Renewable Energy in Sub-Saharan Africa

As I mentioned in a recent article, what we normally call “biomass,” while it’s technically renewable energy, is nowhere near an ideal energy source; most of it is really just deforestation, the cutting and incineration of wood for cooking, lighting, and heating and the release of the resultant exhaust toxins directly into the atmosphere.

Here’s an article on the subject, and a discussion of the World Bank’s attempts to deal with the issue that about 1.2 billion people still lack access to electricity, and 2.8 billion have to rely on wood or other biomass. 

I love solutions that ameliorate more than one problem.  By bringing renewable energy to this region, we are simultaneously ensuring:

• They’ll leap-frog over fossil fuels, the 20^th Century approach, now obsolete

• Forests can remain intact as CO2 sinks

• An immediate reduction in noxious emissions

• They’ll have lighting that provides better security and the capacity to read after dark.

• Electricity will enable refrigeration and thus better human health

• Most importantly, I believe, electrification brings computing and information access, fostering better education, a commodity that lies at the root of prosperity, as well as stronger (and smaller) families.

Six birds with one stone.