This thread will focus on electricity infrastructure in Africa and related news on new capacity, regional power grids, issues. I have started the thread by posting current generation capacity of Africa's 54 member states as well as an article that talks about the current power crunch.

Toiling in the Dark: Africa’s Power Crisis

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Source: New York times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/africa/29power.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world)

LUSAKA, Zambia — It is not that Jacob Mwale minds irrigating the 11 acres of land he farms just east of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. It is irrigating his 11 acres in the dead of night that angers him.

Power failures are common in Lusaka and much of southern Africa. More Photos »

Two or three times a week, the Mwale farm abruptly loses power, like the homes and businesses of some of Zambia’s 300,000 other electricity users. When the power returns, sometimes late in the evening, Mr. Mwale’s farmhands work overtime, watering the fields by moonlight.

“If they shut down the whole day, I have to work nights, and pay extra,” Mr. Mwale, 39, grumbled. “It’s killing us.”

Power blackouts — “load shedding,” in utility jargon — are hardly novel in sub-Saharan Africa, where many electricity grids remain chewing-gum-and-baling-wire affairs. Even so, this year is different. Perhaps 25 of the 44 sub-Saharan nations face crippling electricity shortages, a power crisis that some experts call unprecedented.

The causes are manifold: strong economic growth in some places, economic collapse in others, war, poor planning, population booms, high oil prices and drought have combined to leave both industry and residents short of power when many need it most.

“We’ve had no significant capital injection into generation and transmission, from either the private or public sectors, for 15, maybe 20 years,” said Lawrence Musaba, the manager of the Southern African Power Pool, a 12-nation consortium of electricity utilities at the continent’s tip.

The implications go beyond candlelight suppers and extra blankets on beds. The lack of reliable power has already begun to hamper the region’s development, clipping more than 2 percent off the annual growth rates of the worst-hit African economies, according to the World Bank. Some nations, like Ghana, have tried to deal with their power crises by leasing huge teams of gas generators, producing emergency power at exorbitant rates until power plants can be built.

In Nigeria, Angola and some other nations, virtually all businesses and many residents run private generators to supplement faltering public service, saddling economies with added costs and worsening pollution.

“I’ve been on the 20th floor of an apartment building in Luanda, and there would be generators on all the verandas, with the racket, the fumes,” said Anton Eberhard, a former electricity regulator and an expert on power at the University of Cape Town. “And the lift isn’t working, because the main power supply is off.”

In normal times, South Africa’s muscular chain of power plants fills the gaps of its neighbors. But South Africa now could experience up to seven years of its own electricity shortages. Rolling blackouts blanketed parts of the country in January, and sporadic power failures have persisted since.

The gravity of this year’s shortage is all the more apparent considering how little electricity sub-Saharan Africa has to begin with. Excluding South Africa, whose economy and power consumption dwarf other nations’, the region’s remaining 700 million citizens have access to roughly as much electricity as do the 38 million citizens of Poland.

Much goes to industry: a single aluminum smelter near Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, gobbles four times as much power as the entire rest of Mozambique. On average, the World Bank says, fewer than one in four sub-Saharan Africans are hooked to national electricity grids.

Moreover, some grids are so poorly maintained that electricity suppliers get paid for as little as 60 percent of the power they generate. The rest is either stolen or lost in ill-maintained networks.

For decades, the region had enough generating capacity — and few enough customers — to tolerate such waste. No more: sub-Saharan nations are adding about a thousand megawatts of generating capacity each year, World Bank experts say, but need up to twice that to keep pace with demand.

Some governments privatized chunks of their power industry in the early 1990s when free-market solutions to public-sector problems were in vogue, leaving it unclear who is ultimately responsible for providing power.

Other governments, as in South Africa, failed to build power plants that experts warned were needed. The government monopoly Eskom, the world’s fourth-largest power utility, was advised in a 1998 report that it would run short of power in 2007, but planning and financing problems — not all within the utility’s control — stalled upgrades. The forecast was actually optimistic: Eskom began running short in 2006.

Yet South Africa’s woes pale beside those of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. Only 19 of 79 power plants work, the government said in April. Daily electricity output has plunged 60 percent from its peak, and blackouts cost the economy $1 billion a year, the Council for Renewable Energy in Nigeria says.

Poor management is but one problem. War has devastated the power grid in Congo, in Africa’s heart, and stalled plans to develop its vast hydroelectric potential. In Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and parts of West Africa, drought has shrunk rivers and slashed the generating capacity of hydroelectric dams. Drought in Ghana, for example, has crippled gold and aluminum production and set off blackouts in Togo and Benin, which buy power from Ghana.

Once a major power exporter, Uganda now blacks out parts of its capital, Kampala, for as much as a day at a time and has leased two 50-megawatt generators, burning diesel at a time of record oil prices. The demand for hydropower in Uganda and its neighbors, with drought, is blamed by some for a steady reduction in the water level of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest.

Uganda’s gas stations are now short of diesel for vehicles — in part, paradoxically, because power shortages are shutting down a pipeline from Kenya. News reports say the nation has spent enough on diesel-fueled power generation to build two hydroelectric dams.

Zambia, where power to customers like Mr. Mwale is rationed almost every day, is a template for such problems. Barely 20 percent of households are wired for power — only 3 percent in rural areas — but the Zambia Electricity Supply Company, known as Zesco, is signing up 10,000 new customers a year, said Christopher Nthala, the utility’s transmission director.

Now Zambia is getting a push: a global commodities boom has jolted its moribund metals industry to life. Investors are building two smelters, and doubling the capacity of another, to handle the boom in copper, nickel and other metals, taxing the nation’s power supply.

“We’ve never seen this kind of growth before,” Mr. Nthala said.

Once the utility could make up shortfalls by buying power from other utilities in the Southern Africa Power Pool. But today, Mr. Nthala said, neighbors have little surplus to hand out. “Sometimes we get it,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t.”

None of that mollifies customers, who say blackouts are so common that service in much of Lusaka has become totally unreliable.

Many power failures seem to hit Matero, a poor township that is home to maybe a million of Lusaka’s estimated three million residents. “Every day — it’s either in the morning, when people are going to work or preparing to cook, or in the evening, the prime time when I’m tired and I need to go home and listen to the news and cook my supper,” said Bishop Peter Ndhlovu, who leads the 250,000-member Bible Gospel Church, an evangelical movement.

Nighttime prayer meetings in his corrugated-roof chapel have been canceled. Bishop Ndhlovu and others say they lave lost refrigerators, televisions and DVD players to the utility’s blackouts and surges.

Most of the township’s residents have adapted by turning away from their stoves and instead cooking outdoors, village-style, with homemade charcoal. “Charcoal is going very fast, because they’ve found out that Zesco is cutting power unpredictably,” the bishop said.

On Lusaka’s eastern outskirts, Mr. Mwale, the farmer, also has laid in a stock of charcoal — not to cook, but to warm his stock of newborn chicks, which must be kept at a constant 90 degrees for the three weeks after hatching.

He said he worried about the environment. Charcoal production is a major contributor to deforestation in Zambia and nearby nations. But the alternative is to take a loss on his poultry business.

“When they make a loss, they just raise their tariff,” he said of Zesco. “When I make a loss, I have to make it up myself. Is that fair?”

Zambia’s plan, like the plans of dozens of other nations, is to build its way out of the power crunch. Zesco plans $1.2 billion in generating upgrades and new capacity, financed mostly by China and India. South Africa plans more than $20 billion in upgrades; Congo is contemplating a hydroelectric station that by itself would increase capacity outside South Africa by 50 to 75 percent.

The World Bank says its financing of power projects in sub-Saharan Africa is ballooning, from $250 million five years ago to $660 million last year to $1 billion in 2007.

But many plans remain just that. Issues like creditworthiness, lax regulation, domestic politics and the sheer difficulty of sending power over rundown grids to the customer make outside investments in power stations tougher than they appear, said Tore Horvei, the chief operating officer of CIC Energy Corporation, which is based in South Africa.

The best answer, most experts consulted agree, would be for nations to cooperate on regional power solutions. One or two large regional plants, they say, could supply power more cheaply and efficiently than dozens of smaller ones.

But while that may be logical, Mr. Horvei said, “it’s very challenging in practice to do so.”

“National pride and everything else comes in,” he added.

There is an alternative: saving energy. Namibia plans a wind farm on its southern coast, while in South Africa, Eskom has handed out five million fluorescent bulbs and 140,000 insulating blankets for water heaters, and has paid industrial customers to switch off equipment during periods of high demand.

Africa's electricity generation capacity in Kilowatts per hour (kWh) as at January 2007.

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Source: CIA factbook

The most disturbing thing is that Africa's total electricity generation capacity of 510 billion kWh is even slightly below that of France which is 540 billion kWh. Damn, we need to do a lot of work. However Africa is not as worse on a per capita basis when compared to India who has a total capacity of 630 billion kWh. That said, i think Africa has to really work hard on upping its generation capacity in the next decade in order to sustain economic growth.

here's the full list (http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/electricity_production_2007_0.html) of all countries.

What do you think of more widespread nuclear power as a possible solution? it's true that nuclear tech can't be really trusted in the hands of some current African regimes(like Mugabe, for an obvious example), but it could very well be a boon for nations like Kenya and Ghana, which I'm sure could be considered trustworthy enough internationally to use it.

Have they considered nuclear power in Africa, or are the costs just too prohibitive?

Nigeria's Production should be the highest in Africa, given it's population.

Which is exactly why Nigeria has the lowest kWh per person in Africa.:ohno:

However the New Independent Power Plants should triple Nigeria's output by 2010.:)

Well I think one way that Africa can solve the Energy crisis, is bu utilizing rivers, like the ones in Congo to generate Electricity.

I don't see why African Countries can't get together, put money on the table and build a Massive Hydro Electric Dam in Congo, that generates 35,000 Megawatts. This can be distributed in a power pool to several countries.

If various schemes like this are done, then slowly every country in Africa will meet the world's average kWh per person.

I think South Africa is the only country in Africa that surpasses the Average.

What do you think of more widespread nuclear power as a possible solution? it's true that nuclear tech can't be really trusted in the hands of some current African regimes(like Mugabe, for an obvious example), but it could very well be a boon for nations like Kenya and Ghana, which I'm sure could be considered trustworthy enough internationally to use it.

Have they considered nuclear power in Africa, or are the costs just too prohibitive?

South Africa has the one and only nuclear power plant in Africa at Koeberg, in the Western Cape. IF you look around the forums you can find the plans of the SA government to build a lot of new nuclear power plants by 2020

It all boils down to capacity planning which has largely been non-existent in Africa. The planning has mostly been reactionary as opposed to being pro-active. That is why most African countries are currently going through the current power shortages.

