Running the race to Energize Africa in a Green Way.

In the course of last week, I travelled to Ukambani on the farthest area where Machakos county borders Makueni and I noticed how hot that area can be when it is dry. Within the same week the president, his excellency Uhuru Kenyatta termed the drought ravaging various parts of Kenya (especially Northern Kenya) a national disaster; of course the drought results from extreme weather conditions.

While on my way to my destination in eastern Kenya, I observed that water was a big challenge in the villages. People have invested in water tanks for rain storage purposes and donkey driven carts to help them draw water from far away places. That too has only helped superficially.

I didn’t find an opportunity to ask about the potential of ground water in those areas since I didn’t come across wells or if there were some, I didn’t see them. I thought deeply about what potential deep wells, probably reaching the water, could have on such areas supposing it is feasible to drill such.

Next my thoughts shifted from the challenges to what opportunities lie in such areas and the energy sector struck my mind at first. We have a huge potential to harness a lot of renewable energy from areas such as Eastern and Northern Kenya.

It is a known fact that our main sources of energy as a continent and even as a country comes from coal, oil and traditional biomass commonly known as firewood and charcoal. What such forms of energy do to environment is to worsen an already bad situation.

Instead of reversing what could be a long-term result of singular or plural of the factors listed above to result to extreme weather and climatic conditions that could be responsible partly for the drought situation in various parts of this country, we are more less accelerating the deterioration.

Now that most of us are becoming more aware of what our actions do to the environment and from use of non-renewable forms of energy, the rallying call for us to consciously embrace renewable sources of energy has become even louder.

Eastern and Northern Kenya are among the areas that can be piloted to try and help us implement renewable energy projects in the country which can not only help us push the cost of energy lower but also will help in the conservation of our environment.

Besides solar energy, places such as Northern Kenya have another greater potential with wind energy which is another form of green energy. The coastal areas are also rich with wind which needs to be considered for harnessing as we race to ensure we are not left out in the race to energize the world using green sources.

Facts show that Africa has the potential to generate 40% of her energy from solar energy alone. This percentage could even be higher in individual areas and we don’t need any further evidence about how this is possible. I began by narrating about noting how a dry area Eastern Kenya can be. To be specific, the place was very hot due solar rays. In fact, you could cook eggs from the sun rays with the simplest innovation.

Sadly enough, only a fraction of that potential has been exploited in order to provide energy sources for industrial use let alone for domestic use. As such, most of our energy thus comes from fossil fuels. And as we generate that energy, some of the technologies we are using are a disappointment.

When the west realized that they would have to continue generating their primary energy from fossil sources, they went ahead and engineered a technology where they do what we call CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) where carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured from the source of pollution.

Sadly today, Africa is using a lot of fossil fuels without CCS same as biomass without CCS. According to a 2020 IMF (International Monetary Fund) report, Africa is likely have notably embraced the CCS technology by 2050 for Biomass forms only with a relatively increased use of fossil fuels without CCS as compared to fossil fuels with CCS technology that will be in use then.

This paints a glimmer picture for Africa in terms of its strides to reduce use of fossil fuels which are very polluting. But then something at least puts a flicker of hope in our minds, the projection that our use of solar, wind, hydro and geothermal would have increased immensely by 2050.

The report, over the long term, talks of a continent that would have massively turned green by 2100 with Solar and wind topping in the list by over 50% provision of our energy. Add beauty to that, over 80% of the energy that will be consumed in Africa by then will be from renewable sources of energy.

2100 looks far fetched but as they say of a journey, even the longest of them all at least begins with a single step. And the response by Africa to go green is thus slowly gaining momentum in a bid to catch up with the rest of the world beyond. Something which all of us need to be excited about.

A company in the continent called Orion, based in South Africa, already announced two weeks ago that they intend to be the continent’s first green powered miner. In fact, they intend to be Africa’s largest renewable energy hub. I remember writing in 2019 about Steve Masiyiwa’s race to build mini solar grids in rural Zimbabwe to enable energize even the poorest households in Zimbabwe too.

This means one thing in all simplicity, that the race is on. The race to energize Africa using green sources. The question to ponder upon your head and mine should be our role in the race. Are you intending to be a leader in the race, a participant or a cheer squad?

Whatever role we choose, the race will still go on. Of all things, at least let us take a role in the race and by that, we could have had a hand in conserving this beautiful planet called earth. It is the only one we have.

End.