Africa south of the Sahara is one of the places where energy poverty is greatest. Seventy percent of all households in the vast region lack modern energy technologies, whether electricity or fuels other than wood and dung for cooking fires. Even in the region's richest country—South Africa—roughly 30 percent of households lack access to electricity.
To help extend electricity and other energy services as well as cut down on greenhouse gas emissions from existing electricity producers, Zuma's government launched a renewable energy initiative during the recent climate change conference in Durban. With the help of the U.N. and other international donors, South Africa will develop more wind and solar power. Given South Africa's abundant coal and heavy reliance on the most polluting fossil fuel for modern energy services, the idea is to harness equally abundant sunshine and wind to diversify energy supplies enough to meet the country's commitment under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord to reduce emissions 34 percent by the end of this decade.
In that, South Africa hopes to mimic other African nations that started down this road to renewables earlier, such as Kenya. With the help of the UNDP and U.N. Environmental Programme (UNEP), that East African nation—where only 18 percent of households have access to electricity today—is developing its renewable resources, such as geothermal power in the geologically active Rift Valley, wind farms and solar-powered battery systems in remote villages. "Kenya is on track with investments brought in to produce all its electricity from renewable sources by 2020," Orr says.
But the simple truth is: if the most affluent country in sub-Saharan Africa cannot boost its use of renewables while also extending modern energy access to those who still lack it, what hope do much poorer countries have? "The intervention announced today will ease energy poverty," Zuma said of the U.N.-backed clean energy program, which also saw 500 homes outfitted with solar hot water heaters and 200 homes given LED home lighting systems powered by solar photovoltaics. "Let us change, instead of burning, making more smoke."
That, of course, is easier said than done, particularly when it comes to cooking.
The power to cook
Netherlands-based Philips's smokelessn cookstove looks like it is fashioned from a metal pail that gleams atop a black plastic saucer, albeit a pail with a roaring fire inside it. Tongues of flame lick the top of the combustion chamber where twigs are added or a pot rests—but no smoke wafts out. Wood, dung—the stove can burn "pretty much any biomass," as a suited Philips executive stoking it in KwaDukuza notes during my visit the city formerly known as Stanger. The key to the new cookstoves is gasification—the stove gasifies the biomass of whatever type with heat before burning it. Traditional cookstoves burn the biomass in the pail—and emit clouds of sickening soot in the process. Even worse, most households simply employ an open fire.
But with this new cookstove, any ash settles to the bottom rather than wafting out as smoke. The saucer beneath conceals the stove's secret weapon: a battery-powered electric fan.
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14 Comments
Add CommentNuclear power is a far cheaper, cleaner energy source for urban Africa than solar electricity or wind especially when enormous transmission and storage/backup costs are considered. Solar hot water/heat great idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar is an excellent alternative for backwood power gen until nuclear ammonia fuel cells can replace it.
In the isolated and small rural villages of Africa a smaller more personal touch should be taken. There's a young man right now in these villages obtaining used photovoltaic cells at a cost affective price and building solar panels by hand. He's also training others in these villages to make their own PV panels. Villages like these have very little infrastructure if any. Just supplying enough electricity to power a pump for the village water well and a few light bulbs at night will go a long way in helping these villages develop in the short term.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes. Solar Water Heaters,Solar Cookers,Solar Driers,Solar Disinfection of Water,Solar LED lights ... all can enrich the life in African Region.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
Coupled with cell towers and cheap laptops used for education, yes. They need to be taught how to fish - not be given a fish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnlike a solar electric collector, a solar hot water heater can be built inexpensively. It should even be possible to use some of that hot water to power a refrigerator such as is used in some campers. Thus a family could have hot water and refrigeration at a relatively low cost without having electricity. Then you would build the solar stove.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know that one part of the camper refrigerator must have heat applied to it all the time for it to work. I don't know how to do that with the passive solar water heater on the roof. A pump would constantly bathe a point in the refrigerator with hot warted. Something else would be needed. Otherwise, it should be possible to provide a family with hot water, cooked food, and refrigeration for very little money.
Absolutely agree. The energy issues across Africa are so varied that multiple solutions are needed. Extending the grid & Mini-Grids (ideally renewables powered) are vital - as are smaller solar solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPico Solar lights/lanterns (5 watts or less) can also have an immediate impact by replacing candles and kerosene, powering radios and charging mobile phones in off grid households (110 million off grid households in Africa).
The market can meet much of the demand... but governments can always do more stimulate it and improve the operating environment for the renewables industry.
John Keane, Head of Programmes, SolarAid
johnkeane1.wordpress.com
Pyrolyse wood and you've got a clean energy source. See International Biochar Initiative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of the functions you mention only need solar arrays, but LED lights, to be of practical use, also need batteries, which don't usually last as long. I hope supercapacitors will soon be a viable replacement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should be mentioned that solar (or any heat) disinfection can be accomplished much more efficiently that you might expect, using counter-current heating technology, recovering heat from outgoing water to heat incoming water. The trick is to have water flowing in opposite directions, for instance with copper tubing inside a larger pipe, and lots of insulation around the outside.
I'm thinking of a cheap parabolic reflector solar cooker that would come in pieces and be assembled on site. It wouldn't have to have perfect focus, only good enough that all reflected light hits the bottom of the pot or griddle. The outside of the parabola would be spherical and sit in a spherical depression in the ground, so that the angle could be adjusted with the position of the sun, while the pot, hanging from a chain on a central post, stays upright. At times near sunrise or sunset, it might need guy wires to keep it from falling over. When small areas of the reflector get damaged, fill it in with plaster if needed and glue on some aluminum foil. I think other details wouldn't be too hard to work out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSolar disinfection can be much more efficient than you might expect, using counter-current heat transfer from outgoing to incoming water. The trick is to have maybe copper tubing inside a bigger (preferably long and straight) pipe, with incoming and outgoing water flowing in opposite directions, and lots of insulation around the outside.
Oops, I thought I had accidentally deleted the previous message.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight, let's go nuclear in Africa where only two nations at most (South Africa and Botswana) probably has the level of bureaucratic development to follow through the process to its end and then the security to ensure the nuclear elements are not stolen and used for malevolent purposes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile hypothetically nuclear is the answer to all our energy needs, to even think of using it, one must start with a nation/state that is fully secure in every way.
The expense of building nuclear plants is probably equal to some African nations annual budget, and aside from PR China no nation or private entity would even consider doing so.
As for China it wouldn't even consider it unless it somehow vastly improved their ability to utilize African resources on the SHORT term (as in a couple of years down the road, not the decade it usually takes to finish a Nuke plant properly).
The article is about realistic and easy to implement solutions to problems individuals face that are widespread and collectively have a massive negative impact on societies there, as well as solutions that can start producing results as soon as it starts.
Nuclear meets none of those requirements.
What an ironic sort of thing to say. LOL Yes I know you're being metaphorical, but the reality of the situation is were anyone to attempt to teach them how to fish, they'd find fishing rights off of the African coast has been sold to the highest bidder, and the same goes for most of the mineral wealth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes you do, you also cause massive deforestation in a region that is already suffering continent wide desertification due to over harvesting of wood in drier regions, and cutting the rainforest for lumber exports.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point of the article is to come up with a solution that does NOT cause another problem that is even worse than the situation there already.
Also, at one time mangrove forests filled the African coasts. It might be possible to graft fruit trees onto mangrove roots or perhaps mangrove trunks. Red mangroves have glands in their trunks for getting rid of excess salt. Imagine branches from an orange tree grafted above that point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA mangrove forest which went from a fish nursery to a denuded area worthless to both people and fish could again serve both.