Look at the earth at night, in a photo from the International Space Station, and Africa is still “the dark continent”.
Home to around 1.2 billion people, Africa generates less than three per cent of the world’s electricity. So where the US, Europe, even Brazil and India, show up white with city lights in a satellite picture, there’s little more than a sprinkle over Johannesburg and Cape Town, with spots for Harare, Nairobi, Lagos and along the Mediterranean
The rest is black.
It was a problem raised recently at a conference on illegal migration to Europe. Leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Chad, Niger and Libya resolved to crack down on people-trafficking, and provide more development aid to source countries.
The push driving people north, they agreed, was not war but poverty and unemployment. And with no electricity, it was hard to change either.
Youth unemployment is close to 90 per cent in Zimbabwe and a worrying two-thirds in South Africa, with similar numbers for cities in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania
John Owusu is a retired engineer originally from Ghana, but for 50 years he has worked across all regions of Africa.
“Young people on our continent are mostly urban, or in the process of moving from the countryside,” he said. “So if you want to employ the millions who are without jobs, you need mines, factories and service industries
“But how can you do that without electricity? In Europe or America, having the lights on is taken for granted,” Mr Owasu said. “But what would happen to your life, your job and your city if that changed, if there was no power for a month, a year? That’s what many in Africa live with.
Chad, he said, was one of the main source countries for migrants to France. “Maybe that’s because Paris burns more electricity in a month than Chad generates in a year.”
Dams in West Africa, and like Kariba and Cabora Basa on the Zambezi, pump out power, but drought can leave water levels too low to spin the turbines.
And the new science of wind and solar have set-up costs, mostly in foreign currency, that put them outside the reach of poorer states.
And, so, the continent is moving back to natural gas and, more-so, to coal.
In the ground
South Africa generates nearly half of all Africa’s electricity using some of the world’s largest coal-powered plants. Zimbabwe and Botswana do the same.
Ghana has no reserves but had been debating the import of coal for electricity, while Nigeria has more than two-billion tons in the ground.
The discovery of oil in the late 50s and the Nigerian civil war of the late 60s, in the heart of the coalfields, set back production. But in a country famous for its blackouts, a 2011 report showed that, starting from scratch, a coal-fired plant could be set up cheaper and more quickly than oil or hydro.
Meanwhile, the African Development Bank is running a study on how it might fund Kenya’s first coal power plant, and Tanzania has one under way on the border with Mozambique.
For Zimbabwe, it is an indispensable source of power from giant reserves at the Wankie colliery.
President Trump has pledged to help developing countries with clean-coal technology to reduce emissions.
Critics say Africa should skip the fossil fuel that built industrial hubs in Europe, America, India, China and Australia and move directly to wind and solar.
There are also calls for more aid to help Africa with its energy deficit.
The Power Africa initiative started by President Obama and continued by the Trump administration encourages private US companies to build generation capacity across Africa.
But in Uganda, were both Power Africa and USAID are active, only 22 per cent of the population are on the grid while the country sells what it calls its “excess power” to neighboring Kenya for cash. Two new dams with turbines are about to come online but much of the output will flow down pylons into the Democratic Republic of Congo, boosting the treasury in Kampala but still leaving a majority of Ugandans in the dark.
Aid gone wrong
Washington neurosurgeon, Dr Sylvanus Adetokunboh Ayeni, who was born in Nigeria, has written a book on the problems of aid and corruption in Africa, and says hand-outs are not the answer.
“We hear endlessly how a gift of money can put things right, but more than a trillion dollars in aid to Africa since 1960 has done little to help.
“We need solutions that work locally, not wafty notions from aid junkies and NGOs who, when they get it wrong, run back to the comfort of London or Los Angeles.
“For example, what’s the point of spending scarce foreign exchange to import solar panels or wind turbines for oil rich countries like Angola or Nigeria. Or to Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa with billions of tons of coal in the ground.”
Nigeria, with more than three times the population of South Africa produces one tenth as much power.
India has an estimated 300 million people — close to the population of USA — still off the grid. Africa has double that number.
Experts say the problem often lies in last-mile technology, lines from substations to homes and factories, even to whole towns.
In his book Rescue Thyself, subtitled “Change in sub-Saharan Africa must come from within,” Ayeni says electricity remains a key challenge for Africa.
“When you have no power, you can’t set up factories, run hotels, do homework, keep vaccines chilled at a clinic or even pump water efficiently. In short, you have no hope of a better life,” he said.
