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On
a hillside on the border of war torn Rwanda and Congo, a group of men in
prison uniform are using shovels to help build one of Africa’s biggest
bio gas plants. It sounds odd, but it does unlock the potential to save
trees, soil, homes and lives.
In
a refugee camp in the desert wastelands of northern Kenya, a Somali woman
unfolds a sheet of shiny cardboard and a clear plastic bag that she will
use as a solar cooker to heat ingredients for a supper for her family of
six children. She feels better than most other women in her country who
continue to spend each day in search of dwindling firewood.
On
a wet and cool day in East Anglia a cattle farmer tips a last load of
slurry into a tank, parks his tractor, strips off his overalls, takes a
hot shower electrically powered by transforming the slurry – waste into
power!
How
can we help local people to secure their energy locally, preferably from
waste using simple technology and requiring neither muscle nor a day’s
walk in the scorching sun?
Every
developing country needs to provide its people with easy and affordable
access to water and energy. Without these two essential amenities, the
poor cannot hope to be free of hunger, disease and perpetual misery. Yet
despite decades of EU and other western assistance to these countries,
fewer people have access to water and electricity in Africa than a decade
ago! At present rates, it will take more than 400 years before every
Kenyan household will have direct electric grid access. Africa’s
dependence on expensive fossil fuels or uneconomic hydro plants will not
facilitate affordability even if access on the grid is available.
Meanwhile the bulk of 2000 million poor people continue to rely on the
supply of wood (or charcoal) as their basic fuel for cooking and heating.
Africa plants one tree for every 28 trees felled and at this rate much of
the productive land could be arid or desert in a couple of decades.
Why
have the rich western countries not offered simple gadgets that use solar,
wind and biomass for local energy production to the poor countries? A
solar panel pulsing power to an X-ray machine in a rural mobile medical
screening laboratory, a wind turbine driving a water pump for irrigating
dried-up fields in remote areas, and a biomass conversion scheme for
producing gas to heat seawater for salt production, would transform the
lives of the world’s poorest. They promote environmental sustainability,
improve health and sanitation and offer an opportunity for employment that
can create a surplus to pay for food and the basic needs of life. It is a
passport to self-reliance that the poor crave for.
Use
of local renewable energies can curb forest destruction, reduce soil
erosion, drastically lessen the dependence on polluting expensively
imported fossil fuels and provide potent organic fertiliser for hungry
fields. It can free women from hours of drudgery collecting firewood each
day and save them and their children from the toxic smoke that often fills
their inadequate mud huts. It frees children from their chores and offers
them better opportunity to acquire education and vocational skills that
will lead to a job rather than a life as a beggar or a thief.
Developing
countries must do more to help themselves and their poor. There is no
longer any justification for state monopolies in power generation and
distribution. Local communities, schools and voluntary agencies should be
encouraged to seek appropriate local and foreign assistance to generate
and distribute energy within their locality.
The
EU must change its aid policies to reflect greater direct technical
assistance in rural areas to create energy infrastructure that integrates
supply of water and energy to every rural household. Western aid should be
focused on helping rural economies in poor countries by offering them the
transfer of technology that will use solar, wind, water and biomass as
sources for energy. Anything short of such help will make the poor even
poorer! |