Also there is a need for countries to consider energy security by diversifying their source of energy and stop relying overly on a single source like hydro-power. The current climate change means that many African countries are experiencing prolonged droughts and thus rivers are drying up and dams aren't having enough water to keep the turbines turning. Some of these countries have large deposits of coal which a cheap way of producing electricity (as is the case with SA) and could tap into this to boost production. While others like Nigeria have large gas deposits which should be immediately be pipelined to power electricity plants. Nuclear energy carries with it a lot of environmental and safety issues which means that only those countries that have the experience in this area and willing to go through the rigorous Environmental Impact Analysis and high costs of deploying a safe nuclear power station should consider this option (for now).

Also there is a need for countries to consider energy security by diversifying their source of energy and stop relying overly on a single source like hydro-power. The current climate change means that many African countries are experiencing prolonged droughts and thus rivers are drying up and dams aren't having enough water to keep the turbines turning. Some of these countries have large deposits of coal which a cheap way of producing electricity (as is the case with SA) and could tap into this to boost production. While others like Nigeria have large gas deposits which should be immediately be pipelined to power electricity plants. Nuclear energy carries with it a lot of environmental and safety issues which means that only those countries that have the experience in this area and willing to go through the rigorous Environmental Impact Analysis and high costs of deploying a safe nuclear power station should consider this option (for now).

Actually, this reminds me of some news I've been hearing from Botswana.

Morupule plans 12 mtpa coal output

[miningmx.com] -- DEBSWANA’S wholly owned coal company Morupule Colliery is looking at a ten-fold production increase to meet an enormous leap in demand from Botswana’s only power station as well as supplies of coal to the country’s north, said Frank Wookey, financial controller of Morupule.


Morupule currently produces around 900,000 to 970,000 tonnes of coal a year, the bulk of which goes to the 120 MW power station. There are plans to add another 600 MW of capacity to the plant by the turn of the decade and to potentially add another 600 MW at a later stage.

A little explored issue is the shortfall South African power utility Eskom is expecting around 2014 as it embarks on a massively expensive expansion programme. Eskom will have an estimated shortfall in contracted supplies of up to 14 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), something Wookey said offered a growth avenue to Morupule.
we have a geographic advantageAt the moment, however, Morupule envisions its output growing to between 10 mtpa and 12 mtpa from domestic demand, exports and other offtake agreements.

The Botswana mines ministry reckons the country will produce 20 million tonnes of coal by 2014.

“Our feeling is that Morupule, which in the past 34 years has not produced more than a million tonnes in any one year, will do 10 to 12 million tonnes a year on its own if our plans come off,” Wookey said.

CIC Energy and International Power are to build a 2,400 MW power plant and develop a 9mtpa mine to supply it. The plant will begin commercial operations in the first quarter of 2012.

The two expansions at the power plant will consume about five million tonnes per annum. There are potential offtake agreements Morupule is negotiating with at least two parties that could account for another four to six mtpa and there are smaller contracts for 500,000 tonnes/year.

“Our focus is to the north where we have a geographic advantage,” Wookey told Miningmx on the sidelines of the Botswana Resource Sector Conference.

The Wankie colliery in Zimbabwe is going through very difficult times amid an economic meltdown in that country, while the Mamba colliery in Zambia is also having some difficulties, he said.

“We have established a reputation as a reliable supplier,” he said.

Funding the leap in production will be through Debswana, the world’s single largest source of rough diamonds jointly owned by De Beers and the Botswana government.

“We will be entirely relying on them to provide the funding, even if it is just to facilitate meetings with those who can,” Wookey said. He declined to speculate how much the increase would cost.

The expansion would come from moving to long-haul underground mining and potentially open cast mining. Morupule will know at the end of this year on the opencast prospects. SRK and DRA have been appointed to investigate mining methods and surface requirements. Their reports should be presented by September.

A study into the geology of Morupule’s deposits will give the Botswana power utility ease of mind that the company can supply coal for both expansion projects for 40 years. Morupule currently has 40 million tonnes of in situ coal.

The major bottleneck in supplying customers to the north is the Botswana railway, which has planned a major capital investment programme. Morupule sees this as a major step towards it becoming a significant exporter into Africa.

Wookey was unable to give any details on the railway plans.

Morupule is commissioning a coal washing plant in November this year to increase washed coal output to 75,000 tonnes a month. Deliveries will start in January next year.


Botswana could be one of the first countries there to begin really expanding on power source diversification.

Well Nigeria is going Nuclear 2011.

By 2017, Nigeria should be producing 60,000 Megawatts.

Nigeria has been urged, to wait for political stability, before going nuclear, but the decision has been made, so let's hope there's no gloom and doom.

For 100% stability, Nigeria should be producing 350,000 megawatts. 100 times more than what Nigeria is currently generating.(According to Nigeria's Energy Adviser)

To achieve this Nigeria's got to go, efficient Hydro, Coal, Nuclear. Pretty much the whole bundle.

However the future looks bright. With the amount of Power Plants being built.:)

This is bad news for Africa which has the lowest percentage of households connnected to powergrids and bodes ill for the continent's industrialisation and long-term economic growth prospects.

This is bad news for Africa which has the lowest percentage of households connnected to powergrids and bodes ill for the continent's industrialisation and long-term economic growth prospects.

Yes it is really bad news. From personal experience, nearly all the 6 countries we have targeted (Ghana, Tanzania, DRC, Kenya, Zambia) to roll-out iBurst Broadband networks in the continent have been hit hard by this with the exception of Mozambique and we are having to spend more on Capex for each cell site and more on operating expenditures too. This is really putting strain on the 'projections for each country. In Ghana, we are ordering UPS equipment for the Network Operations Center costing $15k , a Genset costing $22k and for each site, exploring solar panels costing in the region of $10-15k for sites. If you are putting up 20 sites, this is a cool additional $300k for all your sites just to ensure un-interrupted power supply. Now we are being forced to co-locate with the GSM operators to share facilities and costs.

Running a 20 KVA genset for 12 hours in Ghana is costing us roughly $150 in fuel costs per day and we are running this GENSET for like 12 x 4 per week which translates into $600 per week just to keep your Network Operations Center available for 24x7. I even wonder how the mines, smelters and heavy industries are coping with the load shedding.

The gensets that keeps our Network Operations Center in Accra, Ghana going. The smaller one is a backup to the big one. You always have to have back-up to THE back-up. LOL

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Kulani, well, the smaller and wealthier African countries don´t perform so badly as far as electricity generation is concerned (given their size).

1.) Mauritius
2.) Gabon
3.) Namibia
4.) Botswana

What about constant power supply in Namibia and Botswana?? Can you enlarge on it, please? As for Gabon, it is an African country that offers reliable electricity supply, fortunately!


As for Nigeria, what can I say????:ohno: An old problem that is crying for solutions!!! but as Tbite has said , power generation is gonna increase!
For a country the size of Nigeria, it should normally have triple the output of SA!

Angola is gonna increase, too! Too much has been destroyed by that damn horror war but much is getting rebuilt concerning elecriticty generation (see Angola reconstruction thread)

Giant dam projects aim to transform African power supplies

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By Sarah J. Wachter

Published: June 19, 2007


PARIS: As the world's political leaders debate ways to alleviate poverty in Africa, industrialists are moving ahead with their own designs for pan-African development - including the building of the world's largest hydroelectric dam at a bend in the Congo River, between Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Called Grand Inga, this giant dam will cost $80 billion to build and will have twice the installed generating capacity of the current record-holder, the Three Gorges Dam in China. Grand Inga would produce enough electricity to serve all of the more than 500 million Africans who currently go without.

While it remains to be seen whether recent leaps in transmission technology are sufficient to carry electricity over Africa's vast distances and physical barriers like the blistering sands of the Sahara, power-hungry countries as far away as Egypt and Nigeria are interested in Grand Inga's potential supply.

"This is a Marshall Plan for Africa," said Gerald Doucet, secretary general of the World Energy Council, the overseer of the project, which is being developed with Westcor - a consortium of power companies from neighboring countries including Namibia, Angola and South Africa - and with international power and engineering giants, including ABB of Sweden, E.ON of Germany, EDF of France, Union Fenosa of Spain and SNC-Lavalin of Canada.

Grand Inga is one of a growing list of large dams under development or serious discussion in Africa, where private investors and development banks are re-examining the potential of "big hydro" to help counter a worsening power shortage.

The World Bank and its lending arm, the IFC, along with the African Development Bank, private investors, power companies and, increasingly, Chinese hydroelectric concerns are the major players.

The amount of hydropower under construction in Africa jumped 53 percent from 2004 to last year, according to the Hydropower & Dams World Atlas and Industry Guide, an industry reference journal. But environmental watchdogs and other nongovernment organizations say that, unlike oil and gas development, the planning process for hydropower lacks transparency and the number of dams under development in Africa is difficult to pinpoint.

Armed with a wealth of experience in constructing large hydro dams, Chinese companies are signing on to projects in many African countries, often as elements of infrastructure investment packages in oil-producing countries. For example, China plans to build and finance a $1.5 billion, 2,000-megawatt plant in the Mambila Plateau in Nigeria, in a deal that also includes Chinese imports of the country's oil and rights to exploit four oil blocks.

Apart from Chinese projects, the World Bank recently approved a $360 million package of loans and guarantees for Bujagali, a 250-megawatt hydro plant on the Nile at Lake Victoria in Uganda that will cost $799 million to build. Uganda, with the fastest growing population in East Africa, has regular rolling blackouts and only one percent of the rural population has access to electricity.

The World Bank also made a $297 million grant to refurbish two existing hydropower plants on a site near Grand Inga last month, as part of a $500 million package co-financed with the African Development Bank to repair damage and silting that occurred over the past decade, during Congo's civil wars.

"Interest in the importance of hydropower has been slowly re-emerging over the past five years," said Philippe Benoit, Inga project manager at the World Bank.

Large dams became controversial in the 1980s and 1990s as environmental and civil rights organizations focused attention on issues like the damage done to rivers, watersheds and aquatic ecosystems, poorly designed resettlement strategies, failure to share economic benefits with affected communities, weak government controls and corruption.

Compensation claims from past projects linger. For example, 50 years after the Kariba Dam was built on the Zambezi River, in what is now Zambia, 57,000 people who were resettled to make way for the dam are asking the World Bank and other parties for compensation because their new agricultural lands are less productive, according to the International Rivers Network.

To address such issues, industry associations and lending institutions have retooled their evaluation procedures for large hydro dams, and have started to apply new construction guidelines developed by a discussion forum, the World Commission on Dams. The World Bank also takes more account of environmental and social issues in its planning. It has developed a strategy to evaluate water use in all its aspects rather than considering energy production in isolation, and has established a complaints procedure for affected communities.

"Certainly within the Bank there is a trend now towards large hydro, and also internationally," said Daryl Fields, a water researcher at the World Bank. "Industry has stepped up to the plate - they are more confident that people are looking at environmental and social issues more rigorously."

