More on Bringing Renewable Electricity to the Developing World
A reader commented on my piece in which I extol the virtue of electrifying the rural parts of Africa and Asia so as to enable education, personal productivity, affluence, and family planning. He wrote: “Unwittingly you are coming across like colonial masters,” and went on to point out that the people in these regions really don’t want this stuff anyway.
He has a good point in that the developed world mustn’t act like and be perceived as “colonial masters.”
However, his point that bringing electricity to the developing world isn’t needed, wanted, and critically important is not well founded. I have colleagues all over the world who are trying their damnedest to make this happen, and their efforts have most definitely begun to bear fruit.
There is a tricky issue at stake, however. The key point here is to create markets, not to destroy them. Giving stuff away merely means removing any possibility of a business model associated with selling, installing, and maintaining the stuff in question. No one will buy solar if it’s being given away for free. Again, this is a delicate subject, as our inclination is to move as quickly as possible and do whatever we can to ameliorate a terrible and ever-worsening situation.
Craig yes the West can’t behave like former Colonial Masters or with some of their failed practices.
Then again many of the former colonies that were lucky enough to be under Great Britain well they are doing much better as they were given significant infrastructure and more importantly a Administrative System to manage things.
In some cases it worked better than others some did not.
For Comparison Bigger is Best versus Small and To Scale is Better
One of the High Priests of High Tech and the Triumvirate B Gates wanted to build his small nukes all over Africa and then string transmission etc across the vast uninhabited areas.
Of course this was a traditional solution and fell under its own weight and folly. Mis match of need and scale !
Small and to Scale is Better
There are two company’s that are running a Pay as you go marketing service to solarize and improve villages. They collaborate with the cellphone bill collectors an they start people out w 1 or 2 solar panels at a time and then the people pay that off and then add another appliance based on needs and wants.
Start with light bulbs, then a radio, then a computer and then a small refrigerator an so on.
this works well in small villages with no grid access and then the governments can spend precious resources on bigger projects and solar plants / wind farms and diesel gens sets in larger towns and so on.
They are building some bigger plants in larger populated areas and this seems to be of more value by having a mixed set of technology and sized to proper human need so the scale works when including the needs of the human population.
Some people have learned from the large grid we have and realize duplicating that system most likely is not the real best socio economic or environmental solution.
So maybe there is real Progress perhaps as many Boats and Lives are being Lifted Up !
Good topic Craig thanks
Silent,
The approach you described has been helpful for many people.
In Fiji, there are village PV systems and each user has an electric meter. That is one proven way to provide power to people in remote villages. The individual PV system for each home also works. Which is better may depend on circumstances.
In Fiji, where it is practical, remote villages are being provided with metered electricity generated by micro hydro systems. Because of the continuous nature of power from hydro systems, that works better than PV systems but it is not always available.
Yes all these comments and suggestions are critically important as an immediate and interim measure for sure, but it is far from where we all need to get to which is a parallel endeavor not a linear one.
Unfortunately most energy oriented commentators seem to have totally lost sight of what the actual problem is that all people face which is greenhouse gas emissions largely (but not entirely) from fossil fuels use. And this is the issue to focus on, rather than constant quibbling about small T technologies that have about zero impact on greenhouse gas emissions, but in their own right in the interim are very useful.
There are two separate subjects at play here. One important one seems to have been shunted to the background and that happens to be the critical one that will rise up and bite us all most severely probably within 25 – 40 years if it is not fully ameliorated by technological endeavors that should by now be seen as maturing projects coming to fruition worldwide.
I don’t think it is beyond any reasonable persons comprehension to conclude that if the world’s best and brightest physicists, researchers, scientists and engineers were collectively (or even nationally) mobilised urgently, guided and emboldened by visionary global political leadership and demanding policy initiatives, the world would end up the beneficiaries of remarkable technological outcomes within 20 years for sure. And that 20 years of foresightedness and effort would be rewarded with new age energy generation technologies that would displace fossil fuel generation, and be able to satisfy fully the critical global energy imperative that we must aspire to which is: “low cost and abundant clean energy for all people”.
The by-products would include:
1. A permanent reversal of global gas emissions (forever and never to return);
2. A dramatic reduction in fossil fuel use to insignificant proportions;
3. A permanent and enduring (possibly forever) technological platform for producing and making available for use everywhere “low cost and abundant clean energy for all people” to power community growth and prosperity in all of its forms and in particular to power new age energy intensive industries and technologies the world must embrace.
Please keep the green-house gas emissions issue on centre stage; it is the main game yet being drowned out of the conversation.
If we focus on this point and succeed, all the other stuff that everyone is getting excited about is well and truly taken care of. If we just focus on the near hysteria with renewable energy technologies in their current formats alone, greenhouse gasses keep piling up without any opposition whatsoever, and make no mistake, the negative outcomes will bite us badly.
Lawrence Coomber