EDITORIAL
Is there energy for all?
Published: 05-NOV-04
Africa is facing a massive
energy crisis – but it’s not
the one you think. While power utilities fret about how to meet the needs of the continent’s burgeoning industries, the real disaster is unfolding in sprawling shantytowns on the fringes of the continent’s big cities, where the energy crisis faced by the urban poor threatens to overshadow any gains being made by developing countries.
Household energy use in urban
areas is a far more complex issue than
in rural areas. Booming urban growth
means increasing demand for energy to
meet consumption needs – but because
of limited access to alternative fuels,
most of these needs are still being met
by wood fuels, to the extent that urban
wood-fuel consumption will probably
surpass that of rural areas in the next
decade.
The economic and social consequences
of wood fuel use in the urban
energy balance are often overlooked.
Wood fuel is expensive, causes horrendous
air pollution and is
accelerating
the degradation of woody vegetation at
an alarming rate. In Sudan, more than 30 000 km2 of woodland is cleared each year for wood fuel. In Burkina Faso, the
land surrounding Ouagadougou has
been completely cleared of woody vegetation
for 50km in all directions. The
area of cleared land around Khartoum
already stands at a staggering 400km
radius, and is expected to reach 600km
by 2005.
The result? Bulky, low-value wood
fuels are transported over hundreds
of kilometres to urban markets. And
depleting the vegetation has all manner
of knock-on effects, not least of which
is a vicious cycle of soil erosion.
The answer is not to plant more
forests. Afforestation programmes
can certainly ease pressure on natural
forests, protect the environment and
satisfy some fuelwood needs of local
communities, but it’s a short-term and
limited response to the broader energy
crisis, especially in urban areas which
aren’t exactly overfl owing with
space
for plantations.
What is needed is a new approach
by African energy utilities. Trying to
modify current energy consumption
patterns is all very well, and energysaving
devices, including improved
charcoal stoves, can save up to 50% of
wood fuel demand.
But that doesn’t really get to the
root of current energy policies, which
are generally geared towards driving
economic growth for the elite while
ignoring the needs of the poor. What
is really needed are alternative energy
strategies, for the short and long-term,
for both rich and poor.
At the moment, the elites and big
business want big houses with modern
conveniences and unlimited power for
their industries. Most of Africa’s growth
in energy demand is from industry,
transportation and a modern sector
to supply the elite with the goods
and services of industrialised society.
Even relatively developed countries like
South Africa are finding that a rapid
influx of
power-intensive industries can
see demand rapidly exceeding supply.
Power plants take longer to build than
industrial plants, creating a problem of
energy planning.
As for the urban poor … well, they
just want something to cook their supper
on. And the longer their needs are
ignored, the worse the crisis becomes.
Most utilities will cite economic and
fi nancial constraints as the major causes
of inadequate infrastructure development
for the poor. Fact is, it should be
possible to supply the basic energy needs
of people living in developing countries
if modern, effi cient methods and technologies
are used to convert and use
primary energy.
In terms of energy substitutes,
Africa has an enormous potential
which only needs to be explored
and exploited. Many sub-Saharan
African countries have great potential
for the development of hydropower.
But despite this, electricity represents
only a fraction of total energy consumption
in the
region.
The technologies also exist for generating
electricity based on New and
Renewable Sources of Energy (NRSE)
apart from hydropower generation, like
solar photovoltaic systems, wind generators,
and gasifiers.
What’s the answer? In the World
Commission on Environment and
Development’s “Our Common Future”,
published in 1987, Brooks wrote: “We
cannot conceive of development without
changes in the extent or nature of
energy flows of Africa. And because
energy is so fundamental, every one of
those change flows has environmental
implications. The implications of this
are profound. It means that there is no
such thing as a simple energy choice.
They are all complex. And they will all
involve trade-offs. However, some of
the choices and some of the trade-offs
appear to be unequivocally better than
others, in the sense that they offer more
development and less environmental
damage.”
Right now, we need some serious
trade-offs if we are
to realistically
change the lot of Africa’s tens of millions
of urban poor, and avert the accompanying
social and environmental disaster.
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