But environmental watchdogs, like Environmental Defense and the International Rivers Network, still question whether these new mega-dams will significantly improve electricity supplies to the rural and urban poor in Africa, or whether the power will primarily serve large industrial users and the urban affluent.

"An acceptable balance of funding and timing for energy development in rural versus urban and industrial regions has to be reached," said Terri Hathaway, Africa campaigner for IRN.

Environmentalists also say the huge investments required for giant dams will leave fewer funds available for small-scale power generation. They say micro-hydro and other renewable energy sources would be better options to increase electricity access in remote rural areas, where hooking up to the grid is economically unfeasible.

As a part of an overall funding package to increase power production in Congo, where only about seven percent of the population has access to electricity, the World Bank's money will cover construction of a new transmission line to Kinshasa, rehabilitation and extension of the electricity-distribution network, and delivery of electricity to Kinbanseke, a suburban district about 12 miles, or 20 kilometers, east of Kinshasa with 1.5 million residents.

The World Bank says that it is working with SNEL, the national power utility, to help the company develop more transparent practices and better financial procurement methods, and it is also financing a medical project to help prevent river blindness near the Grand Inga site.

Still, compensation claims stemming from the construction of the existing dams, Inga 1 and 2, have never been paid by the government, said Jacques Bakulu, leader of a local social and civil rights organization, Cepeco.

Two activist groups, Environmental Defense and Bank Information Center, which visited the neighborhood of the Grand Inga site last year, called the local climate "tense." Local organizations say they are not being adequately consulted by the project's partners.

Now the government is beginning a census to determine how many people will need to be resettled. These should include at least 8,000 people from villages near the site, Bakulu said.

It remains to be seen how a country still barely recovering from war can take on such a huge infrastructure project. Corruption continues to plague the new government of President Joseph Kabila, who shifted from heading a transitional administration to an elected one in December, forming what has been billed as the first truly democratic government in the country's history.

Despite the first signs of a return to political normality, peace is still maintained only by the most expensive peacekeeping force operated by the United Nations anywhere in the world.

The country's infrastructure, from its battered electricity system to its battered roads, keeps Congo's people among the poorest in the world.

Planning for Grand Inga is still in the early stages, and no final decision will be made until 2014. The World Energy Council and the World Bank say that they see the project advancing in tandem with government efforts to develop a national energy plan, while assuring that all necessary checks and balances will be in place to enable the project to be undertaken successfully.

"Energy projects are key to the peace process," Doucet said.


Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/19/business/rnrghydro.php?page=1

Kulani, well, the smaller and wealthier African countries don´t perform so badly as far as electricity generation is concerned (given their size).

1.) Mauritius
2.) Gabon
3.) Namibia
4.) Botswana

What about constant power supply in Namibia and Botswana?? Can you enlarge on it, please? As for Gabon, it is an African country that offers reliable electricity supply, fortunately!


As for Nigeria, what can I say????:ohno: An old problem that is crying for solutions!!! but as Tbite has said , power generation is gonna increase!
For a country the size of Nigeria, it should normally have triple the output of SA!

Angola is gonna increase, too! Too much has been destroyed by that damn horror war but much is getting rebuilt concerning elecriticty generation (see Angola reconstruction thread)

I'll elaborate on it. Mauritius is fine as it has a skilled labor force and is functions more like an Asian than African economy so it has replaced SA as the only African country with a first world electricity infrastructure. Gabon I do not know about but I think it is OK. Namibia and Botswana are both tied to the regional Southern African power pool so they are subjected to sporadic blackouts until SA addresses the shortage of power. Both Windhoek and Gaborone have better local transmission networks than do Johannesburg, which must have the most power failures of major SA cities. But all SA cities have sporadic power blockouts including Cape Town even though in Cape Town the power situation melted down when the ANC ruled the city although the new mayor Helen Zille has stayed on top of the situation to mitigate the effects in Cape Town of the national shortage which is beyond the control of cities as Eskom is a monopoly provider.

SA has long produced more electricity than the rest of Africa combined. In 1997 it contributed 57% of electricity power generation on the continent but it's position has slipped to 45% based on the above report that shows the country at 227 Bln KwH compared to 510 Bln Kwh on the continent as a whole. The biggest contribution to this growth appears to have come from Egypt which produced 92 Bln KwH or 18% of the total and has more than doubled capacity in the last 20 years. As for nuclear power stations only SA, Egypt, Algeria and Libya have the industrial bases to support them and strong enough economies. Nuclear enegy is a controversial issue in SA where environmentalists have tried to scuttle every bid to expand the country's nuclear capacity and have the recourse of the courts to fight them. They have good cause as the reactor plans are for the Cape and might upset that region's fragile ecosystem. But Egypt, Algeria and Libya would have a better chance of building new nuclear reactors as they are authoritarian states that lack a strong civil society like SA.

I'll elaborate on it. Mauritius is fine as it has a skilled labor force and is functions more like an Asian than African economy so it has replaced SA as the only African country with a first world electricity infrastructure. Gabon I do not know about but I think it is OK. Namibia and Botswana are both tied to the regional Southern African power pool so they are subjected to sporadic blackouts until SA addresses the shortage of power. Both Windhoek and Gaborone have better local transmission networks than do Johannesburg, which must have the most power failures of major SA cities. But all SA cities have sporadic power blockouts including Cape Town even though in Cape Town the power situation melted down when the ANC ruled the city although the new mayor Helen Zille has stayed on top of the situation to mitigate the effects in Cape Town of the national shortage which is beyond the control of cities as Eskom is a monopoly provider

Is that you who replied, Mosi? For the first time in ages in a reasonable and somehow balanced way (no doom-gloom vision). I had to read it twice to believe my eyes.

Well, thanks for your reply. Still a few question linger, what is "sporadic" in your eyes? How frequent are power outages in Cape Town? Once or twice a month? And how often in Johannesburg, approximately? And what is done to break the monopoly of Eskom in your country?

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/19/business/rnrghydro.php?page=1

Grand Inga on the Congo River has been talked about for the last three decades but I doubt it would go far as it is as grand a scheme like the Three Rivers Dam in China. But unlike China the DRC Congo lacks an economy (let alone a functioning government) to speak of and it may be decades later that we are still talking about it.

Is that you who replied, Mosi? For the first time in ages in a reasonable and somehow balanced way (no doom-gloom vision). I had to read it twice to believe my eyes.

Well, thanks for your reply. Still a few question linger, what is "sporadic" in your eyes? How frequent are power outages in Cape Town? Once or twice a month? And how often in Johannesburg, approximately? And what is done to break the monopoly of Eskom in your country?

Nothing will be done to break the Eskom monopoly as long as the ANC is still in power and can use it to hand out plum jobs to it's cronies. The power outages happen unpredictably but it's reasonable to expect a part of Joburg to be without power for two days a week because of transmission failures. In Cape Town it happens less often but at least twice a month the power will go down in a part of the city. SA's reserve margin on electricity is only 6% which means that if plants that produce more than that are down due to transmission failures or maintenance the network in the country can fail. Smaller towns have less reliable electricity as they have fewer resources and almost no skilled manpower to maintain transmission lines. The problem of blackouts would also be less if we would cut off the free electricity to Robert Mugabe's terror regime in Zimbabwe which is being kept afloat by the SA taxpayer which also has to deal with power shortages only to see the lights on in Mugabe's mansion.

Grand Inga on the Congo River has been talked about for the last three decades but I doubt it would go far as it is as grand a scheme like the Three Rivers Dam in China. But unlike China the DRC Congo lacks an economy (let alone a functioning government) to speak of and it may be decades later that we are still talking about it.

Some people might call it realistic but I don´t share this doom-gloom vision

Nothing will be done to break the Eskom monopoly as long as the ANC is still in power and can use it to hand out plum jobs to it's cronies. The power outages happen unpredictably but it's reasonable to expect a part of Joburg to be without power for two days a week because of transmission failures. In Cape Town it happens less often but at least twice a month the power will go down in a part of the city. SA's reserve margin on electricity is only 6% which means that if plants that produce more than that are down due to transmission failures or maintenance the network in the country can fail. Smaller towns have less reliable electricity as they have fewer resources and almost no skilled manpower to maintain transmission lines. (...)

For two days a week out of power? How many hours are these a day? If it is just for a couple of minutes for each of the two days, well it is disturbing but business can handle it... What is SA doing as far as alternative power generation (wind and power) is concerned, as you mentioned the aspect of ecology earlier? My personal opinion is that alternative forms of power supply could be made use of especially in smaller towns not just in South Africa but allover.

Nothing will be done to break the Eskom monopoly as long as the ANC is still in power and can use it to hand out plum jobs to it's cronies. The power outages happen unpredictably but it's reasonable to expect a part of Joburg to be without power for two days a week because of transmission failures. In Cape Town it happens less often but at least twice a month the power will go down in a part of the city. SA's reserve margin on electricity is only 6% which means that if plants that produce more than that are down due to transmission failures or maintenance the network in the country can fail. Smaller towns have less reliable electricity as they have fewer resources and almost no skilled manpower to maintain transmission lines. The problem of blackouts would also be less if we would cut off the free electricity to Robert Mugabe's terror regime in Zimbabwe which is being kept afloat by the SA taxpayer which also has to deal with power shortages only to see the lights on in Mugabe's mansion.

Matthias, SA people also really like sensationalizing things a lot to discredit the ANC government (dare i say black), ALL THE TIME. The moral of the story goes something like this, as long as there is a black man in charge, we can safely assume that all problems are because of him. So take most of the things you hear with a pinch of salt. Notice how Cape Town's power supply has stabilized because Helen Zille came to power, Mosi-oa-Tunya even suggested that Mossel Bay which was rated the safest town in SA has such low crime rate because it was ruled by the DA party (which is by the way white dominated).

Sure there are transmission problems that occurs on the Eskom network like the power failures around the Bedfordview area (this area makes up something like 5% of Johannesburg) lasting for 2-3 days until the problem was resolved. The problem was due to stolen cables and what police believe could have been sabotage. I know of problems last year that affected the Brixton area (3 days) also due to a fire that partially destroyed a sub-station. A substantial number of these incidents are not in Eskom's control. But in typical SA style, we have some people that are going to point out that the ANC black government is incompetent and is responsible for the fire that broke down in Brixton and the cable theft that plunged Bedfordview into darkness. We have a network of 100 Telecommunications base stations throughout Johannesburg and of those base stations we have only had to look at 8 that were affected by power outages over the last 6 months and these typically lasted for 3 hours while worst cases like Bedfordview lasted for 48 hours and this was a once off situation. Johannesburg is such a large urban sprawl and there is bound to be some suburb or township somewhere whose transmission will have a problem every so often. I have personally not experienced any power outages in Johannesburg.

