Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The planned construction of 2,500 new power plants, most of them fossil fuel, has dashed hopes that Africa would leapfrog the developed world’s reliance on fossil fuels by going straight to renewable energy.
Climate change: Africa’s green energy transition ‘unlikely’ this decade
Matt McGrath – Environment correspondent
Tue, 12 January 2021, 2:03 am AESTFossil fuels are set to remain the dominant source of electricity across Africa over the next decade, according to a new study.
Researchers found that around 2,500 power plants are planned, enough to double electricity production by 2030.
But the authors say that less than 10% of the new power generated will come from wind or solar.
The authors say that Africa now risks being locked into high carbon energy for decades.
They argue that a rapid, decarbonisation shock is needed to cancel many of the plants currently planned.
Until now, there has been a widely shared view that African countries would “leapfrog” directly to renewable energy sources, and away from old world coal, oil and gas.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55620848
The abstract of the study;
A machine-learning approach to predicting Africa’s electricity mix based on planned power plants and their chances of success
Galina Alova, Philipp A. Trotter & Alex Money
Published:Energy scenarios, relying on wide-ranging assumptions about the future, do not always adequately reflect the lock-in risks caused by planned power-generation projects and the uncertainty around their chances of realization. In this study we built a machine-learning model that demonstrates high accuracy in predicting power-generation project failure and success using the largest dataset on historic and planned power plants available for Africa, combined with country-level characteristics. We found that the most relevant factors for successful commissioning of past projects are at plant level: capacity, fuel, ownership and connection type. We applied the trained model to predict the realization of the current project pipeline. Contrary to rapid transition scenarios, our results show that the share of non-hydro renewables in electricity generation is likely to remain below 10% in 2030, despite total generation more than doubling. These findings point to high carbon lock-in risks for Africa, unless a rapid decarbonization shock occurs leading to large-scale cancellation of the fossil fuel plants currently in the pipeline.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00755-9
No doubt African nations will come to their senses when they realise renewables are the cheapest form of energy (do I need the /sarc?).
Hey, there’s always the next decade to start. They should ban gas powered cars right now, it should help a lot, I guess.
I have seen predictions of 6C in 2145 (I don’t know why not 2146 or 44), which is quite scary. /s
When making a guess based on no evidence or inventing a statistic, it’s always best to be very precise. That way others are fooled into believing your fantasies.
That’s correct 84.6% of the time.
But 94% of statistics posted to the internet are made up. 8D
Pauleta,
How about all the many scary climate predictions that have not come to pass? Maybe you get some kind of subconscious pleasure out of being scared. There are many among you that would consider it bad news if climate change turned out to be a non-problem.
Robert, your sarc detector seems to be malfunctioning.
Yes. The /s term is often not understood.
Generally, I also find that sarcasm is simply not worth the effort on the internet if I want to get a point across.
I read it was 14th July 2145 at 1:47:33 pm
Typical of you deniers, can’t even get your facts straight! Is that time East coast, West coast or just GMT?
MGBGT time
Hmmm. click thru the BBC link to the original research paper and see its modelled based on some very speculative data.
Thanks for showing us that models are NOT REALITY
The CHIMP5/6 models can now be totally ignored as NOT REALITY
They are the only place that atmospheric CO2 causes warming
Wouldn’t you agree, griff.
In other words, it’s standard fare for the climate alarmist set.
All models are speculation based on incomplete shonky data, particularly climate models
Griff,
You’ve gone from woke to woken up!
No, that was just the guy that comes in on Wednesdays, uses the same cubicle and username, just another of the thirteen “internet narrative steersmen” working in that particular troll farm.
“Until now, there has been a widely shared view that African countries would “leapfrog” directly to renewable energy sources, and away from old world coal, oil and gas”.
Who has this “widely shared view”?
By the same people that can’t do math and think renewables can drive a western economy.
The ones that pretended to hold that view are the same ones that wanted to term coal, oil & gas as “old world”. They are the propagandists, the lairs, and the would be beneficiaries of the lie (I am leaving out the odd dupes since they are few and far between at this point in time; the ‘beneficiaries’ include those that are on board just make themselves better about their worthless lives).
