oil-leaders-climate-criminals/#comment-2843579
“Under no circumstances are we going to be apologizing,” said Gabriel Obiang Lima, energy minister of Equatorial Guinea, adding that they need to exploit those resources to create jobs and boost economic development. “Anybody out of the continent saying we should not develop those fields, that is criminal. It is very unfair.”
I strongly support the Africans on this issue. How is it that we in the wealthy, developed world get to enjoy all the benefits of modern energy and then deny energy-starved Africans the same benefits? What an appalling double-standard! It is especially reprehensible when it is obvious that global warming/climate change hysteria has been scientifically falsified.
This reminds me of the western-driven effective ban of DDT from 1972 to 2002 – as a result, malaria deaths doubled from ~one million to ~two million souls per year. Most of the deaths were African children under five years of age, just babies for Christ’s sake! I am appalled by greens who repeat the false denials of their active complicity in the banning of DDT. Colluding in the killing of millions of children is utterly reprehensible; lying about it is too.
Andy Pattullo wrote:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/14/hypothesis-radical-greens-are-the-great-killers-of-our-age/#comment-2680618
“I am not sure why Greg believes claims of “killing and blinding babies” doesn’t qualify as science. I am a specialist in infectious diseases and these facts are part of what I teach about the history of infections and policy decisions. The banning of DDT did indeed lead to a marked increase in deaths of infants and children in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria and, when DDT was reintroduced, those death rates fell dramatically. The ban itself was not scientific but emotional, based on unfounded claims of harm. Engineered rice which provides vitamin A to malnourished children in developing nations has proven benefit and can indeed prevent blindness and immune deficiency that will harm or kill millions of children. Radical environmentalists have done everything possible to prevent those children from being saved.”
One thing you have to give credit to climate alarmists for is their ability to lobby decision makers or even place advocates for their cause in decision making positions. They’ve done it in every scientific organization, most worldwide financing and development organizations even religious organizations (including the Pope.)
This is criminal and disgusting behaviour by the West. Only China can now save the world from all this CO2 emission nonsense. Only China has the economic power and autonomy to counter the West in its cynical, ideological insanity.
I trust that in the very near future they will come in to help the Africans, and themselves, by investing in growth industries here.
If you care about ordinary Africans, you will be relieved to hear that China is taking over most major development there, as sensible Governments have had enough of trying to deal with the anti-development agendas of Western Governments and banks.
Andy – look this up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
If you want a positive case study, look at Pakistan. For years Pakistan had suffered energy shartages. “Load shedding” was a daily occurrence. Now, with the help from China, Pakistan has built nuclear power plants and coal-fired power plants. Last year Pakistan produced excess electricity. The challenge now is to build power lines to the rural areas. There are plans under the China-Pakistan Cooperation Corridor to do that. I pray that China will do the same for Africa.
The New Silk Road, China’s BRI, is the way to go, and President Trump must get onboard.
All the impeachment shenanigans are simply looser attempts to trip this up.
MAGA with the BRI !!!
The BRI knows how to rebuild US infrastructure.
After all, China took FDR’s methods seriously, in a very Chinese way.
The amoral Chinese have already stepped in to Africa, bribing, bullying, coercing. Look at the brutally cynical way they are destroying the Uighers, using them for slave labour and as a living source for their international organ transplant industry, and moving their own people into territory stolen at will. Do not look to China for any help. They are focussed on world dominion, and the New Silk Road is a tool for that end.
You are spot on Richard!
You are talking a whole lot of nonsense, Richard. The Chinese are just being good capitalists. In fact they are doing much better in that game than we are at present. Capitalism has nothing to do with morals. Yes, a few capitalists behave immorally – but even Chinese capitalists are punishable by law if they are ever found out.
And yes, they will probably achieve world dominion eventually – because they are such good capitalists.
Africa has huge resources – much untapped. Two engineer friends have been involved in the supply of electricity in different African countries. The corruption, mismanagement, incompetence, civil strife, exploitation by China and arms manufacturers are all contributing to an awful mess. It is all such an unnecessary tragedy.
The West can offer help from practical people who can guide Africans in finding and using appropriate technology to address their greatest needs but NO to the endless supply of aid to countries that have no good excuse not to be self-sufficient! The IMF, World Bank, AfDB and countries directing “green funding” will simply continue to pour billions into a bottomless black pit if African countries do not start making headway in sorting out their own house.
To this I can add a good example of a country struggling with electricity supply – with more than adequate reserves – Zimbabwe:
“Bloomberg said this month the World Food Programme (WFP) will double the number of Zimbabweans receiving emergency food aid; half of the 14-million population face severe hunger. The WFP reported on 1 December the contributions of its 2019 donors. The top 5 were: USA: $2.9billion; Germany $821m; UK $602 m; EU $522m and Saudi Arabia $378m.”
