First, the bad news.

Although Africa has vast fossil and renewable energy sources, only twenty percent of its population has direct access to electricity and in some rural areas, four out of five people are completely without power. According to the UN, over 600 million Africans currently do not have access to electric power. A depressing 70 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is living without access to clean and safe energy for their basic needs such as cooking, lighting and heating, making energy poverty among the most urgent issues facing Africa. Worldwide, more than 1.4 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity, and 1 billion more only have intermittent access.

Over 2.5 billion people, almost half of humanity, rely on traditional biomass – wood, coal, charcoal, or animal waste to cook their meals and heat their homes, exposing themselves and their families to smoke and fumes that damage their health and kill nearly two million people a year. More than 95 percent of these people are either in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia.

The good news?

According to the Managing Director of Nigeria’s Bank of Industry (BOI), Evelyn Oputu, total investments in renewable energy in Africa rose from $750 million in 2004 to $3.6 billion in 2011. To put this in a global context, worldwide investment in renewable energy has risen from $33 billion in 2004 to $211 billion in 2011.

And the future?

According to a report issued in August 2011 by Frost & Sullivan entitled “Mega Trends in Africa: A bright vision for the growing continent,” investment in renewable power in Africa is set to grow from the 2011 total of $3.6-billion in 2010 to $57-billion by 2020, a staggering 1,583 percent increase in nine short years. According to the document, “The key growth sectors will be wind power, solar power, geothermal power and foreign direct investment (FDI) into energy and power infrastructure.”

The reason for the spectacular projections? Africa’s combination of a massive unmet demand, including remote communities, allied to an abundance of renewable power potential in the form of solar, wind and geothermal potential. To give but one example, Only seven percent of Africa’s hydropower capacity has been developed up to now.

Africa is not yet locked into the inefficient, oft-polluting infrastructure of many Western countries. Accordingly, Africa with modern efficient technologies could build a renewable energy infrastructure that could bypass the inefficient, fossil fuel-centered energy infrastructure systems of the developed world.

Modest starts in renewable energy have already begun across the continent. Wind power projects in Africa are planned or under way in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Tanzania – including Kenya’s 0.3 gigawatt Lake Turkana project and 0.7 gigawatt of capacity under construction in Morocco, while Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda all have existing biomass power capacity or plans for future development.

Solar? South Africa has its planned solar park in Upington, intended to contribute 5,000 megawatts to the national electrical grid, while North Africa’s Desertec is the largest solar power project ever conceived, designed at a potential cost of $500 billion to provide a significant portion of the electricity needs of participating countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and up to 15 per cent of Europe’s electricity needs by 2050.

Africa’s ambitions have the support of the United Nations, where in 2010 the General Assembly unanimously endorsed a resolution designating 2012 as “The International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set three inter-linked objectives to support the goal of achieving “Sustainable Energy for All” by 2030, which are ensuring universal access to modern energy services, doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

The UN Sustainable Energy for All incorporates a number of initiatives focusing on Africa, including World Bank Group’s Lighting Africa, the Paris-Nairobi Climate Initiative, the Africa-European Union Energy Partnership, and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, as well as the EU’s decision to make access to sustainable energy a development priority through its “Agenda for Change.” A number of countries, including South Africa, are also leading the way with national initiatives.

But these initiatives are relatively recent and need financial support to prosper. It was only in September 2010 that African and European leaders launched the Africa-EU Renewable Energy Cooperation Program (RECP) at the First High-Level Meeting of the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP) in Vienna.

AEEP’s agenda is nothing if not ambitious, as its targets on renewable energy to be reached by 2020 include 10,000 megawatts of hydropower facilities, 5,000 megawatts of wind power capacity, 500 megawatts of solar energy capacity and tripling the capacity of other renewables, such as geothermal, and modern biomass.

The downside to this picture? Three things – the need for massive amounts of investment capital, a problem attendant to massive amounts of cash – corruption, and the continent’s changing political landscape, which is already impacting the Desertec North African solar initiative as the Arab Spring roils the south coast of the Mediterranean.