True old world energy sources are wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, & slave. Galina Alova, Philipp A. Trotter & Alex Money are liars and propagandists.
“true old world energy sources are wind etc” even when wind was a viable proposition the miller would have chosen water to power his mill if geography allowed, it’s been known for several centuries that wind power is s**t and unreliable. Africa has suffered enough if they are to stand a chance of improving their lot (and I truly hope they do) it’s not going to be with unreliables, only an ecoloon would expect them to try.
I thik you greatly underestimate the number of “dupes”, the believers who understand little beyond what the party line says. They are not potential beneficiaries and they exist in great numbers, as always.
Their benefit is that it makes them feel good about themselves.
I don’t give them an out anymore just because they are ignorant … time’s up.
Don’t forget whale oil.
The new Colonialists-western Progressives.
Can the progressives not see that telling African nations what to do and how to live is EXACTLY what progressives did throughout the U.S. Colonialism in the 19th and 20th century period?
If they really believed in Black Empowerment they would not be considering how Africans should live. They would be supporting their decisions.
Telling brown skinned people what to do and how to live, is only wrong when other people do it. This thinking is quite prevalent amongst progressives in the US as well.
Just in the US?
It is the widely shared view of the green, anti-industrial, climate alarmist. Big champions of global poverty as idyllic, unencumbered living, and shaming/punishing people who don’t share their world view. It’s complicated. 🤣
Exactly right. Everybody is supposed to be made equal. The way that works out is, that everybody is made equally poor. See, e.g., Cuba.
Not every one
The people pushing for everyone to be made equal are the ones who expect to be Commissars. Since they’ve never studied history, they don’t understand that they’re always the first ones sent to the Gulag after the Revolution.
I meant not everyone is made equally poor
Unicorns fairies and doom pixies. Sarc but I think you knew.
Africans will dodge one bullet as their new power plants will hopefully outlast the green machine. They will walk into another by being in beholden to the Chinese for ever. The western world is forcing them into this by refusing power plant loans that are not green.
BBC journalists allhave the same view, which they think us widely shared.
Midwits.
2500 power plants? WOW! the mind boggles.
It is still called the dark continent in part because there is very little electricity outside of large cities. 2500 plants will likely double the number on what is a very large piece of real estate. It likely still won’t extend power outside those few large cities though. Africa needs major investment in power infrastructure, and likely won’t get it while their corrupt governments steal everything that isn’t nailed down.
And if it can be pried up, it ain’t nailed down! 🙂
Yes. It’s hard to build a power grid when people will just cut down the wires and sell them.
Y’all sound like Bill Gates.
There’s an image somewhere that illustrates just how large the continent of Africa really is. The picture super-imposes most of the Western worlds countries on top of Africa and that continent swallows them all!
2,500 power stations in the context of such a large place is just the start – there will be 10’s of thousands eventually.
That’s a lot of dung.
Am I missing something here?
Rather than actually going out and finding what projects are planned, they created a model and had it tell them what projects would be planned???
Thats…… well……. Mind Boggling stupid- except they get a published paper without leaving their cushy offices, so they have that going for the,
Actually, they threw a bunch of data on actual past power plant and related facilities development timelines into a hopper (database) and let the computer mull over all the relationships (AI model development) until it developed some computer-world “rules” as to the likelihood of power plant development scenarios. They applied those model-world rules to the latest existing plans for power plant developments throughout Africa over the next 10 years. Frankly, I’m shocked they could even come up with 10% ‘ruinables’ in the future power plant mix. I suspect some green NGOs put the thumb on the scales for ‘ruinables.’
“In this study we built a machine-learning model”
Once again, models all the way down. Why do so many scientists today think models = reality?
They also believe that modeled output = data and use it accordingly.
The output is data. It’s just that until the model is validated, it is pretty useless data to be kept under one’s collective hat.
Oddly, I have always thought data arose from direct observation and measurement. Is the output of a random number generator data or just a statistical artifact?
It’s data that pertains to the output of the RNG. An RNG that spits out 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 is clearly not behaving correctly, but might be more useful than a climate model.
Computer models have already proven to be highly successful at flummoxing apparently intelligent people and raising $billions to defraud millions of taxpayers. They support the pointless “science” of the massive AGW and “climate change” industry, globally.