Now one asks how did the country survive from 1965 to 1980 or how it was governed then.
In my experience, you are correct. When I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2006 (After getting married to the same woman 3 times) we stayed in hotels that were full of geologists working for the Chinese. I spoke to many over breakfast. The Chinese built token infrastructure, like small roads that didn’t go anywhere and imported Chinese workers. No locals were ever employed.
Another depressing post here at WattsUpWithThat.
One has to wonder what coercion the Green/Climate party threatened African leaders with.
That’s easy. Money, a “military” and control! Give that to the African Union, via the UN, HQ’ed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and they control all of Africa. I can see lots of conflict in Africa’s future if this comes to pass.
The ends justify the means…apparently. Oppression is acceptable if they think (fantasize) that they are saving the planet. Who said “We have to burn the village to save it”?
I agree that Africa is not ready for large scale nuclear power, though I do believe that, at this point coal makes sense as opposed to wind and solar. They certainly deserve to be given the same opportunities as wealthy nations and on from that more widespread education. That is what holds back developing nations the most. Educated people can sort out their own problems, and who knows, down the track they may help sort out ours too. Of course that’s a pipedream without a reliable source of power, and I fear there are those who want to keep it that way.
In regards to Australia, we are well on our way to becoming a third world country. We are going the same way as Germany, the big difference is that we can’t draw power from neighboring countries.
Our governments have fallen for the wind and solar renewables hook line and sinker. South Australia is so green and determined to remove all coal that it’s not simply closing down coal fire power plants, it’s blowing them up! Manufacturing plants are closing down due to unreliable and expensive electricity, and South Australia is at times forced to buy it from other states.
Given the push is for wind and solar renewables in each state, they don’t seem to get that there will be no backup, no industry and alot less jobs, and a massive reduction in arable land.
Australia has no nuclear power, no geothermal, and very little in the way of Hydro electricity (we barley have enough water for drinking and agriculture). Some of the states use gas as a backup but there is resistance against that too.
We became the successful and prosperous country that we are (were) today because of coal.
Like Africa, we are a vast nation, and to believe that wind and solar could power our country is every bit as farcical for us as it is for them. And the waste of resources and damage to the ecology and in our case the economy is nothing short of criminal!
When I said we will be reduced to a third world country, that wasn’t in jest. Our education has been so dumbed down in this country, you only have to look at how much our world standings have dropped. Respect for teachers has gone in education, free thinking is discouraged, free speech is non existent. Teachers are teaching matters that don’t belong in the classroom, such as politics, as in their perspective. Their perspective these days is from a leftist point of view.
I don’t hold out much hope for the future of Australia, leftist thinking is pretty much entrenched in schools, universities, social media and MSM. It has been for some time now. Voting is compulsory in Australia and more and more young people who have come through the ‘leftist’ system will be voting for the left. It is ingrained in them and there is no other information to give them a balanced view.
Totalitarianism is here, our voice has been taken from us and choices too.
SA has lost its baseload coal power, but still has gas-fired stations, the monster Torrens Island CCGT, the real problem now is that nobody is going to build another Torrens, so the clock is ticking to a catastrophic breakdown of the electricity system when Torrens is retired.
Even the renewable zealots are worrying when coal-fired stations go down for maintenance, they know that their snake oil industry relies on coal power.
Climate change is the new racism
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/14/racism/
John Perkins’ interesting book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and its sequels, cast an interesting light on this. My guess is that Western countries and corporations (same thing) see many African countries as too unstable to invest in. The wild card they must have played to make AfDB back out must have been purely monetary coercion. The cynical old money knows the whole CAGW hypothesis is a shell game. No pun intended.
“In 2018, the bank approved seed money for a Nigerian coal project…”
That money has already gone if Nigerians are involved.
It’s funny reading the comments that think people with a lower IQ than the smartest gorilla could ever maintain a modern civilization
I am wholly indifferent to the fate of anyone in Africa. I don’t care if they all die. Nevertheless, callous as I certainly am, I don’t oppose the electrification of communities in Africa because of a doctrinaire opposition to burning coal. I understand how balance sheets work. If Coal powered plants increase air pollution in an African country, but at the same time provide access to daily electrical power to many Africans, the benefits are orders of magnitude greater than the costs.
But not to green activists, for whom the unimaginably exorbitant cost is the undermining of the notion that burning coal is an existential horror that will kill us all. I don’t think they care about the wellbeing of Africans any more than I do. Like me, they care more about their own prosperity and influence in Canada. But they are willing to exert political pressure to keep Africans in misery, in defense of an ideology.
My understanding is that China is filling the void left by green policies. China is building the infrastructure needed, that our clean green politicians and bankers won’t.
Africans are not stupid. They are walking away from Western neo-colonialism. It’s our loss, not there’s.