That said, I hold the ANC responsible for not planning adequately for new capacity and i would agree with anyone who will criticize them for this. The directive from Dept of Energy to halt new power generation projects while they were busy with their lengthy energy sector reforms has obviously been a huge blunder and the reserve margins are testimony to this (currently at 8 - 10%). Also you have to realize that the transmission power lines are maintained and owned by the Johannesburg municipality (Joburg Power) and thus is actually not the responsibility of Eskom. There has largely been under-investment in this area and some of these lines are starting to take strain due to increased electricity demand.

And now Mosi-oa-Tunya would like us to cut the people of Zimbabwe from electricity because of Robert Mugabe. That is akin to pulling the last straw of life out of that country and i am not too sure if its going to do us any good. Sure we can not be pampering Mugabe but i would never encourage withdrawing energy supplies to Zimbabwe, there are other effective ways of getting Mugabe to bow without plunging that country into darkness.

And now Mosi-oa-Tunya would like us to cut the people of Zimbabwe from electricity because of Robert Mugabe. That is akin to pulling the last straw of life out of that country and i am not too sure if its going to do us any good. Sure we can not be pampering Mugabe but i would never encourage withdrawing energy supplies to Zimbabwe, there are other effective ways of getting Mugabe to bow without plunging that country into darkness.

Why Kulani should the SA taxpayer foot the bill for power that in the end will never be paid for by the bankrupted Zimbabwean government, it is a free-for-all for Mugabe, who has no intention of reliquishing power and has broken every promise after negotiations with President Mbeki which are fruitless. Aside from the political considerations, giving electricity to Zimbabwe for free is not a business sound decision. We cannot afford to bail out a tyrannical despot who has internally displaced 2 million people and caused 3 million to flee as refugees to SA. SA is already having problems providing services to it's poor and now has to take in countless refugees that the ANC government admits it cannot prevent from crossing the Limpopo river. Unfortunately the last straw has already been pulled as Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed as a result of this madman's policies and it is SA that is standing in the way of democratic change in Zimbabwe that will happen whether we like it or not.

Some people might call it realistic but I don´t share this doom-gloom vision



For two days a week out of power? How many hours are these a day? If it is just for a couple of minutes for each of the two days, well it is disturbing but business can handle it... What is SA doing as far as alternative power generation (wind and power) is concerned, as you mentioned the aspect of ecology earlier? My personal opinion is that alternative forms of power supply could be made use of especially in smaller towns not just in South Africa but allover.
^^
At least SA's blackouts are a few days, here in Uganda we actually count the number of HOURS we have electricity. Virtually every business with power needs has a standby generator belching out smoke onto the streets.:ohno:

Eskom hopes to save the equivalent of two power stations by 2025

State-owned power utility Eskom is advancing what it calls its ‘Accelerated Demand Side Management’ (DSM) programme on which it plans to spend R10-billion over the next five years in a bid to save 3 000 MW by 2012 – nearly the equivalent of a new base-load power station.

The DSM scheme, which, if successful, could help delay the introduction of new, and increasingly expensive, generation capacity, is also viewed as crucial to ensuring that South African residents and industry continue to have power during a period when Eskom will be running well below its ideal reserve margin of 15%.

The utility is currently operating with a reserve margin of between 8% and 10% and CEO Jacob Maroga has indicated that this margin could fall further in the coming five to eight years, before its first new base-load capacity begins coming on stream. He has also indicated the degree of urgency, stating that the winter of 2008 is going to be “materially tighter” than the winter of 2007, which experienced a demand peak of 36 513 MW on July 5 and had several days of operating above the 36 000-MW level.

“Next winter is going to be a far [greater] challenge,” Maroga tells Engineering News, pointing out that, despite its having approved generation-related investments of more than R204-billion for 13 000 MW, there will be a significant lag before that capacity becomes available. Indeed, the first power from the R78,6-billion Medupi station is only expected to come on in phases as from late 2011.

“We are, therefore, accelerating and intensifying our energy-efficiency initiatives, and are targeting savings of 3 000 MW at a cost of R10-billion by 2012 and 8 000 MW by 2025, which would be the equivalent of two power stations,” Maroga avers.

He tells Engineering News that some of the big DSM targets include solar-water heating, the roll-out of energy-efficiency lighting, and an enlargement of its radio and television power alert system. It will also be working with the Department of Minerals and Energy to encourage new regulations in a bid to ensure that new standards for lighting and household appliances embrace the energy-efficiency imperative.

“We are particularly keen to facilitate the scaling-up of the South African solar-water heating industry and we are doing studies to assess current capacity as well as whether we could incentivise its further development,” Maroga explains.

There will also be a drive to integrate with energy-efficiency measures being taken by municipalities, including the introduction of geyser ripple control, which could see household geysers switched off remotely in times of supply tightness.

The alert and efficient-lighting programmes, meanwhile, will be modelled, in part, on Eskom’s successful DSM roll-out in the Western Cape. This evolved during the rolling blackouts and daily load shedding that took place in the pro- vince during early 2006.

During the crisis, Eskom implemented a fast-track energy-efficiency programme, which included rolling out five-million efficient light bulbs and the innovative power alert, which is now broadcast daily on national television.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND CLEAN COAL

An added benefit of DSM success will be in helping South Africa achieve some of its climate-change mitigation ambitions. “This will not only assist with the capacity situation, but will also reduce environmental impacts and take costs out of the economy,” Eskom executive Dr Steve Lennon avers.

He stresses, too, that beyond diversification of Eskom’s primary-energy mix away from coal (the utility is currently 88% depend- ent on coal), it is also interrogat- ing a range of possible clean-coal solutions.

“We are looking at a range of coal-based technologies that either reduce or eliminate CO2 emis- sions.” he says, adding that underground coal gasification is a key technology in this regard.

“We are piloting the technology at Majuba. If it is successful, it will contribute to our ability to use a resource that we have in abundance without emitting CO2.” Lennon asserts, adding that underground coal gasification lends itself to precombustion extraction of CO2.

Lennon argues that it is, thus, “inappropriate” to assume that, because coal is currently a large source of CO2 emissions, it will always be regarded as a ‘dirty’ energy source.

He reveals that Eskom has a watching brief on carbon capture and sequestration programmes around the world, including programmes of the International Energy Agency and the Electric Power Research Institute.

“We are participants in the Carbon-Seque-stration Leadership Forum so that once the technology is commercially available, we can take a look at the use of that technology in South Africa,” Lennon adds.

The utility is also interrogating wind, large-scale solar power, and advanced nuclear, biomass and ocean-current alternatives. High-voltage direct current, or HVDC, transmission, and advanced energy-efficiency technologies are also under review.

“But these technologies are not going to be available overnight. Carbon capture and storage is only likely to be commercially viable in 20 years’ time. We are working with the South African government and other research entities to look at the sequestration potential in South Africa, so as to determine whether CO2 can be effectively stored,” Lennon concludes.

Here is a letter we have sent to the press and hope they will publish it. This is a Nigerian push but I think we could expand it for Africa. We could have Africans for Super Energy. It also cover but Electricity and Fuel.




http://nigeriansforsuperenergy.com/phpBB3/styles/prosilver/imageset/Banners.gif
Joseph Inyang
Nigerians for Super Energy
2026 N. Oakland Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414-272-1656
www.nigeriansforsuperenergy.com
joe@nigeriansforsuperenegy.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - JULY 28, 2007 Nigerians for Super Energy a grassroots campaign for energy sends an open letter to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of Nigeria.

Open Letter to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua


Dear Mr. President:

We are writing in support of your Energy goals for Nigeria. We believe that Nigeria should become a “Super Energy Power”. You rightly said so on June 11, 2007 and we quote “As I keep saying, we cannot begin to address, in a fundamental manner, the problems of the economy, until we successfully tackle the power and energy issue. It is critical to all my plans. So I am more interested in how much gas we can tap for domestic use than what we can get for export. We must power this economy,” Mr. President as you know, we have a very sick patient, "Nigerian Energy"; we need world class surgeons to lead this effort no more nurses. No disrespect to my mom she was a nurse for over 40 years!! And when you sign the FOI (Freedom of Information) bill you will have about 100m + eyes helping to monitor the progress of the projects. Mr. President below is our humble suggestions for radically changing our energy strategy.

Fuel Plan
24 Refineries in a National/Publicly traded oil company with global reach is what we need!!!
They say imitation is a form of flattery. If so, Nigeria needs to look to Venezuelans to reform its fuel sector. Due to the policies of Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, the Venezuelans are able to enjoy $0.19 per gallon or N6.12. The Venezuelan oil company, PDVSA, had decided that it was not the crude oil export business but in the global petroleum and chemical business. So they invested in refining and retail business in Venezuela and almost all their export markets. Today PDVSA processes 3.3m barrels per day through 24 refineries: six complexes in Venezuela, one in the Caribbean, eight in the United States and nine in Europe. The Brazilian Oil company, Petrobras is another example. This company is renowned for its leadership in development of advanced technology from deep-water and ultra-deep water oil production. With 55.7% of Petrobras' Common Shares (with vote right) is owned by the Brazilian government, however privately held portions are traded on Bovespa stock market .On April 21st of 2006, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced Brazil's self-sufficiency in petroleum. Mr. President please seek counsel of the architects of PDVSA, Mr. Putin and/or Silva to see what they are doing. We recommend three strategic steps to revolutionize our oil sector.
1. NNPC should be come a government/public firm with part of it shares allocated for Nigerians. This will provide the company with a new direction and ownership need for the global challenges.
2. NNPC should go on a buying spree with the aid of government funds to buy (outright or major) shares in refineries in Africa, China and United States. This will provide us with immediate source of refined products, opportunities to train our people and hard currency. Best of all this does not need the 18 to 24 months to build a refinery. This will also provide us a stop gag measure until we build more refineries. It is all about add value and we need to start doing that.
3. Start building 4 refineries and retail outlets to take care of the local demand as estimated for 2010. This will help put to rest the fuel challenges that we face as a Nation.

Electrical Plan
50,000 megawatts in a well planned power grid is what we need!!!
Why 50,000 Megawatts? Given our population, the goals (15,000MW, 20,000MW, and 30,000MW) currently proposed in different political and business circles does not take care of latent electrical demand. In 1999 we estimated a goal of 4,000mw and 5,600mw, we have reached those goals but still not able to survive disruptions to the power grid. South Africa with a population of 47M generates 36,000MW, Brazil population 188M generates 90,000MW and South Korea population 49M generates 43,833MW. Nigeria with a population of 140M would need to generate 67,021MW to be at par with Brazil the lowest per capita among the three countries. Based on the current estimates of 10,000mw in current or in progress, we will need 40, 000mw to complete our goal. This translates in 1,100mw per state and Abuja. Yes we know some states may not be able to generate this amount due to logistic or cost can join with other states to meet their goal. Some states like Lagos will need double or triple that amount. Using current estimates we believe that we need $29 billion for completion of the goal which about $15 billion should come from the Federal government.
1. The plan would call for part of excess revenue funds to be invested in power generation and transmission.
2. All sates, Abuja and Local governments must contribute a percentage of their net worth to the projects. Land for projects will be provided by state and local governments.
3. All banks must invest a percentage of their net worth. Corporations and individual investors will be encouraged to invest in the projects with a strong push for public stock participation.
4. All companies must provide free electricity and cooking gas to local communities.
5. Alternate sources must be encouraged, At least one coal power station in Enugu with similar capacity of Tutuka, South Africa 6x609 MW. This should be part of the sale of 13 mining titles belonging to the Nigerian Mining Corporation.
6. Gas and oil pipeline should have backup points. We must be able to ship gas or oil to Lagos; after all we ship it to the ends of the world. Our pipe line should be like a Hydra (multi-head monster) that will allow for maintenance without totally shorting down the country.
7. Implement widespread adoption of CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lights) and other energy saving programs. CFLs save about four times more energy compare to regular lights.
8. Last but not least, industries using gas for energy will be given gas for free or token price.