The idea that data arises from direct observation is the old-fashioned way of doing things, unless, of course, the data has been appropriately adjusted first.
So … just a guess, once the info is pulled out of one’s butt and entered into the computer model it suddenly becomes real data? I’m learning a lot today.
That’s how they do it: Couple the output of an unvalidated high-ECS UN IPCC climate model using RCP8.5 (data) to the input of an unvalidated academic econometric model (ala Nordhaus) and presto! … Scientific fraud at its best.
Hey … presto change’o the modern miracle of post modern science. I’ve known these things for over 30 years and yet people still pretend it’s valid science … fewer and fewer people are resisting the nonsense. Those who are pushing it own the media and virtually every means to disseminate information.
When power bills skyrocket, the cost of living increases unbearably and massive tax increases are proposed, voters will revolt. I’ll be one of the first to put on a yellow vest.
Calling computer output data is science mal-practice.
That’s what I thought … but what do I know. This is ‘post modern’ science we’re dealing with. It’s a different world. The Emperor’s New Clothes are just a matter of opinion.
Apparently it takes machine learning to figure out that the power plants most likely to get built are the ones that are economic.
.. and RELIABLE.
Assuming the big brothers don’t prevent fuel and maintenance parts from reaching them.
well, since the window breakers are now running the show, one does have to put a little effort into figuring out what is most efficient.
I blame Star Trek. Mr Spock could model anything perfectly and calculate the odds of success of an action that’s never been tried before.
Never tell me the odds.
With Africa’s very large coal reserves, and the need for RELIABLE electricity to lift the country from third world standards..
…. even a common sense model would show COAL is the way forward for most African countries.
Even the expense of building a clean coal plant would be cheaper than intermittent, unreliable solar and wind, especially with their coal reserves.
Please don’t confuse the zeal to protect us all with common sense.
There is a cadre of them that thinks the whole universe as we experience it is nothing but someone else’s computer model.
UK’s energy transition is hardly a Bed-of-Roses either…
Quote:
“”All energy retailers will make large losses tomorrow“”
https://postimg.cc/F1NzSyXg
Bad news for Al Jabeeba and Harrabin sidekick McGrath.
They dream of Star Trek villages.
The Chinese are doing the real work in Africa while the U.S. flings trinkets from diplomats.
That’s because China allows bribes and makes promises it doesn’t intend to keep.
Whatever China spends on building with imported Chinese labor in Africa, is offset by the debt dependency Chinese loans require of those African States in the fine print. Hard currency in dollars. It’s estimated the half of Ethiopia’s billions of external debt is owed to China in dollars. Not the Ethiopian Birr.
Given the excess of government spending over income, are you really confident that the US dollar will end up any better than the Ethiopian Birr?
If any trading is conducted outside Ethiopia it’s done in US dollars. The Ethiopian Birr is pretty much worthless. Last time I was there I was stuck and could not withdraw any cash as the country, in the 12-13 months after my first visit in 2006, had completely changed their banking system and if I didn’t have a PIN on my credit card I could not withdraw cash, signatures were no longer valid.
US dollar is safe for now. Ask me again after four years of Biden-Harris.
They’re apt to pull the $US as the worlds reserve currency to placate China and Russia. We’re going back to the sniveling, head bowed, self-defacing America on the world stage. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started pulling The Wall down before Jill Biden has the WH drapes redone.
Biden-Harris are going to be a disaster. But you won’t read about it in the papers.
‘The collapse of the economy was due to Trumpist infiltrators and saboteurs.’
Ethiopia has been paying large, that I know of, since 2006. Building roads that went now where and not employing locals was a big issue there. Ethiopia did actually fund most of the stonework for the dam (GRD) locally, with local hires too. However, most of the funding for the internal machinery was funded by the Chinese.
There is a hydro dam on the Blue Nile near the “Whispering Falls” (Image is on the 1 Birr note) which 75% of the water that used to fall is diverted to the dam. Then you see bright new galvanised steel pylons carrying power to Addis Abbab. What I saw then, 2006, were mud/stick huts with power meters hanging on the wall. It was a contrasting sight.
