African Creation Energy Popular Books

African Creation Energy Biography & Facts

Energy use and development in Africa varies widely across the continent, with some African countries exporting energy to neighbors or the global market, while others lack even basic infrastructures or systems to acquire energy. The World Bank has declared 32 of the 48 nations on the continent to be in an energy crisis. Energy development has not kept pace with rising demand in developing regions, placing a large strain on the continent's existing resources over the first decade of the new century. From 2001 to 2005, GDP for over half of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa rose by over 4.5% annually, while generation capacity grew at a rate of 1.2%. Overview Statistics Social, economic, and demographic diversity According to the World Development Report published by the World Bank in 2012, Africa's economy is about the size of the Netherlands' economy, which is equivalent to only approximately six percent of the U.S. economy. Akin Iwayemi, a professor at University of Ibadan in Nigeria, suggests that there is potentially a “strong feedback relationship between the energy sector and the national economy.” Determining socio-economic indicators in Africa include population, population density, land area, proportion of citizens living in an urban setting, and Gross Domestic Product (GNP) per capita. Overall, the African continent is a net energy exporter. In 2009 the net energy export was 40% of the energy production 13,177 TWh. The world share of energy production in Africa was 12% of oil and 7% of gas in 2009. Current energy usage in Africa The percentage of residences with access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest in the world. In some remote regions, fewer than one in every 20 households has electricity. Energy in Africa is a scarcer commodity than in the developed world – annual consumption is 518 KWh in Sub-Saharan Africa, the same amount of electricity used by an individual in an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD – example is the U.S.) country in 25 days. More than 500 million people live without electricity. Across the continent only 10% of individuals have access to the electrical grid, and of those, 75% come from the richest two quintiles in overall income. Less than 2% of the rural populations of Malawi, Ethiopia, Niger, and Chad have access to electrical power. Electrical provisioning in Africa has generally only reached wealthy, urban middle class, and commercial sectors, bypassing the region's large rural populations and urban poor. According to the forum of Energy Ministers of Africa, most agriculture still relies primarily on humans and animals for energy input. The electrical industry in Africa faces the economic paradox that raising prices will prohibit access to their services, but that they cannot afford to roll out additional infrastructure to drive prices down and increase access without additional capital. Overall rates of access to energy in Africa have held constant since the 1980s, while the rest of the developing world has seen electrical grid distribution increase by 20%. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where per-capita access rates are falling. According to recent trends, over 60% of Sub-Saharan Africans will still lack access to electricity by 2020. Moreover, Africa has an average electrification rate of 24%, while the rate in the rest of the developing world lies closer to 40%. Even in the areas covered by the electrical grid, power is often unreliable: the manufacturing sector loses power on average 56 days out of the year. In Senegal power is out 25 days a year, in Tanzania 63 days, and in Burundi 144 days. Frequent power outages cause damage to sales, equipment, and discourage international investment. According to the periodical African Business, “Poor transport links and irregular power supplies have stunted the growth of domestic companies and discouraged foreign firms from setting up manufacturing plants in the continent." Despite its unreliability, electrical service in Sub-Saharan Africa also costs more than in other parts of the world. The protective tariff required in Sub-Saharan Africa is US$0.13, compared to $0.04–0.08 USD in the rest of the developing world. Additionally, one of the greatest challenges in an effort to create sustainable development in Africa is that many countries with exportable resources are land-locked without a system of transportation. Although Africa lacks a sufficient transport system, new developments in industry and manufacturing have resulted in tremendous population growth, increased urbanization, high energy consumption, over-cultivation of lands, and significant industrial advancements engendered by globalization. Professor Iwayemi of University of Ibadan in Nigeria states that the “fundamental energy question facing Africa [is]…providing and maintaining widespread access of the population to reliable and affordable supplies of environmentally cleaner energy to meet the requirements of rapid economic growth and improved living standards.” In correspondence to The Africa Society, the population growth of sub-Saharan Africa is 2.2% annually; therefore, by 2025, it is estimated that Africa will consist of over a billion people. If this mathematical model is correct environmental problems could double or even triple by 2025. Perhaps a confounding variable of these trends is that less than 1% of the electricity generated in the Africa originates from renewable resources, as the White Paper on Energy Policy proclaims. The main objectives of the paper were to “increase access to affordable energy services, improve energy governance, stimulate economic growth, manage energy-related environmental impacts, and ensure security of supply through diversification.” Africa's environmental potential The African continent features many sustainable energy resources, of which only a small percentage have been harnessed. 5–7% of the continent's hydroelectric potential has been tapped, and only 0.6% of its geothermal. The publication Energy Economics estimates that replacing South African coal power with hydroelectric imported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo could save 40 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. 2011 estimates place African geothermal capacity at 14,000 MW, of which only 60 MW has been tapped. The African Energy Policy Research Network calculates that biomass from agricultural waste alone could meet the present electrical needs of 16 south eastern countries with bagasse-based cogeneration. The sugar industry in Mauritius already provides 25% of the country's energy from byproduct cogeneration, with the potential for up to 13 times that amount with a widespread rollout cogeneration technology and process optimization. According to Stephen Karekezi, Director of African Energy Policy Research Network and co-worker Waeni Kithyoma, Africa is third largest in crude oil reserves (behind the Middle East and Latin America.... 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