We are calling on all Nigerians to wear copper colored ribbon (similar to the AIDS ribbon) and March for a Global NNPC with 24 refineries and a 50,000 megawatts power grid. Mr. President since you understand the challenge, we are ready to give you 100% support to make these changes. If the energy issues in Nigeria are solved, a lot of Nigerian lives will be astronomically improved. We call upon all religious, traditional and civic leaders to join Mr. President for 40 days prayer and fasting for success.

God Bless Nigeria!!!!



###


Nigerians for Super Energy is a grassroots campaign aimed at supporting the need for energy in Nigeria and the sub region. 35% of
all black people in the world need energy to improve their daily lives.

What do you think of more widespread nuclear power as a possible solution? it's true that nuclear tech can't be really trusted in the hands of some current African regimes(like Mugabe, for an obvious example), but it could very well be a boon for nations like Kenya and Ghana, which I'm sure could be considered trustworthy enough internationally to use it.

Have they considered nuclear power in Africa, or are the costs just too prohibitive?
I know Raila Odinga (Kenyan Minister) contemplated going nuclear a few years ago, but it doesn't seem to be under serious consideration.

Why Kulani should the SA taxpayer foot the bill for power that in the end will never be paid for by the bankrupted Zimbabwean government, it is a free-for-all for Mugabe, who has no intention of reliquishing power and has broken every promise after negotiations with President Mbeki which are fruitless. Aside from the political considerations, giving electricity to Zimbabwe for free is not a business sound decision. We cannot afford to bail out a tyrannical despot who has internally displaced 2 million people and caused 3 million to flee as refugees to SA. SA is already having problems providing services to it's poor and now has to take in countless refugees that the ANC government admits it cannot prevent from crossing the Limpopo river. Unfortunately the last straw has already been pulled as Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed as a result of this madman's policies and it is SA that is standing in the way of democratic change in Zimbabwe that will happen whether we like it or not.

The Zimbabweans that are moving to SA are a reason to provide electricity to Zimbabwe. It's better for SA for Zim to be stronger not weaker.

Nothing will be done to break the Eskom monopoly as long as the ANC is still in power and can use it to hand out plum jobs to it's cronies. The power outages happen unpredictably but it's reasonable to expect a part of Joburg to be without power for two days a week because of transmission failures. In Cape Town it happens less often but at least twice a month the power will go down in a part of the city. SA's reserve margin on electricity is only 6% which means that if plants that produce more than that are down due to transmission failures or maintenance the network in the country can fail. Smaller towns have less reliable electricity as they have fewer resources and almost no skilled manpower to maintain transmission lines. The problem of blackouts would also be less if we would cut off the free electricity to Robert Mugabe's terror regime in Zimbabwe which is being kept afloat by the SA taxpayer which also has to deal with power shortages only to see the lights on in Mugabe's mansion.

Naturally, you fail to mention the cause of SA's power shortage. Under the ANC the SA economy has been expanding and electricity has been provided to many new customers who never had access under apartheid. Thus, demand for electricity has expanded faster than the supply, the result is load-shedding.

Mosi's perspective is that of many "old" South Africans. They believe everything has gotten worse under the ANC, completely failing to realize that transport infrastructure, social infrastructure, and electricity have been greatly expanded under the ANC. Mosi, and those like him, are a very self-centered group.

Naturally, you fail to mention the cause of SA's power shortage. Under the ANC the SA economy has been expanding and electricity has been provided to many new customers who never had access under apartheid. Thus, demand for electricity has expanded faster than the supply, the result is load-shedding.

Mosi's perspective is that of many "old" South Africans. They believe everything has gotten worse under the ANC, completely failing to realize that transport infrastructure, social infrastructure, and electricity have been greatly expanded under the ANC. Mosi, and those like him, are a very self-centered group.

I'm not negative about SA you as we are booming with 5% GDP growth for the last four years but that is no excuse for our government to waste electricity on a dictator who has no intentions of finding a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe while at least 30% of the people still do not have electricity in their homes. It would logically follow that our government has a first responsibility to these people. Robert Mugabe has more than enough money to buy private generators for himself and his closest cronies in ZANU-PF as he has done while the rest of the country has to endure blackouts for 20 hours a day despite that fewer Zimbabweans have access to electricity both in urban and rural areas than they did when it was Rhodesia. If anything the selfish person is Robert Mugabe who would rather stay in power and see his country being destroyed by his regime. The ANC on the other hand should be given credit for developing and transforming SA since 1994, something that never happened under Mugabe's misrule in Zimbabwe since 1980.

The Zimbabweans that are moving to SA are a reason to provide electricity to Zimbabwe. It's better for SA for Zim to be stronger not weaker.

What you are asking of us is to pour money down an endless drain. We are more than happy to help Zimbabwe out but AFTER Mugabe is out of power and Zimbabwe is a democracy like it's neighbors SA, Botswana and Namibia. You must not forget that Zimbabwe will always be a weak and failed state so long as the tyrant is still in power.

What you are asking of us is to pour money down an endless drain. We are more than happy to help Zimbabwe out but AFTER Mugabe is out of power and Zimbabwe is a democracy like it's neighbors SA, Botswana and Namibia. You must not forget that Zimbabwe will always be a weak and failed state so long as the tyrant is still in power.Mugabe should be forced to resign. If he had quit at the last election he still could have left office with a decent track record, but now he's permanently screwed over his "legacy." Still, I don't think SA wants to see a total meltdown in Zim. Zim may be bad but it could still get worse.

City electricity
supply stabilising

Cash spent on upgrades is showing results, with a City Power report finding that black outs are decreasing in most parts of the city.

August 8, 2007

By Emily Visser

THE number of power outages has dropped over the last three years, according to a report by City Power, which found that bulk and medium voltage network outages had decreased.

City Power is Johannesburg's official electricity supplier. It has undertaken sustained upgrades of the electricity network. "The current investment made in the network is yielding positive results as shown by the declining trend in outages," the report confirmed.

The report was tabled before the mayoral committee and showed the electricity utility's performance over the last three years. Power supply outages were measured from July 2004 to June 2007 at the eight different distribution areas - Alexandra, Hursthill, Lenasia, Midrand, Randburg, Reuven, Roodepoort and Siemert Road.

While some areas showed significant or slight decreases in power outages, at least four showed growing increases, pointing to deteriorating standards in distribution and performance at Midrand, Alexandra, Hursthill and Lenasia.

The report stressed the importance of seeing outages in context, noting that "around 2004/05 the status and condition of the network in most instances was below acceptable engineering standards".

Stanley Mlambo, the compliance manager for energy in the City's infrastructure and services department, said that the report was intended to "show trends in power outages over the last three years" and reflect the status of the network. Most of the outages were controllable and could be reduced through increased investment in maintenance.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) requires that all electricity suppliers monitor and maintain their networks to ensure the provision of good electricity supplies. Approximately R876-million will be spent by City Power in the 2007/08 financial year towards bulk infrastructure refurbishment, outages and public lighting programmes.

"The bulk of projects will look at addressing backlogs, network strengthening and network refurbishment," Mlambo confirmed.

Bulk outages
Bulk outages – on high voltage networks above 33 000 volts - have decreased drastically over the period as a result of investment in the electricity network. Bulk outages usually affect a large geographical area.

The report noted a 50 percent decrease in bulk outages in the three years, dropping from 120 in 2004 to 60 outages in 2007. The biggest culprit in outages was protection faults, contributing to 21 percent of black-outs.

"Protection equipment is found at substations and is the key equipment to isolate a fault area from the rest of the network, such as when a tree falls on a line," Mlambo explained.

The weather played a strong role too, with 14 percent of outages caused by Mother Nature. Equipment, transformer and distributor faults contributed between 10 percent and 14 percent of the bulk outages. Theft and vandalism were responsible for only 3 percent.

Key programmes for 2007 are to upgrade systems at Kloofendal, Sentraal and the Roodetown substations. New transformers will be installed at John Ware, Rosebank, Roosevelt, Wemmer and Beyers substations.

Medium voltage outages
Medium voltage networks – where voltage levels are between 1 kilovolt and 33 kilovolts - are more localised and outages are generally limited to a specific suburb. The size of these networks and the higher number of customers connected to them, mean higher volumes of outages are usually experienced.

However, outages on these networks have also improved since December 2006, with an overall decrease of 15 percent between 2004 and 2007.

The major contributor to outages at these networks was cable faults, accounting for almost 42 percent of black-outs. Mlambo said this could be attributed to the age of the cables, many of which were still first generation cables.

Third party cable damage, poor workmanship and theft and vandalism contributed between 7 percent and 13 percent of problems. As most of these faults were controllable, City Power would continue with its backlog eradication programmes and improve by-law enforcement.

Key programmes for medium voltage networks include the laying of new cabling to cater for the Poortview, Ruimsig and Florida areas; upgrading the low voltage network in Midrand; and installing transformers at a number of substations.

Distribution areas
The report tabled results for each of the eight distribution areas over the three-year period.

Roodepoort had a similar performance to last year, but with almost 250 outages a year, it remained the area with the highest number of outages in the city. A contributing factor was the massive development that had taken place in the area, the report stated.
The City has experienced a fifty percent decrease in bulk outages in the last three years

The City has experienced a fifty percent decrease in bulk outages in the last three years

Identified hotspots in Roodepoort, such as Constantia Kloof, Helderkruin, Little Falls, Roodekrans, Tshepison and Weltevredenpark, were upgraded and had all had a significant reduction in outages between 2004 and 2007.

The second highest recording came from Randburg, with over 150 outages for 2006/07. However, there was a decline of 12 percent in the number of outages over the same period in 2005/06.

Reuven and Siemert Road reflected significant decreases in outages compared with the same period two years ago, the report found.

Areas of concern
City Power was concerned about the increased number of outages in Alexandra, where the distribution network was deteriorating – more than 50 outages were recorded in 2006/07, double that of the same period in 2004/05.