Your right. The Chinese realize Sub-Saharan Africa cannot build nor maintain a modern society. The Chinese plan to be the camel with its head in the tent.
You are all wrong
The west and our NGOs are forcing African countries to work with China because we cut them off from financing if they want to build reliable power
No loans for power plants and no other loans as well
Colonial, imperialist, stupid
The green trifecta
That’s also why China split out on its own to form an alt World Bank.
Is it me, or is the abstract poorly written? E.g., they mix tenses here:
We found that the most relevant factors for successful commissioning of past projects are at plant level:
It’s you. It makes perfect sense and the use of tenses is correct and appropriate.
No. The use of “past” in “past projects” implies that the factors took place in the past. It should be “were at plant level” or, better yet
After careful study of past projects, we found the most relevant factors, for successful commissioning, to be at plant level:
“… relevant factors … are at plant level …” Don’t try to be an editor of other’s communication attempts. It was perfectly clear and grammatically correct.
They use the word “realization” twice in the abstract. It’s not wrong to use, but, imho, it is overwrought.
In Africa we don’t do green energy. Green wood is too hard to set on fire.
It has long been a concern for Africa; ya’ll white bastards had your industrial revolution, burning coal and oil, now you want to keep AFrica dark by insisting we don’t pollute?
ANyway, bro’s, go look how much pollution comes off cooking fires, electrix from coal stations have reduced that by a huge amount wherever it is available. We can spend twenty years replacing wood fires by coal stations, or two hundred years of wood smoke and green dreams we cannot afford, because the Green Freaks are using “peacekeepers” to patrol our ancestral hunting grounds turned into open-cast mines, where ya’ll each keep a piece and we don’t get to keep a very big piece of that action at all…
What I seem to be reading is that they predict the “renewable” energy plants will fail and the fossil fuel plants will be successfully built.
I like the phrase,
high carbon lock-in risks for Africa
What is the “risk” here? The “risk” of producing CO2? In other words, the production of CO2 is a disaster unto itself. The people of South Africa will suffer because of all that evil CO2 in the air!
OT a bit, but…is there really that much snow on ground down south now? (I’m in Michigan)
https://www.iweathernet.com/snow/snow-depth-and-percent-coverage
I thought snow was a thing of the past? Children won’t know…
“…is there really that much snow on ground down south now?”
We had a couple of big snow storms here in Northeastern Ohio but not much is left on the ground. They are predicting more snow for this area next week.
Progressive parents try to protect their offspring from evil sights. White has conclusively been proven evil, therefore …
AS I recall, it was a NY Stater, among others, who was predicting snow would be a thing of the past. Didn’t I read recently about a record-breaking snowfall in NYC?
The idea of punishing indigenous S. Africans , who have suffered the privations of being without reliable electricity, with a “decarbonisation” shock…seems a bit racist to me. As it seems to imply that they are not worthy of affordable electricity.
But how, then, are you going to make them all sufficiently equal?
Poverty will take care of that. Socialism allocates shortages.
“The authors say that Africa now risks being locked into high carbon energy for decades.”
So what?
CO2 is NOT
a Problem
“Until now, there has been a widely shared view that African countries would “leapfrog” directly to renewable energy sources, and away from old world coal, oil and gas.”
These same greenies hoping Africa would also not industrialize. They could scape and dig for resources on their hands and knees under some cute name like artisanal mining, but manufacture anything more than t-shirts or sneakers for today’s favored brand, eeeek! That’s eco terrorism. Committing the social crime of contributing to climate change and earths inevitable doom. 😒
Go for it Africa !! don’t let the Greenies achieve their 1 bn population at your expense
Yes, let Planned Parenthood do it for you.
Slightly OT.
Report on the grid separation in the EU the other day
https://notrickszone.com/2021/01/12/europes-near-electricity-black-friday-was-triggered-in-france-due-to-polar-cold-wave/
The Macaroon shutting down a couple of nuclear power plants
NO WIND over the whole grid
etc etc
Was bound to happen sooner or later…
….. but will it be enough for the necessary wake-up call. !
Not for those using the opium pipes in the green dens. Everything is a drug dream.