But both the need and potential are there – all that are currently lacking to make the future predictions a reality are cash and political will.

Article by John C.K. Daly, appearing courtesy Oilprice.com

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A German-led initiative to tap solar energy in the deserts of Northern Africa and the Middle East to meet Europe’s long-term energy needs has targeted a site in Morocco for its first large-scale solar farm.

The Desertec Industrial Initiative (Dii) — whose members include E.ON, Siemens, Munich Re and Deutsche Bank — announced during its annual conference that it will begin construction next year on a 500 megawatt solar farm.

While the specific location was not disclosed, reports say it will likely be built near Ouarzazate, a city in southern Morocco known as “the door of the desert.” The €2 billion plant represents just the first step in a proposed €400 billion network of solar plants and wind farms the coalition hopes will provide 15 percent of Europe’s electricity by 2050.

Negotiations are already underway with Tunisia for the next plant, with Algeria the next possible country. Coalition leaders say the project will represent a “win-win” for Europe and the nations of North Africa and the Middle East, since it will provide jobs and economic opportunity. By 2020, countries including Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are predicted to join the network.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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There is plenty of sun in deserts and the Sahara is one of the biggest deserts in the world. Europe intends to import its first solar generated electricity from North Africa within the next five years, European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger said in an interview on Sunday. The European Union is backing projects to turn the plentiful sunlight in the Sahara desert into electricity for Europe, a scheme it hopes will help meet its target of deriving 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert. At over 3,600,000 square miles), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel: a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that comprises the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.

The solar potential of Africa is widely known. The continent would have more than enough to satisfy the energy needs of every country within its borders, and could even have some left over. If this is the case, how can this “left over” power be used?
Known as the Desertec Industrial Initiative, the German led consortium of 12 European businesses consists of some of country’s biggest engineering and power companies, along with Munich Re, the largest reinsurer in the world. The group aims to provide 15 percent of Europe’s electricity by 2050 or earlier via power lines stretching across the desert and Mediterranean Sea.

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona last year, Arnulf Jaeger-Waldau of the European commission’s Institute for Energy said that the area needed for a solar power plant large enough to power Europe is about the size of Wales or New Jersey (@8,000 square miles). Though this seems large it must be remembered that most of the Sahara is unpopulated and barren.

Of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts, only 0.3 percent would need to be captured in order to help satisfy Europe’s energy needs. The European Union claims the project is a way of beginning to share Europe’s renewable energy resources across the globe through the construction of a chain of huge wind and solar farms.

In 2010, solar panels available for customers can have a yield of up to 19%, while commercially available panels can go as far as 27%. A photovoltaic installation in the southern latitudes of Europe or the United States might then be expected to produce about 1 kilowatt-hour/square meter/day.

In the Sahara desert, with less cloud cover and a better solar angle, one might obtain closer to 8.3 kilowatt-hour/square meter/day.

Oettinger also said all three energy ministers at the meeting in the Algerian capital sent a signal they were willing to build the infrastructure and common market rules needed to allow a trade in renewable electricity with Europe.

He countered concerns expressed in the past by some officials in Algeria that the project could involve Europeans exploiting north Africa’s natural resources.
“Renewables are a two way partnership because electricity produced here is for the home market of north African countries,” he said.

“Maybe a bigger percentage of the electricity will be exported to Europe but at the same time we have to export the technology, tools, machines, experts, and so it’s a real partnership, not only a partnership by selling and by buying.”

Article by Andy Soos appearing courtesy Environmental News Network

photo: wonker

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With the United States of America’s ever-mounting trade and budget deficits, unemployment above 10 percent (and, dependent on counting, un- and under-employment above 20 percent), looming peak oil and other resource (water, for example) limitations, environmental challenges, and ever-mounting climate chaos , America faces a very serious situation.