Midrand also had consistently higher levels of outages, with black outs increasing 43 percent in 2006/07 from the figure in 2004/05 year. This showed deterioration in this area too.

Hursthill had fewer outages between April 2006 and April 2007 compared with the same period in 2004 to 2005, but more compared with the period April 2005 to April 2006.

Lenasia showed very slight increases in the number of black outs, year on year.

City Power spent over R750-million in the last three years on maintenance backlogs, refurbishment and strengthening networks to improve the quality of its services and increase capacity.

"The capital spend was for several bulk projects such as the replacement of old transformers, switch gears, protection systems and the rollout of new cabling channelled towards those areas identified as critical," the report stated.

"In addition, there are several other maintenance activities currently taking place aimed at reducing the maintenance backlog and to ensure improved performance."

A number of fast-growing areas, such as Midrand, Roodepoort and Randburg, were still a challenge and required more investment, Mlambo confirmed.

http://www.joburg.gov.za/2007/aug/aug8_outages.stm

Mugabe should be forced to resign. If he had quit at the last election he still could have left office with a decent track record, but now he's permanently screwed over his "legacy." Still, I don't think SA wants to see a total meltdown in Zim. Zim may be bad but it could still get worse.

Mugabe is a great man, despite what has happned of recent. yes he should no longer lead the country, but the fools on here insulting him forget everything about zim before 1980

Mugabe is a great man, despite what has happned of recent. yes he should no longer lead the country, but the fools on here insulting him forget everything about zim before 1980

Opressed blacks under Rhodesia were better off then compared to now. Mugambe is a fanatical African nationalist that has destroyed his country. Not a great man, thats reserved to the Mandela's of the world, not him.

Mugabe is a great man, despite what has happned of recent. yes he should no longer lead the country, but the fools on here insulting him forget everything about zim before 1980

We should not confuse the novelty of the idea of giving land back to those it rightfully belonged to with the greatness of Mugabe. He may have been a great man before but he has degenerated into a tyrant, a symbol of what can go wrong when a leader is allowed to overstay his welcome and become all too powerful for his own good. He must be removed quickly to save Zimbabwe. He has done too much damage. Although i don't support cutting electricity supply to Zimbabwe, i would like to see the end of the Mugabe era in Zimbabwe.

Opressed blacks under Rhodesia were better off then compared to now. Mugambe is a fanatical African nationalist that has destroyed his country. Not a great man, thats reserved to the Mandela's of the world, not him.

slaves in america were better off during slavery then the 50+ years after slavery. but they had no future and fough for their freedom. think what you want of mugabe, but he has removed the possibility of the domination of the black citizens that you saw before. that is important and in the long term will generate more equality in the country that the system you see in SA. By the way, i think the compliance with the transfer of wealth in SA gets a boost from from the reality of zim. Many whites fear that if they stonewall black south africa as was done in zim, the worse can happen.

However, I feel Mugabe should have left years ago.

Opressed blacks under Rhodesia were better off then compared to now. Mugambe is a fanatical African nationalist that has destroyed his country. .No, the blacks were not better off. From the perspective of Zimbabwean whites and outsider whites it may appear that the country was tranquil and happy under Rhodesia (just like Southern whites in the USA still imagine the time of slavery as peaceful and tranquil despite the barbarism of their society), but in reality Rhodesia was a brutal system of domination, terror, economic deprivation, and social deprivation. The opportunities, education, infrastructure, and living standards of the black majority have greatly improved.

...he has removed the possibility of the domination of the black citizens that you saw before.This is true. Because of Mugabe and men like him there has been a social-psychological transformation, and the colonization and enslavement of blacks could never reoccur.

slaves in america were better off during slavery then the 50+ years after slavery. but they had no future and fough for their freedom. think what you want of mugabe, but he has removed the possibility of the domination of the black citizens that you saw before. that is important and in the long term will generate more equality in the country that the system you see in SA. By the way, i think the compliance with the transfer of wealth in SA gets a boost from from the reality of zim. Many whites fear that if they stonewall black south africa as was done in zim, the worse can happen.

However, I feel Mugabe should have left years ago.

No, thats not true and a poor example. The era of reconstruction was the best period for southern blacks, until the end of the civil rights movement in the late 60's. The Jim Crow laws that followed after the withdrawal of Union troops was bad, no doubt but it was an improvment (however small) compared to slavery. Tell me whats the difference between Zimbabwe then and now? So you don't care if theirs a small ruling group that oppresses the majority as long as their skin is dark. Thats what African nationalists argue, putting some romanticized reason for it. Blacks in Rhodesia did not have it "good" but they were not starving or had mass unemployment. Mugambe has wreaked his country from being the breadbasket of Africa to being a disease rotten nation.

Just for the record serious land reform NEEDS to be done, but not in the manner Mugambe has demonstrated us. Sending mobs to ransack and sometimes kill white farmers is not proper reform and justly redistribution.

No, the blacks were not better off. From the perspective of Zimbabwean whites and outsider whites it may appear that the country was tranquil and happy under Rhodesia (just like Southern whites in the USA still imagine the time of slavery as peaceful and tranquil despite the barbarism of their society), but in reality Rhodesia was a brutal system of domination, terror, economic deprivation, and social deprivation. The opportunities, education, infrastructure, and living standards of the black majority have greatly improved.

Did not say that Rhodesia was a tranquil society. Any system which thrives on racial segregation, degregation and economic exclusion is not only morally wrong but it simply doesn't work. Easy economics. However your last statement couldn't unfortunately be further from the truth. Were 80% of blacks under Rhodesia unemployed? Were 2/3 dependent on foreign food aid? Were they ever scramming to leave their country?

No, thats not true and a poor example. The era of reconstruction was the best period for southern blacks, until the end of the civil rights movement in the late 60's. The Jim Crow laws that followed after the withdrawal of Union troops was bad, no doubt but it was an improvment (however small) compared to slavery. Tell me whats the difference between Zimbabwe then and now? So you don't care if theirs a small ruling group that oppresses the majority as long as their skin is dark. Thats what African nationalists argue, putting some romanticized reason for it. Blacks in Rhodesia did not have it "good" but they were not starving or had mass unemployment. Mugambe has wreaked his country from being the breadbasket of Africa to being a disease rotten nation.



Freedom is always an improvement to slavery, but going from being owned, where it was in the interest of the owner to feed and protect you because you were valuable property, to lacking ownership and being exposed to the vile nature of man in a country where you owned nothing and had virtually no rights, but a worse situation for blacks. however, the beauty of freedom is that great things spring from it and eventually blacks got stronger. What mugabe did not the black citizens of his country was an affirmative action that removes the bulk of the weight on them. long after he is gone it will reap benefits. even if the black choose to sell the land to whites, at least they will recover some money. unlike the land grab done by the whites a century or so ago.

I've never excused oppression because the oppressor happens to be black. I dont like zimbabwe of today, and while I place blame on mugabe for staying on too long, I don't fault his initial move to reclaim the land. I also dont believe that removing 4000 or so farmers from your country results in the world's highest inflation rate and what some deem a failed state. There are other factors at play that insist that such a challenge to white supremacy must fail.

Did not say that Rhodesia was a tranquil society. Any system which thrives on racial segregation, degregation and economic exclusion is not only morally wrong but it simply doesn't work. Easy economics. However your last statement couldn't unfortunately be further from the truth. Were 80% of blacks under Rhodesia unemployed? Were 2/3 dependent on foreign food aid? Were they ever scramming to leave their country?The services and infrastructure enjoyed by the black majority have unquestionably improved. The statistical appendicies from the IMF and reports from the World Bank bear that out. Also, the infection rate and the overall prevelance of HIV/AIDS has been declining in Zimbabwe, so your statement about "disease rotten" is misleading. As for the negative economic trends you mention, those didn't occur until a few years ago, so again, a comparison between a couple years of Zimbabwe's history with the period of white rule is misleading and unfounded.

The services and infrastructure enjoyed by the black majority have unquestionably improved. The statistical appendicies from the IMF and reports from the World Bank bear that out. Also, the infection rate and the overall prevelance of HIV/AIDS has been declining in Zimbabwe, so your statement about "disease rotten" is misleading. As for the negative economic trends you mention, those didn't occur until a few years ago, so again, a comparison between a couple years of Zimbabwe's history with the period of white rule is misleading and unfounded.

Zimbabwe has the world's fastest shrinking economy in the world. Between 1999 and 2007, the country's gross domestic product shrank by 60%, in what has been a total collapse of the economy. The economy is projected to decline by 12% this year. No other country has seen such decline, not even Mozambique during the civil war of 1975-92 and even Sudan is doing better economically despite Darfur. During Rhodesian UDI times the economy boomed and grew by 6.9% per year between 1967 and 1974 (Ian Smith's government consistently maintained inflation below 5%), the only period of robust and sustainable growth in recent years despite the UN embargo against Rhodesia. However Zimbabwe's post-independence "better times" you are referring to: the period of 1980-1999 saw economic growth of just 2.0% per year. Even during the Rhodesia civil war of 1975-79 the economy contracted 15% during this period which was not close to the 60% decline of 1999-2007.

Zimbabwe has the world's fastest shrinking economy in the world. Between 1999 and 2007, the country's gross domestic product shrank by 60%, in what has been a total collapse of the economy. The economy is projected to decline by 12% this year. No other country has seen such decline, not even Mozambique during the civil war of 1975-92 and even Sudan is doing better economically despite Darfur. During Rhodesian UDI times the economy boomed and grew by 6.9% per year between 1967 and 1974 (Ian Smith's government consistently maintained inflation below 5%), the only period of robust and sustainable growth in recent years despite the UN embargo against Rhodesia. However Zimbabwe's post-independence "better times" you are referring to: the period of 1980-1999 saw economic growth of just 2.0% per year. Even during the Rhodesia civil war of 1975-79 the economy contracted 15% during this period which was not close to the 60% decline of 1999-2007.

the 2% growth post independence is more impressive than all the figures prior because they only benefited a small portion of the population. its easier to use the resources of the many to serve those of the few.

Beyond oil and gas, Algeria aims to tap vast sunbelt to export solar energy to Europe
The Associated Press
Published: August 9, 2007
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ALGIERS, Algeria: It's a vision that has long enticed energy planners: solar panels stretching out over vast swaths of the Sahara desert, soaking up sun to generate clean, green power.

Now Algeria, aware that its oil and gas riches will one day run dry, is gearing up to tap its sunshine on an industrial scale for itself and even Europe.

Work on its first plant began late last month at Hassi R'mel, 420 kilometers (260 miles) south of Algiers, the capital. The plant will be a hybrid, using both sun and natural gas to generate 150 megawatts. Of that, 25 megawatts will come from giant parabolic mirrors stretching over 180,000 square meters (nearly 2 million square feet) — roughly 45 football fields.

Experts say it's the first project of its kind to combine gas and steam turbines with solar thermal input in a hybrid plant.

The plant should be ready in 2010, and the longer-term goal is to export 6,000 megawatts of solar-generated power to Europe by 2020, about a tenth of current electricity consumption in Germany.

"Our potential in thermal solar power is four times the world's energy consumption so you can have all the ambitions you want with that," said Tewfik Hasni, managing director of New Energy Algeria, or NEAL, a company created by the Algerian government in 2002 to develop renewable energy.

The project is still at an early stage and faces daunting financial and technological obstacles. Solar power's supporters say it will take 10 years for it to become economically competitive, and while undersea cables to Sicily and Spain are planned for construction in 2010-2012, it isn't known who will finance them.

But as the world grows increasingly anxious about climate change and dwindling fossil fuels, ideas that once sounded like science fiction are becoming ever more plausible.

The European Union this year set a mandatory target of producing 20 percent of its energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020, and there are also big political imperatives in play.

In Algeria's case, exporting solar power through undersea cables would add flesh and bone to the idea floated by Nicolas Sarkozy, France's new president, of a "Mediterranean Union" that would bind Europe and North Africa closer together.

The Algerian program is part of a broader reassessment of green technologies by countries that owe their wealth to oil and gas. Algeria, population 33 million, remains heavily dependent on oil and gas exports, which earned it about US$54 billion (€39 billion) last year.

"Until now all the oil-producing countries under the lead of Saudi Arabia did everything to torpedo renewable energies," said Wolfgang Palz, chairman of the independent World Council for Renewable Energy, speaking on the sidelines of an international conference on renewable energy in Algiers in June.

"This is really a big change now because with all this talking about the limitations of conventional resources," oil-producing countries "feel obliged to do something," he said.

Algeria seems an obvious source of solar power.

Africa's second largest country is more than four-fifths desert, with enough sunshine to meet Western Europe's needs 60 times over, according to estimates cited by Algeria's energy ministry.

"The solar potential of Algeria is huge, enormous, because solar radiation is high and there is plenty of land for solar plants," said Eduardo Zarza Moya, who works on solar power for Spain's public energy research center, CIEMAT. "The price of the land is low, it's cheap, and there is also manpower."

Algeria already uses photovoltaic solar panels to electrify 18 scattered, off-grid villages in the Sahara, and 16 more are due to come on line by 2009. Two such projects are run by British-based company BP.

The Hassi R'Mel site represents large-scale power generation. It is the first of four planned hybrid plants which will use Algeria's abundant natural gas to supplement sunshine and ensure power at night or in cloudy weather. The Hassi R'Mel plant, which will produce power for domestic consumption, will also house a research center to study how to reduce solar power costs.

The hybrid plants will use a thermal technology called concentrating solar power, or CSP, in which sunlight heats fluids to drive an electricity-generating turbine.

The system is widely regarded as being cheaper and having better storage potential for large-scale energy production than photovoltaic technology, which converts sunlight directly into electricity. CSP plants have operated in California since the 1980s, but when gas prices fell, new construction stopped.

Spanish engineering firm Abener has a 66 percent share in the US$425 million (€310 million) Hassi R'Mel project, having won an international tender to build the plant with Algeria's NEAL.
Algeria hopes to build three other hybrids generating 400 megawatts each by 2015, by which time Algeria aims to be producing 6 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.

Experts warn that financing the cables may wipe out the profits from selling the power in Europe. They also say the domestic market will find it hard to compete with cheap Algerian oil and gas.

But they're positive about the long-term outlook. The gas component in the hybrid plants will produce some greenhouse emissions. "But gas is much cleaner than oil and in time you will increase the share of solar," said Richard Perez, a research professor specializing in solar power at the State University of New York. He spoke to The Associated Press by phone.

Franz Trieb, an analyst at the German Space Agency in Stuttgart who helped produce a recent study on CSP in Mediterranean and Middle East countries, said that by 2020 the cost of collecting solar power would be equivalent to paying US$15 (€11) for a barrel of oil.

"In 2020 we will have considerable capacity of CSP installed worldwide and this will lead to cost reductions," he said. Delivery systems "would add a little bit to the cost but not too much. It could be competitive with electricity prices in Europe."

According to International Energy Agency figures, renewable energies excluding hydroelectricity still account for just 2 percent of world power, and 0.5 percent of world energy production. Fossil fuels are expected to remain dominant until at least 2030.

But investment in renewable energy rose from US$80 billion (€58 billion) in 2005 to US$100 billion (€73 billion) in 2006, and solar companies raised more than any other renewable energy sector on public markets last year, at US$5.6 billion (€4.1 billion) — more than triple what they raised in 2005, according to a report released in June by the United Nations Environment Program. The biggest investments were in the United States, Europe, China and India.

Major energy companies say they are not yet ready to invest abroad on a large scale. ExxonMobil spokesman Dave Gardner said the technology breakthroughs would have to be significant to attract ExxonMobil investment.

But he said his company is seeking to foster such breakthroughs by funding a US$225 million (€164 million) project at Stanford University in the U.S. on renewables and energy efficiency.

Algerian energy officials acknowledge that the country's success with solar power will depend on demand and technology.

Right now solar-derived electricity costs 25 percent more than using gas and will need to be subsidized for 10 years until the cost of solar power comes down, said Hasni, the Algerian company director.

"The current race is to see who will control renewable energy technologies, and we are in the race," Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters. "We have the human and financial resources, and we have the will."

Zimbabwe the worst country on earth????

Well, I am not too familiar with Zim. but Angola´s economy shrunk by minus 7% for an ENTIRE decade in the past!!! That´s collapse, too! I think this was far worse than what Zim is encountering today!

Moreover, look at countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Central African republic, Tchad, Guinea-Conakry or Guinea- Bissau. Those countries would certainly change with Zimbabwe.

What always strikes me about Zim is that streets are still kept clean, no litter is carelessly spread around (so institutions still have to function!!), traffic lights are working, look at the pavements, no dust/sand or filth accumulates on them, buildings are still in a good shape! etc. (at least on the pics we have seen here)

I am sure that if Zimbabwe had been bolstered/protected like the CFA countries, Zimbabwe and its inhabitants would habe been much much better off than what we see today. (most probably like Ivory Coast today). Its foundations must have really been strong otherwise Zimbabwe would ressemble Guinea Bissau or Guinea Conakry among others.

Once Mugabe is gone, the country could easily get back on its feet.

I looked at the HDI of Zimbabwe.

In 2004 Zimbabwe´s HDI stood at 0.491
In 1975 (under Rhodesian rule) it stood at 0.548
But In 1985 (five years after independence) it touched its highest mark ever (0.642)!!!
In 1990 it was almost equal to 1985 (0.639)

Since then it fell sharply....

PS: Although I am not too much a friend of those ratings, at least the give a vague indication and it shows that Zimbabwe of the 1980´s must have been the envy of many other African countries! An HDI Index of 0.642 was not bad considering that it was in the mid 80´s! (Indonesia´s HDI in 1985 - today´s emerging market- stood at 0.585, that of India at 0.477, Thailand´s at 0.680, Malaysia´s at 0.696, Ghana´s at 0.482). If Zimbabwe had continued its positive post-independent socio-economic development, it could have touched almost 0.8 percent today (this would equal the HDI of Malaysia, Mauritius, Bahamas, Oman or Mauritius)

in comparison a few selected other emerging markets/developing countries in the world

HDI Rank Country

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2004

108. Indonesia 0.469 0.532 0.585 0.626 0.665 0.682 0.711

56. Oman 0.492 0.546 0.639 0.695 0.740 0.776 0.810

126. India 0.413 0.439 0.477 0.515 0.548 0.577 0.611

74. Thailand 0.615 0.654 0.680 0.717 0.751 0.775 0.784

136. Ghana 0.438 0.467 0.482 0.511 0.531 0.555 0.532


61. Malaysia 0.616 0.659 0.696 0.723 0.761 0.791 0.805

Here´s Zimbabwe

151. Zimbabwe 0.548 0.576 0.642 0.639 0.591 0.525 0.491

good find. and mugabe did this having to use the resources all the entire population. let me hear mosi come back in here and defend ian smith

Zimbabwe the worst country on earth????

Well, I am not too familiar with Zim. but Angola´s economy shrunk by minus 7% for an ENTIRE decade in the past!!! That´s collapse, too! I think this was far worse than what Zim is encountering today!

Moreover, look at countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Central African republic, Tchad, Guinea-Conakry or Guinea- Bissau. Those countries would certainly change with Zimbabwe.

What always strikes me about Zim is that streets are still kept clean, no litter is carelessly spread around (so institutions still have to function!!), traffic lights are working, look at the pavements, no dust/sand or filth accumulates on them, buildings are still in a good shape! etc. (at least on the pics we have seen here)

I am sure that if Zimbabwe had been bolstered/protected like the CFA countries, Zimbabwe and its inhabitants would habe been much much better off than what we see today. (most probably like Ivory Coast today). Its foundations must have really been strong otherwise Zimbabwe would ressemble Guinea Bissau or Guinea Conakry among others.

Once Mugabe is gone, the country could easily get back on its feet.

That's right you are not familiar with Zim. The decline in Angola you are talking about is the 1975-85 period which saw negative growth due to both war ans socialist policies. The images you see of Harare are merely a façade. What you do not see is the rubble of Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out MDC trash) around the city or the deprivation of the rural areas where farms are derelict. I would contend that yes Zimbabwe is on par with both Guinea's right now and it happened very quickly after 2000. What people need to realize is that Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa and did have an economy on par with Ivory Coast's in the 1990's. But the collapse has changed all of that with the effect of Zimbabwe becoming one of the world's poorest countries and a basketcase at best.

I looked at the HDI of Zimbabwe.

In 2004 Zimbabwe´s HDI stood at 0.491
In 1975 (under Rhodesian rule) it stood at 0.548
But In 1985 (five years after independence) it touched its highest mark ever (0.642)!!!
In 1990 it was almost equal to 1985 (0.639)

Since then it fell sharply....

PS: Although I am not too much a friend of those ratings, at least the give a vague indication and it shows that Zimbabwe of the 1980´s must have been the envy of many other African countries! An HDI Index of 0.642 was not bad considering that it was in the mid 80´s! (Indonesia´s HDI in 1985 - today´s emerging market- stood at 0.585, that of India at 0.477, Thailand´s at 0.680, Malaysia´s at 0.696, Ghana´s at 0.482). If Zimbabwe had continued its positive post-independent socio-economic development, it could have touched almost 0.8 percent today (this would equal the HDI of Malaysia, Mauritius, Bahamas, Oman or Mauritius)

in comparison a few selected other emerging markets/developing countries in the world

That's right it did fall sharply and the HDI is much lower today than in 1975 when it was higher than in the other countries which unlike Zimbabwe had an increase in HDI levels. Your right that Zimbabwe would almost be 0.8 todat were it not for Mugabe's disastrous rule especially post-2000. At the time of independence in 1980 both Ian Smith, former Rhodesian PM and Tanzanian President Julius Nyrere both agreed on one thing and that was that Robert Mugabe had inherited a jewel from the Rhodesians. But sadly we all know what happed to that jewel.