“And with the resultant poverty and unemployment, young people have few options. Why do you think millions are striking out to cross the Mediterranean while others join gangs or militia? Ask yourself what you would do if you lived in such misery.”
Before handing out aid, Dr Ayeni said donors should ask why countries with virtually no natural resources like Singapore rank among the world’s best economies, “while oil-rich Angola manufactures almost nothing and, under president Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe has gone from breadbasket to a beggar state.”
Nigel Lawson was finance minister under Margaret Thatcher and today sits in the House of Lords.
In London, he also chairs a non-partisan think tank, the Global Warming Policy Forum or GWPF with a board of leading business people and academics.
Migrants and militia
GWPF director, Dr Bennie Peiser, agreed with Dr Ayeni that power generation was vital to changing Africa for the better. “If you worry about Africans in poverty and people drowning on the Mediterranean, or the rise of militia and criminal networks, do something about it. And that must begin with providing electricity.”
Dr Peiser said it was, “an outrage that, in 2017, some African states produce less power than a mid-size town in Europe or America.”
This, he said, is a threat to the environment. “People need to cook and stay warm, so they chop trees. The loss of forest is much more immediate than predictions that temperatures may rise significantly over the next century. By then Africa’s forests will already have been cut down.”
And he said Dr Ayeni was right that supply of power had to be done quickly and in a way that works for Africa.
“China has 1.4 billion people, roughly the same as Africa, but with 10 times more electricity. You only get those numbers from hydro plants on rivers and, for the most part, from coal and gas.
“For all the love-affair with wind and solar, they produce tiny amounts of power, even in the US and Europe, and storing it at night or when the weather doesn’t work remains an unsolved problem,” Dr. Peiser said.
In July, President Trump lifted an Obama-era ban on World Bank funds being used for clean-coal projects to generate power in developing countries.
But Ayeni says time is short. “Africa is urbanizing perhaps faster than anywhere on the planet, and in our cities unemployment can reach 70 per cent, especially among the youth. If we don’t find something for these people to do, we face a bloody revolution worse than anything in history.”
Migration, crime, militia and “a continent in dysfunction”, he said, were “a product of poor governance, bad aid and hundreds of millions left destitute because there is no work and no electricity to build an economy”.
Dr Peiser said that while small solar units handed out by US and British aid groups were helpful, “let’s not kid ourselves that this is the answer. We need every city and town on a central grid where the power doesn’t go off.”
Dr Ayeni dismissed the idea that grid power can’t work in Africa because of distances involved and the cost of distribution to rural areas.
“Canada is a third the size of Africa with vast areas under snow and ice, but every part of the country has electricity and Canada generates so much it sells power to the US.”
Ayeni said the best industrial solutions are those pioneered and run by Africans, using readily available human and natural resources especially at grassroots level.
And, if aid is delivered, he said it should be done, as far as possible, outside the reach of government.
“Africa is literally the dark continent because so few people have the lights on. Better we sort that before it becomes a continent on fire.”
Rescue Thyself: Change in sub-Saharan Africa must come from within, by Dr Sylvanus Ayeni, is published in the US by Hamilton Books. Distributed in Africa by Juta & Co (Cape Town) and in England by Quantum Publishing
Post published in: Environment
The rest is black.
Backward continent inhabited by backward people.
You are right, Owen. But I don’t think you know why, otherwise you would not say this. But I can promise you, Westerners would fare no better if they had to live under the conditions Africans do.
What is stopping africans in africa from uplifting themselves they have had massive IMF bailouts, EU loans, & yet still are failures ?
Thank you, Owen. I think you must be a Westerner? It would need a
lot of space to fully explain a vast problem. But simply, most Africans live under corrupt, oppressive, often brutal governments that exploit them and keep them in poverty. And our governments, the UN, World Bank, IMF, EU and China help to keep these governments in power with aid & loans. Not enough reaches ordinary Africans to do any good.
The African Union, which is the official voice of Africa, and many progressive Africans want aid stopped because of this.
Also, they are held down by the power of Western/Chinese commercial and financial interests. To show you how powerful these are, many are bigger in financial terms than any African government! The situation really is dreadful.
Many african countries have absolutely no control of their own funds & their own money is banked in largely French & or british banks.
Many black leaders were also schooled in either the usa, france or britain, along with their kids.
There are a number of very good articles which prove this fact.
Yes. The French action is illegal under international law. But I’m not aware of any British ex-colony this iniquitous condition imposed on them.
Pan Africa, the Chinese are rapidly becoming the leading neocolonialists.