In fact, to one degree or another, these same intertwined challenges (with the exception of trade/budget deficits for some countries) are those face by societies and nations throughout the globe in our networked, systems-of-systems global community.

These serious challenges are a networked system-of-systems that interact and reinforce each other. As we strive to stop digging the holes deeper and climb our way out, we can seek to deal with these challenges in a stove-piped manner or address them with W6 solutions that have wins across multiple arenas:

• Move toward sustainable energy system
• Create and protect jobs
• Foster economic activity (cost effectively)
• Strengthen long-term economic prospects
• Address negative environmental impacts (from local pollution to acidification of the oceans)
• Help mitigate climate change

As some are wont to say, crises create opportunities. One good piece of news, amid all the serious concerns that that list above should create for all of us (the US and globally), is the reality that many Win-Win-Win-Win-Win-Win (Win to the Sixth) opportunities lie before us, if we choose to seize them.

Very briefly, here are eight examples that meet these criteria:

Energy Efficiency: The “negawatt” and “negagallon” is the least expensive incremental power source available in the United States (and much of the world). At a cost of less than 4 cents per kilowatt hour, the United States could cut its power demand by over 20 percent over the coming decade (at less than half the cost of the cheapest new power source options).

A serious focus on energy efficiency would improve business competitiveness globally, reduce fossil fuel usage (and health impacts Greening Public Schools represents one of those ‘no-brainer’ actions that we should all embrace as it is potentially the only path to improve educational performance, improve youth health, improve community and global environment, create jobs, and strengthen local government financing (enabling money to spent on true educational costs (teacher salaries, supplies) rather than on over-paying to heat poorly insulated structures.

Financing Net Zero (& Lower Energy Demand) Building : As discussed here, Architecture 2030 developed The 2030 Challenge Stimulus Plan that would create roughly nine million (yes, 9,000,000) jobs and several trillion dollars of building activity through a two-year, $192.47 billion program focused on using financial instruments to spark investment in energy efficiency in private buildings throughout the nation. Buildings account for roughly 40 percent of America’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This program would put a serious dent into that figure while skyrocketing the United States in a global leadership position in building energy efficiency.

Rail Electrification: A $100 billion federal commitment over the coming decade could spark a matching private sector investment that would cut perhaps ten percent of America’s oil use, more than paying for the total cost via reduced imported oil costs (without even considering the benefits through reduced pollution, etc …).

Rail electrification is occuring throughout the globe with the notable exception of the United States. More cargo can be moved with less energy and less pollution as a rail system is moved to electricity from diesel.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Buses : Current school buses get about 5.5 mpg of diesel. Conversion to PHESB improves this to about 11 mpg. Diesel fumes from school buses are a top threat to the health of America’s K-12 population. PHESBs cut diesel fume exposure by half or more.

In addition to helping cut America’s oil addiction (by 2020, a decent PHESB program could lead to a 0.5 day reduction in US oil demand (about 11 million barrels, year), PHESBs offer the opportunity for improved disaster services (imagine 5000 mobile generator / storage systems ready to move into the Gulf Coast from surrounding communities post Katrina), improving electricity energy efficiency (through having distributed power storage in PHESB parks).

DESERTEC: One of the most powerful images for a renewable energy future, a burning hot one we might suggest, is TREC, which is a grand vision for connecting solar power in North Africa, wind power from the Eastern Mediterranean to the North Sea, bio-mass, and hydropower with a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) system of power lines to provide assured renewable electricity for the Mediterranean basin and Europe.

This concept, which has seemed ever so Renewable Energy COOL to me from the first time I encountered it, looks to be moving down a path from fantastic innovative concept to potential reality as Europe is beginning investments that might total into the $100s of billions in the coming decades to make this a reality.

This system won’t necessarily just produce clean power, but a ‘waste’ product will be clean water than can support agriculture and local jobs. If connected to a serious bio-char/agro-char program for enriching the soil, this could lead to ever-increasing agricultural productivity in employment and water-starved regions while sequestering serious amounts of carbon. (Thus lowering emissions due to clean energy production and lowering CO2 levels via enhanced-natural sequestion: attacking the GHG problem from two ends.)