“but will it be enough for the necessary wake-up call.”
Of course not! Hard, cold reality (pun intended) is way too difficult for today’s greenies to face up to!
From the link:
“1) The polar cold wave occurred earlier than meteorologically expected, with low temperatures for France.”
Where is griff if he is needed ?
Wasn’t he always telling us, to predict wind at minutes exactly is soooo easy and than that ?
But not the exact timing for a coldwave ? Unbelievable 😀
Well, with models you don’t have to get out and get your shoes dirty.
and your brain doesn’t have to think too hard…
Africa doesn’t have a huge energy infrastructure, so there’s nothing to keep them from doing anything that is viable. The promoters of wind energy tell us it is cheaper than any other energy. If that’s true, Africans would be crazy to use anything else.
So, if there’s nothing to stop them from using wind energy and assuming they aren’t stupid or crazy, why aren’t they installing wind?
Clearly the assumption, that wind is so cheap it makes any other kind of energy unnecessary, is flawed.
My question for the promoters of wind energy is this, why isn’t Africa embracing wind energy?
Why? Because it takes more energy to produce a wind turbine that it will provide over its lifetime – if you include all infrastructure costs. And Africa doesn’t have any infrastructure to support the wind turbines, no steel industry, no fiberglass industry, some concrete industry but probably not enough, no wire production for energy transmission, and on and on and on.
You have to start from the bottom and work your way up. Build just one major coal power plant and you’ll have enough energy to kickstart these industries, including more coal plants. How does a wind turbine do that?
The problem is that wind has an enviable Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI), as long as you don’t care when you get the electricity. link So, when the advocates of renewable energy say wind is viable, they have data to prove it. You can’t run a windmill factory on unreliable energy though. So, in theory windmills do generate enough energy to replicate themselves.
link
A Yogi-ism?
The Greens want Africans to use money they don’t have, to build power systems that don’t work.
“Until now, there has been a widely shared view that African countries would “leapfrog” directly to renewable energy sources”
In other words, Green nutcases, talking to other green nutcases were all in agreement.
The opinions of actual Africans, and people who know something about power systems, were not welcome.
People who know something about power system are becoming unwelcome in the United States. I hope that they reality soon brings us back from the edge, however I have yet to see this light. The regressive left is doubling down as we speak.
Bruce
The regressive left is well practiced at ignoring reality in favor of their theories.
The left just keep doubling down until society collapses. There’ll be no return to reality until that happens.
They felt it would be the same as skipping over having landline telephones and going right to cell networks
Of course, cell networks work while wind and solar don’t, hence ain’t going to happen
And people think Africans are stupid
Seem pretty smart to me
they work, but not economically.
The world needs to act now before Africa is allowed to regress any further. They need to be encouraged to promote the advanced technology that they have been using for years, such as recycling everything of value, small charcoal fires for cooking, and human powered water movement. Why should they be forced to give up their green nirvana for the slavery of cheap energy?
You have to be kidding! Oh? You are…
Africans aren’t so green about Green. Good for them. It’s a niche solution and environmental blight.
The white socialists want to keep their boots on the necks of Africans. Thanks to EU/UN/IMF/etc China is colonizing black Africa. See Apocalypse Never for a discussion of this very ‘issue’.
Yes, we are forcing them into China’s economic orbit
Stupid and short sighted for the west, but that is how we roll
China taking the long view
Let China have it.
I agree; let China pay for all the infrastructure. Africa will renege on the debt and will have developed enough military might to fend off China down the road. Or not. Who cares?
China seems to like lending money to countries to pay Chinese companies to come in and build second-rate infrastructure which breaks after a few years. So the Chinese get jobs, the Africans get debts and no-one gets useful infrastructure.
And, once the countries have those debts, the Chinese effectively control them.
The Chinese PAID Western politicians and ‘environmentalists’ to do just that. The Chinese want Africa’s resources; they don’t want Westerners getting them.
China has been fighting a war against the West through people who act like six year old kids who’ll do anything for candy. It’s no wonder they’ve been able to win without firing a shot.
Sounds like the folks of the dark continent don’t believe hysterical Whiteys
Three little problems prevent Africa’s advancement:
corruption
incompetence
maladministration
Please quit talking about the U.S.
