Let's the sun shine...
Sustainable Energy Solutions for Africa
Posted by
The Peace Blogger
on 30 March, 2012
Despite being rich in natural resources [including
a vast amount of renewable solar energy] Africa remains solidly at the bottom
among the world’s continents in terms of human well-being and development, it’s
a situation that most people called the “resource curse.”
The idea behind this concept of “resource curse”
is that African regions with lots of natural resources, especially
non-renewable, tend to have economies dominated by just a few industrial sectors,
causing the rest to remain weak, underdeveloped or inexistent. This
over-reliance on a few key resources also makes country vulnerable to corruption,
government mismanagement and wild swings in global commodity prices.
Africa has certainly all those things in
abundance, but the continent is also undergoing dramatic change, with some
countries seeing rapid economic growth and accelerating urbanization, while underdeveloped
infrastructure [both in cities and in rural areas] remains an on-going problem.
Today, at a regional level, the number of
people without access to electricity in sub‐Saharan Africa increases by 10%
every year, with a projection from 590 million in 2010 to 645 million in 2030, with
the steadily rising price of electricity affecting both individuals and
businesses alike in every African country, alternative energy can be one of the
solutions. For example, micro-hydropower could help bring electricity to remote
areas, as well as Solar Energy.
This is especially
critical in Africa, where population growth will continue to overwhelm energy
development efforts.
For most development study
agency, a shift to renewable forms of energy has been identified as a long-term
solution to the looming problems of energy shortages and the obvious damage to
the environment. Concentrated solar power is one of the few (if not the only)
renewable energy form that offers both immediate and long term solution to
Africa’s energy needs.
Sustainable power in
Africa can be based to a great extent on utility-scale renewable energy
generation from the sun, as well as energies from wind and micro scale water
turbines. A well balanced mix of renewable energy sources with fossil fuel
backup can provide affordable power capacity on demand throughout Africa.
We tend to forget
sometime that Africa has an enormous amount of sun energy, falling as sunshine
on African deserts, arid Sahel region and savannah grassland, begging to be
harnessed by anyone who has an appreciation for sustainable, clean, affordable
and renewable electricity.
Let's the sun shine...
1 comments:
A full and unvarnished truth!
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