Imagine this in employment starved and conflict prone areas like Israel-Palestine or along the US-Mexico border.

Trent (OMEGA) Algae: This a developing OMEGA effort , led by Jonathan Trent of NASA, to make algae biofuel in a renewable energy process that will clean up sewage currently being dumped into the world’s oceans. There is also the potential that electrical power generation could be connected to the fuel production. (OMEGA Algae is still in testing, but is a great example of the looming Win to the Sixth opportunities there for the taking … if we would only choose to seize them.)

Concepts to provide multi-faceted solutions were core to Energize America from its earliest moments. How to ‘make the right choice, the easy and preferred choice’ with paths that would address energy, environmental, and economic challenges in a systems fashion rose to the top above stove-piped concepts. We must, as individuals and as a nation, pursue such Win to the Sixth opportunities or risk stove-piped approaches that seemingly solve one problem while exacerbating others.

Article by A. Siegel appearing courtesy of Celsias

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Energy demand in Europe is not growing as fast as in other parts of the world but it still constitutes a significant portion of global energy demand.  Europe’s share of global primary energy demand is around 14%, although it is likely to decrease to 11-12% by 2030 according to IEA forecasts. While growth is slower than 50 years ago, energy for Europe continues to be a strategic issue.

On July 13 2009, the first international agreement on the Nabucco project was signed in Ankara to ensure gas supply for Europe from the Caspian Region to Austria through Turkey and Eastern Europe. Europeans are to almost 50% dependent on foreign resources for their primary energy demand.  Having experienced gas cuts in recent years, resulting in hard times for their industries and residents, Europe would like to become less dependent on Russia by securing its supply from different sources.

While trying to maintain a steady gas supply, Europe is also coming up with sustainable policies and clean technologies to help satisfy its energy demand. The EU Climate Change Programme and related policies were created against environmental concerns, but Danish wind power and German photovoltaic successes are born out of the support for developing local sources of energy and creating new jobs.

Now, renewable energy might be taking on a new level. On the same day as Nabucco was signed, twelve major companies came together in Munich to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the Desertec Industrial Initiative. Desertec is an international clean development concept developed by the Club of Rome based in Munich. Briefly, the project involves Europe (EU), Middle East (ME) and Northern Africa (NA) as a whole to connect their resources and establish an interconnected system to provide energy supply mostly from renewable resources.

The project would constitute concentrated solar plants in the African and Arabian deserts, supplemented by wind, hydro and geothermal power. Generated power is essential for the producer countries for their desalination of sea water, and the project would be a new platform for European countries to fulfill their carbon free economy requirements. It could create a completely new and sustainable economy and provide new jobs for MENA countries, including those with oil and gas resources.

Although the project would use already proven technologies like CSP (concentrated solar plants) and HVDC (high voltage direct current transmission), some years (maybe even decades) will be needed for the preparation of the policies and integration of the MENA countries. The project will need a single electricity market in the EU-MENA region, for which the infrastructure will have to be upgraded extensively. Creating awareness and establishing feasibility studies in regards to political, financial, technical and environmental issues will take up some time in the next years.

If it succeeds, Desertec will become the largest clean power initiative in the world, satisfying 15% of Europe’s energy demand and covering substantial needs of the producer countries. Critics claim that this centralized energy generation project bears high risks for becoming a target of terrorist attacks; moreover, Europe would still be dependent on other sources of foreign energy supply.

The estimated cost of the Desertec project is around EUR 400 Billion. Over the next few years, the initiators of the project are aiming at building a pilot kick-off project with a capacity of 1 GW in order to prove its feasibility and attract supporters.

Considering the recent nuclear power discussion on the CleanTechies Blog, one easily gets curious about how the world is going to (be) shape(d).

[image credit: Desertec Foundation]

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