You are right.
The Fed corrupts everyone they can, and send the CIA to drag the rest out in public to shove a knife up their anus.
Incompetent Bolshevik-trained rich kids from Florida descend upon Africa to teach us how to grow GMO crops that always fail because we cannot afford the fertilisers and chemicals needed for GMO to grow profitably enough to afford the next season’s GMO seed.
Maladministration is the excuse offered when so-called Aid Packages to Africans are actually loans, at interest, designed to be forever unpayable, and only given under the rules of Good Governence, where all that “Aid” money has to be spent on IMF-approved projects, using IMF-approved suppliers, at IMF-approved prices, meaning 90% of that money actually ends up back in the pockets of those who taxed YOU for that ‘Aid’ they the “administer” on your ignorant behalf.
Very observant from a guy in Dublin to have noticed that!
Your countries would literally be better off if you refused foreign aid and shot any local who took the money and stashed it in Switzerland.
Yeah, but, as I said; any president that refuses their “aid” gets dragged out onto the town square and assassinated as brutally as possible, by the CIA. You will not believe the things the CIA gets up to, and in the end, they are merely a division of the Federal Reserve, a PRIVATE corporation with private shareholding and private profit motives. Also, “stashing the money in Switzerland” is a very tiny bit of the problem:
https://greenpets.co.za/index.php/en/12-paranoid-goy/173-charity-fraud
The reasons for their backwardness go deeper. But we should not go into them here. 🙊You can research them and find them out if you do historical reading about the continent. I hope China isn’t dumb enough to repeat Europe’s foolish colonial path 💩
A huge oil/gas find in Africa is said to be Texas size. Also, Exxon/Mobil found a sizeable offshore deposit a few years ago. This should perk the CCP ears up, eh?
Pretty much explains the story.
Where, exactly would those reserves be. Just asking, so we will know which “African dictator” the CIA will next drag out onto the street and assassinate with a knife up his ass, like they did with our beloved and respected Colonel Gadhafi, may his soul haunt Hillary forever, the cackling psychopath bitch!
Reliable power is just one aspect.
Western “green” NGOs also try to prevent them using DDT for malaria control, prevent use of modern farm equipment for efficient farming (CO2 don’t you know), pesticides, herbicides, the list goes on. You know, everything that allows comfortable modern life in developed countries.
These people truly believe subsistence farming is the model and we need to force Africa to remain in that mode.
I repeat, there will eventually need to be Climate Change POLICY crimes against humanity trials, these trials should be held in the poorest African country and the punishments should be meted out by those kept in poverty by our green imperialist NGOs and politicians.
Pay back will be a beeatch
I agree, almost. Subsistence farming is NOT promoted. As a matter of fact, Monsanto and their Chief Evangelist, Baal Gates, spend billions “gifting” GMO tech and factory farm methods, disrupting traditional food sources, bankrupting entire tribes, and the peasants die of hunger and insecticide pollution right next to heavily-secured farms growing nothing but luxury crops for export to richer nations.
Did you know that the infamous Ethiopian famine of the eighties happened right after The Holy Investor realised Ethiopia is the perfect place to grow GMO tomatoes?
This is a life and death issue for many Africans.. great choice!
“A machine-learning approach to predicting Africa’s electricity mix based on planned power plants and their chances of success”
There we have it folks. If the greens accept the ‘machine learning’ process of climate prediction, they must therefore accept the machine learning process of fossil fuel prediction.
and what exactly would [unless a rapid decarbonization shock] be Im wondering???
“The planned construction of 2,500 new power plants, most of them fossil fuel, has dashed hopes that Africa would leapfrog the developed world’s reliance on fossil fuels by going straight to renewable energy.”
Of course. They need real power that really works, and they need it yesterday. Unicorn farts and rainbows (plus some energy storage fairy dust to be delivered Real Soon Now) just won’t to it.
and Moonbeams, don’t forget Moonbeams 💩
“The authors say that Africa now risks being locked into high carbon energy for decades. “
That sounds bad but I can almost guarantee that this is by policy maker design. Why? Because you can grow an economy faster on fossil fuels vs intermittent energy.