They are worse than the West because they have made it clear they have no
interest in helping Africans escape poverty, whereas at least some Western
organisations make an attempt. And, although Western business were unacceptably bad employers, the Chinese are worse.
BRICS Bank has announced massive infrastructural loans & projects both going concerns & future projects to african countries, so how infrastructure development by these same “neo colonialists”, will not uplift the poor in some way or form is beyond me.
It appears you are not as up to date on these matters as I thought you may have been.
You are right. A lot gets stolen to keep corrupt governments going.
The West has spent well over US$1 trillion + lots from China, which is giving
Zimbabwe $4 billion during 2106-18, but this will just keep Mugabe going.
Infrastructure is worse in many countries than under colonialism, on average
half a century ago.
Of course a lot gets through, but not nearly enough to close the gap
between Africa and the West. Even that AU say development is not closing the
gap with the West. Average incomes between the West and Africa have widened by
300% since 1960, and also 300% more earn under $5, now totalling 91% of
Africans.
My business was closed down by ruling elites and Western MNCs for
paying Western rates to Africans.
Far too many other things going wrong for me to cover here.
No one is saying nothing is happening. The West has spent well over US$1 trillion + lots from China, which is giving Zimbabwe $4 billion during 2106-18, but much is lost through corruption.
Even the AU says development is not enough to close the gap with the
West, and infrastructures in many countries are worse than under colonialism, averaging half a century ago. Average incomes between the West and Africa have widened by 300% since 1960, and also 300% more earn under $5, now totalling 91% of Africans.
My business was closed down by ruling elites and Western MNCs for
paying Western rates to Africans.
Far too many other things going wrong for me to cover here.
The shift for Africa now is towards the east.
You’re right, Owen. But that is already just making things worse by consolidating neocolonialism.
Would you prefer the americans invade & install democracy ?
Absolutely NOT, Owen! It is they and the West that caused all this
mess in the first place! Had they done what they should have done immediately
after colonialism ended, Africans would not now be in poverty, and would be
rapidly approaching Western living standards, if not actually there.
Africa’s future needs to be taken back by Africa. The AU’s Agenda
2063 lays out exactly how to do this, but I’m afraid all Africa’s activists and
campaigners are ignoring it, and they are the ones who should have embraced it
and set out to broadcast it to all African citizens.
Absolutely NOT, Owen! It is they and the West that caused all this mess in the first place! Had they done what they should have done immediately after colonialism ended, Africans would not now be in poverty, and would be rapidly approaching Western living standards, if not actually there.
Very illuminating article. Anti-aid not new. Since 1960s, Western and African economists and activists have been questioning it. The AU in its Agenda 2063 wants it cut by 75% by 2023. This is the official voice of Africa, but Western governments, official aid agencies (the UN, World Bank, IMF) and NGOs are taking no notice.
Regarding Africa’s development, Agenda 2063 also lays out the complete plan for it – far better than the UN’s 2030 Agenda and SDGs – but it is being totally ignored, to the appalling cost of the hundreds of millions of Africans in extreme poverty.
A Buxton Geothermal Turbine Generator is a
lined and capped well, filled with water, which is ten kilometres deep.
Because the ground heats up at a constant rate the deeper one digs, the
cap of the well is at three times boiling point, the precise
temperature at which power stations generate electricity with their
turbine generators. Any power station can easily be converted to Buxton
Geothermal Turbine Generators. The power they can generate is only
limited by how wide the well is dug, and energy generation greater than
nuclear power stations is easily possible. It should be noted that due
to temperature variations in different localities, the well would have
to be dug until the temperature at the bottom reached three times
boiling point, which is an average of ten kilometres.
As far as the cost of such a project is
concerned, the recent Aachen bore hole was dug to a depth of 2.5
kilometres in three months, so we can assume that it would take just a
year to get down to a depth where the rocks are at the temperature of
three times boiling point. Figures available on the internet say that a
bore hole of 5.54 kilometres costs £4.7 million, which equates to £8.5
million for a ten kilometre bore hole. This is thus a very cheap way of
cleaning up the pollution caused by present power stations. There are
approximately 107 main power stations in the UK producing 47 million
tonnes of carbon (2004 figures) or 30% of the total UK production of
carbon, and this would take £909.5 million to convert to BGTGs. A drop
of 30% in carbon production would go a long way towards the Government’s
present target of 60% of 1990 emissions by 2050. We must also compare
the cost of converting all power stations to BGTGs with the conservative
estimate of £2 billion to build just one nuclear power station.
Information on other Super Deep Boreholes can be seen at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole