Africa, Environmentalists & Renewable Energy
I think I’ve just about had it with these environmentalists and would love to tell them to stick their hypocritical message up their rear. Ask them to give up their cars and heated homes and you’ll be all alone in the room. Global Warming is the new Con - if you open your eyes, you’ll see that this is driven purely by marketing. I actually gave ExxonMobil credit for not pretending to be a ‘Green’ company like BP or Shell - the main purveyors of oil, the root of all our ‘problems’. Pumping gas at a BP, I noticed their new tagline, ‘Beyond Petroleum’ — ??? Ha! Give me a break.
We (Africa) have arrived at the table very late in the game. Developed countries are almost done sucking fossil fuels out of the ground - the very substance required to support the quality of life everyone craves (including environmentalists). As China & India fight for the remaining crumbs to satisfy their explosive economies, I can’t help but wonder where this leaves us. The last major oil reserves have already been discovered, and the remaining options can only be compared to pulling teeth.
- Solar Power
Extremely clean, and there’s plenty of it on the continent. Unfortunately technology hasn’t advanced enough for us to harness it efficiently. Right now, this form of energy is just a romantic dream that is still out of reach. - Hydroelectric Power
Has been extremely reliable for years. Also, it requires large dams that displace people and destroy ecosystems. Ultimately our future lies here. Africa has taken advantage of only 7% of its hydroelectric potential compared to 75% in Europe. It is however going to require massive dams that translate to massive investment on a still volatile continent. - Methane Gas (NEW!!)
For a moment there I was convinced this was the Silver Bullet solution to our problems, a green almost endless supply of energy. As stated in this BBC News article and on Afromusing, Lake Kivu in Rwanda is holding enough unexploited energy to meet Rwanda’s (and the regions) needs for 200 years. In all the excitement, finer details like the fact that methane is a extremely explosive gas were left out - more details here.
I’d like to go on, but I think you get the idea - we are literally going to be pulling teeth to come up with a solution. Ultimately, the environment will be a casualty if we want to get what everyone else has.
You might be ‘happy’ to know that Shell now has a ‘real energy’ website. http://www.shell.com/realenergy
they’ve been advertising on wired mag etc.
As for the methane gas being explosive…that is indeed a concern, though on the same bbc article, the brewery had been running for 18yrs using methane gas, it is not entirely clear why they stopped using it in 2004. It alludes to the pilot project ending but more info is not available there. I would imagine that the power plant would be designed appropriately to prevent a big blow up.
The thing i am skeptical about is carbon trading. Ati buy a card at my local whole foods market and the money goes to a wind power firm? hardly the case. (post for another day huh)
As for Solar being a romantic dream, you would be surprised how many people have solar panels and just how much growth that sector has had around the world and even in .ke, i saw it with my own eyes (I could be biased ofcourse) i will venture out in June and try to establish hard stats on this.
I do get your point that all these alternative energy options comprise a very small % of energy generation. However, i remain optimistic about the growth of these options. The value proposition of solar is just undeniable, specifically the fact that the system can pay itself off in time, no elec bill? Who wouldn’t like that?
I know my recent articles make me sound like the prophet of doom. In reality, I just want someone to make me understand how some things can and will work.
I still don’t buy the whole ‘Green Energy’ initiative by these big oil companies - see this article: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/30/8405398/index.htm
PS: Just to clarify, you are indeed correct about efficiency and solar being out of reach…panels are still expensive. my comment above was about adoption and not efficiency. Sorry
Still a sucker for romance though! (the solar pipe dream kind) gee that sounds weird. oh well.
Excellent article David. I guess at the end of the day the leadership of exxon is beholden to its shareholders who know exactly what they want out of their company.
I have to admit that i did think (as stated in the article) “The theory was that oil companies would monopolize solar and then withhold its benefits from the public to sell more oil.” held some truth with acquisitions of solar companies by big oil. I am not so sure, BP is one of the big PV producers an interesting story http://www.startupjournal.com/howto/successstories/20061201-fialka.html?refresh=on
GE has services and businesses in Oil, nuclear reactors AND solar.
Anyway…i dont think they are fooling anyone with the ‘green’ initiatives, though one thing i would posit is that if these companies are serious about alternative energy they are only doing it to position themselves for a major shift in how energy will be generated in future. For now its unconvincing.How and when that shift will happen? when enough people decide that climate change is an emergency that needs to be dealt with and actually change their purchasing behaviour. Till then, I think Big oil will play the whole give with the right hand and take it away with the left, keep making money either way.
Companies like energy innovations (the sunflower) and the small companies in Africa that focus on renewable energy do inspire hope.
sorry for the ramble…i am also trying to understand the whole thing…thanks for the article and for letting me hash out my thoughts here.
Please… let it all out
Interesting commentary, but the story of Lake Kivu remains largely untold. I have been working on it for seven years now and we are probably a year away from having a working full-time pilot project producing 10% of Rwanda’s power needs. The success of this pilot project is needed to qualify for a license for commercial operations of 50MW each thereafter.
All this can be done safely using new extraction methods, but also conventional gas safety measures to ensure no fires and explosions.
The lake is complex and even fragile though, and much research work is ongoing to develop a better holistic understanding of the resource so that its exploitation is sustainable and continues in perpetuity. It is necessary to both stabilise the lake, preventing its turnover and a total loss of the resource, and maintains its internal structures and biodiversity to keep it as a renewable resource. The book is being written on how this is to be achieved and monitored, and should be complete in late 2007.
If you think that this is good for the region, you are right - relatively cheap, renewable and sustainable power is a year away. It does not have the potential to power up more than the immediate region. One could extract two or three times as fast, initially, but the gas levels will decline to be able to support less than 100MW long-term.
Ironically, out of Africa may come the technical solution to start capturing the massive methane resources in seas and oceans around the planet, where up to 2 million times as much methane is present, largely as solid hydrates. If this can happen, big oil may see it as a threat to their control of world’s hydrocarbons, but it is a resource that can extend the hydrocarbon economy for thousands of years into the future.