Anyone who defends Mugabe is clearly and without doubt a stupid and selfish racist pig.

I, along with millions of starving Zim's will cherish his downfall and eventual death.

Mosi and Inertia, I am certainly NOT defending Mugabe and his methods that he employed. :ohno: :ohno:

1.)All I was trying to say is that if Zim had been bolstered up by a strong and international currency like it is the case for those countries within the CFA zone, the effects would have been more subdued/manageable. The people would be better off today. zimbabwe didn´t have anybody which supported the country after the chaos of 2000. It quickly turned into a "pariah state".

2.) Has it already been forgotten? Mugabe was once praised by the international community (including Britain) in Africa for turning Rhodesia into a prosperous Zimbabwe in the 80´s. Didn´t "ordinary" urban citizens have a "good and decent" life in Zimbabwe of the 80´s and even in the early/mid 90´s?

The images you see of Harare are merely a façade (...)I would contend that yes Zimbabwe is on par with both Guinea's right now and it happened very quickly after 2000.

3.) Why do you say that Harare is just a mere facde? Well, it might be the case (I really don´t know) but at least it is still a beautiful facade, (this is what my eyes are telling me), a facade that no longer exists in countries like Guinea - Bissau or Guinea-Conakry among others.

Have you asked yourself why street lights are still functioning, no litter lies around (even in smaller cities), roads have no pot-holes or endless and nauseating open sewage? This is a sign for me that institutions - at least in urban Zimbabwe is still doing its job, despite all! Honestly said, If I hadn´t read those gruesome things about Zimbabwe in the press and just had looked at the pics, woow, it still looks like a prospering country, a country that could make Africans proud! (I am referring to urban Zimbabwe/the photos).

What people need to realize is that Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of Africa and did have an economy on par with Ivory Coast's in the 1990's. But the collapse has changed all of that with the effect of Zimbabwe becoming one of the world's poorest countries and a basketcase at best.

Nobody is denying this!

Please, can someone explain to me if all of the 4000 White farmers got their land during the colonial era of former Rhodesia or did some of them that got expropriated buy their land after 1980?


PS: Maybe we can open a Zim discussion thread on "oasis". This thread is about to become another off-topic thread.

The Zimbabwe of the 80's still had most of the land and farms being owned by whites! They not only exported these foods which was the bulk of the Zimbabwe economy but their food surpluses also fed the nation. Which is why theirs no surprise that once the farmers started were kicked out and replaced with unqualified blacks, the food shortages startedl.

If I was Mugambe I would have initiated a slow system, redistribution of land. However you'd first have to train black farmers to growing a healthy crop. You'd then give a certain sum of these white farmers to sell their farms to the goverment, which is then sold appropriately to another party. Not to mention you'd have independent black farmers buy out white owned farms.

Mosi and Inertia, I am certainly NOT defending Mugabe and his methods that he employed. :ohno: :ohno:
Have you asked yourself why street lights are still functioning, no litter lies around (even in smaller cities), roads have no pot-holes or endless and nauseating open sewage? This is a sign for me that institutions - at least in urban Zimbabwe is still doing its job, despite all! Honestly said, If I hadn´t read those gruesome things about Zimbabwe in the press and just had looked at the pics, woow, it still looks like a prospering country, a country that could make Africans proud! (I am referring to urban Zimbabwe/the photos).

No urban Zimbabwe is not doing it's job and the lives of urban residents are fast becoming like the ones in rural areas accordinf to an article I read from IRIN. I'm not proud when in fact the all the streetlights in Harare and even worse Bulawayo do not work. That is when the power blackouts do not shut them all off for 20 hrs at a time. Harare once had tap water that was drinkable, something that hardly any African capital city had at the time apart from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Since the economy collapsed so did the water in Harare which not only must now be boiled because the treatment chemicals are not there but even then the residents of Harare have water a few hours a day or more correctly at night-time for one time every two or three days. As a result there is cholera and diorrhea outbreaks that have even killed a few people. The breakdown in water supply in Harare and Bulawayo despite ample water in the dams has meant that people are now having to dig shallow bore holes to get to the water (the bore holes service both people and their animals. Even middle-class residents in Harare are digging shallow wells. The electricity on the other hand is on for just four hours out of 20 a day if even that while the sewage pumps in the cities are not functioning. No tell me where do people take a dump when the services have collapsed. This is a total disgrace!

The Zimbabwe of the 80's still had most of the land and farms being owned by whites! They not only exported these foods which was the bulk of the Zimbabwe economy but their food surpluses also fed the nation. Which is why theirs no surprise that once the farmers started were kicked out and replaced with unqualified blacks, the food shortages startedl.

If I was Mugambe I would have initiated a slow system, redistribution of land. However you'd first have to train black farmers to growing a healthy crop. You'd then give a certain sum of these white farmers to sell their farms to the goverment, which is then sold appropriately to another party. Not to mention you'd have independent black farmers buy out white owned farms.

I agree as do most people about the orderly transfer of land to black farmers able to do the job as does the opposition MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai, but that was not done under Mugabe who doled out productive land to his cronies who knew nothing about farming.

There is a new thread for Zimbabwe now.

So please check it out and help to fill it with life!

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=14730730#post14730730

Your right that Zimbabwe would almost be 0.8 todat were it not for Mugabe's disastrous rule especially post-2000. No, Zimbabwe would never have reached .8HDI under Rhodesian apartheid; the socio-economic deprivation of the majority was too massive to permit that. And Mugabe's rule has only been disastrous post-2000. Prior to that, he was quite effective; he managed the internal politics of Zimbabwe very well. Mugabe was a very good politician (which is not the same thing as having good policies).

Anyone who defends Mugabe is clearly and without doubt a stupid and selfish racist pig.

I, along with millions of starving Zim's will cherish his downfall and eventual death.

and you are an idiotic dog. go die somewhere

Please, can we go and move discussion out of this thread to the link given above!:master:

This thread is actually about Electriciy Generation and not about Zimbabwe!

hope this gets built!
UK state firm to build 200 MW Cameroon hydro plant
Thu Aug 9, 2007 4:14 PM BST



By Tansa Musa

YAOUNDE, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Sud Energie, controlled by British state-owned emerging markets power generator Globeleq, has signed a deal to build the new 200 megawatt (MW) Memve'ele hydropower station in Cameroon.

Cameroon, the most industrialised of the six members of Central Africa's CFA franc monetary union, suffers crippling electricity shortages despite its enormous hydropower potential.

Memve'ele is one of a series of projects planned to raise Cameroon's power output to about 2,000 MW by 2015, from barely 900 MW now, to meet demand rising by around 8 percent a year.

"This project is really important for the economy of our country. You know that we are facing serious energy problems every day. It on a daily basis affects our industries, our enterprises and household use," Finance Minister Polycarpe Abah Abah told Reuters after a signing ceremony late on Wednesday.

"That is why I think the signing of this convention is a giant step in resolving this energy crisis that very negatively impacts our economic growth," he said.

The project involves building a dam on the Ntem river in Cameroon's South province, a road to the site, a power plant and electricity transmission lines to link it to the national grid.

Guillaume Rivron, business development manager for Bermuda-registered Globeleq, said work should start in 2008 and the plant should start generating electricity by 2013.

"It will be realised through the build, operate and transfer principle, with a concession of 20 years, after which we will transfer management to the government of Cameroon," he said.

Rivron could not give a total cost for the project. A study by the Cameroon government in 2005 estimated it could cost about 142.3 billion CFA francs ($300 million).


BRITISH BACKING

Globeleq was founded in 2002 by Britain's CDC, a private equity fund investor formerly known as the Commonwealth Development Corporation, to generate safe, reliable power in emerging markets in Africa, the Americas and Asia.

CDC, owned by the British government, owns 100 percent of Globeleq, which in turn controls Bermuda-based Sud Energie.

Rivron said Sud Energie was expected to meet 30 percent of the cost with additional financing coming from the Development Bank of Central African States, African Development Bank, Dutch Development Bank, Arab Development Bank and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.

Officials said Canadian aluminium producer Alcan <AL.TO> would buy 50 MW of Memve'ele's output to power a planned expansion at its local ALUCAM unit, and the Cameroon rubber company, HEVECAM, would buy a further 20 MW.

Neighbouring Equatorial Guinea had also agreed to buy 50 MW of its output, and Gabon may follow suit, they said.

Cameroon depends on hydropower for 95 percent of its power. Only 5 percent of the country's rural population and 65 percent of urban dwellers have access to electricity.

Power utility AES-Sonel, a unit of U.S.-based AES Corp <AES.N>, has raised output to over 900 MW over the last three years but that is still far short of demand, and the company expects to add 50,000 more connections in the next 15 years.

Last year AES-Sonel, 44 percent owned by Cameroon, secured 260 million euro ($358 million) in loans arranged by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation private sector lender in one of the biggest such deals in sub-Saharan Africa.

I would say Kenya as of now is self sufficient when it comes to power generation. We don't really experience power black outs that frequently unless something comes up. But the govt. should go on an expansion drive coz the demand for power iz rapidly growing day by day. Another problem here is the cost of power which is very expensive compared to lets say SA or Egypt, they should also look into that.

As far as I know until last year the only country that produce more than what the country needs is Tunisia ....

I hope that things have changed during the last year .....^^

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Arab_Maghreb_Union/Tunisia.html

I was thinking Algeria should have enough to use domistically before thinking about exporting its electricity to Spain through Morocco as proposed.

..

Kenya's electricity demand is at around 1000 MW, and the generation capacity is at 1200 MW. ummh.. if am not wrong that is producing more than you need....

Luckily, probably due to the economic crisis and better efficiency, SA hasn't experienced a power outage since early last year. It's been exactly a year when the outages reached their peak. Western Cape, province in SA, has made the first climate change plan in SA and expects to reduce reliance on fossil fuels by 15 % within 5 years and increase consumption from renewable energy sources by 15%. This includes installing 1,000 solar heated geysers, putting more green building regulations, etc. There's already a program for switching over fluorescent lights and a wind farm near cape town. These will all help in increasing our power capacity and decreasing reliance on fossil fuels :)

Morocco will go nuclear, deals are already in place, project is approved.

We've got a few nuclear plants expected to be completed around 2018 if I remember correctly.

If only 1% of the Sahara is been build with solar mirrors it can produce all the energy in the world...

Nigeria should ask South Africa to transmit some electricity by 2018.

They are too corrupt to build the infrastructure, but maybe they are not too corrupt to buy some.

yay atleast governments are starting to realise there are alternative/cleaner sources of energy....

yay!!