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“Of course, a bamboo plantation also gives you carbon credits, and we can grow it on old mine sites to rehabilitate the ground. It’s a winner on so many fronts.”
West Africa has a low grade of coal, formed more recently than elsewhere though still millions of years old. But while Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, only half the population is on the grid.
“Air pollution is a serious problem in my country,” said Bada.
“We must bring it down but we also need a lot more clean electricity. The research we are doing here can change everything.”
However, for all its groundbreaking work, South Africa’s clean coal is in trouble.
“Funding has been difficult,” said Falcon.
“We have to scrape and beg for every cent. I’m hoping a new approach to coal in Washington will see money for work like ours, not just in the US but across the globe, and we’d be happy to share our findings with the world, and to teach and train people everywhere, especially in Africa,” she said.
Falcon and her team have indeed shared their findings. She has given lectures at prestigious schools like Cambridge University in England, while Nandi Malumbazo has been to Germany, Australia and the Philippines. Bada and Masiala have delivered papers in the US, Norway and Italy.
The use of coal to generate electricity in Africa is at a record high, with new plants under way in Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa. Bada has little time for those who condemn this.
“I am tired of being lectured by people in rich countries who have never lived a day without electricity,” he said.
“Maybe they should just go home and turn off their fridge, geyser, their laptops and lights. Then live like that for a month and tell us, who have suffered for years, not to burn coal.”
Masiala agrees.
“Aid groups come to Africa and give out solar lamps the size of a pumpkin,” he said.
“But no one in London or Los Angeles would be willing to make do with that. Don’t tell me that China, Russia and the West should have electricity and black people in Mali or Mozambique should live in huts with light from a solar toy. We need power for cities, factories, mines and to run schools and hospitals.”
The coming revolution in Africa, he said, was not about land, religion or politics, but a lack of jobs.
“Africa is urbanising faster than anywhere on the planet. And our urban youth are on the same Facebook and WhatsApp as kids in Chicago. They watch the same Big Bang Theory on TV and have the same aspirations.”
Millions of school leavers, he said, can read and do algebra but have no work. And the lack of industry, he said, was linked to electricity.
Bada said he was a fan of wind and solar, but the technology was not yet there to industrialise a continent.
“Solar doesn’t work at night, and turbines stand idle when the wind doesn’t blow,” he said.
Professor Rosemary Falcon heads the Sustainable Coal Research Group at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, where the late Nelson Mandela studied law in the 1950s.
Falcon leads a team of nine academics along with 20 Mastersand doctoral students who, with their own laboratory at Wits, say they have proved conclusively that clean coal is not only possible, but among the cheapest ways to generate electricity on a continent where more than 600 million Africans live without power.
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“It starts by understanding that coal varies enormously,” she said.
“Each region has a different recipe of minerals and fossil matter, and if you give me a lump of coal out of Kenya, the US, Europe, India or Colombia, I can probably tell you where it’s from.”
In North America, she said, coal was formed in hot, steamy swamps, and it burns rapidly. Ours was formed at the end of an ice age and burns for longer and at a higher temperature.
Photo: Professor Rosemary Falcon and her husband, Lionel, a retired engineer ‘who helps me understand how to apply our science in the real world’. Photo: Geoff Hill
“An industrial boiler from Europe, fed with South African coal, will melt because our product burns so hot. But we also have more ash that actually absorbs heat, making the fire less efficient. So one of the first steps is to alter the coal before you light the fire. Or build a boiler designed for each coal type.”
Working with Falcon is Dr Nandi Malumbazo who took her PhD in chemical engineering at Wits.
“In Africa, the use of coal is growing and that’s something we have to deal with,” she says.
“The challenge is to burn it more cleanly and this starts at the mine with techniques we’ve developed to separate poor quality coal from the better stuff that is already less toxic.
“You then crush it and remove elements that will not contribute to a good burn. Like unleaded petrol, you’re starting from a better place. Less ash, less fumes, more heat and a longer burn. From there we’ve done experiments and written up peer-reviewed research to show we can use it way cleaner than in most countries.”
South Africa gets more than 90% of its power from coal, in Botswana it’s 100%, and both Kenya and Tanzania are building new coal-fired generators.
The Wits research has drawn praise from across the continent. Dr Samson Bada of Nigeria has joined the team, along with Dr Jacob Masiala from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both are working on ways to get the lights on in Africa and keep the air clean. There are also post-graduate staff and students from Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique.
“If we mix pulverised coal with bamboo, something that grows well in Africa, we take emission levels down even further,” said Masiala.
Kibo Mining Plc (AIM: KIBO; AltX: KBO), the multi-asset resource, development and energy company focused on Tanzania, is pleased to announce that an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment ("ESIA") Certificate has been awarded to both the Mbeya Coal Project and to the Mbeya Power Generation Project by the Tanzanian Government.
The ESIAs are an integral element of the Mbeya Coal to Power Project ("MCPP") approval process and a further milestone in the development of this critical energy project in Tanzania. The ESIA application, submitted to the government in February, is a 1,000-page document setting out the developer's technical, environmental and social assessment of the two components of the MCPP. The application was subjected to thorough review by all relevant authorities and key stakeholders before granting of approval. The ESIA constitutes a key element of corporate social responsibility and ultimately, of a company's licence to operate.
Located in South West Tanzania, the MCPP is developing a coal mine in tandem with a 300MW 'mine mouth' power station, aiming to satisfy the acute need for power in the country. The project benefits from strong local regional and governmental support, who see it as a national priority playing a key role in the Mtwara development corridor. The project, which partners with SEPCO III, a large Chinese construction and engineering company that designs, builds and operates power plants, was recently awarded General Electric's Innovative Project of The Year award.
The MCPP from the off was touted as a clean tech power plant, Kibo was even awarded something along those lines by GE, never got to find out what it was that was awarded. Growing crops for Bio fuel in a continent that cannot even feed itself is completely bonkers.
It's great Mbeya is getting dusted off and potentially being given a new lease of life.
Besides, if they wanted to stick to the coal-fired option, there's potential for increasingly efficient ways of removing the CO2 and other combustion gases: https://news.mit.edu/2020/membrane-carbon-dioxide-exhaust-1016. Not all doom and gloom...
Blimey, that's what I was initially in Kibo for until I had worked out what old LC was up to.
4 years of non activity and now a new MOU. You have got to be having a laugh.
If they had wanted to mine the coal, or if it was financially viable to do so, even for export and not to feed the MCPP, they would have by now, it speaks volumes that it’s transpired that there were no buyers for the coal assets either, so hardly in demand at firesale prices it seems.
What happened to the buyers for the coal assets that were lining up?
And now we have a “renewal” of a MOU.
Sounds like trying anything to try and fluff the share price up before….
What’s the cash balance again?
LC is leaving the door very much open to use our coal if you look closely at the wording. The country needs power, and clean coal will need to be part of the mix.
The market should hammer this today
MPP, no coal involved in bio fuel , which seems odd considering it's sat on millions of tons of coal.
If there is a market for coal then LC will run with it in spite of his apparent change of direction
Good for Kibo I suppose. Money is money
Well a rave from the grave!!
Sowing the seeds.....if we get the finance via the IPO....then rockets...gla
Guess there was no buyers out there
Well you could, but I’m not the one being naive.
Keep on making the same mistakes though if it makes you happy genius.
Could say the same to you...time will tell..gla
Are you really that naive?
Patientzero, what bit do you not get ?,did you not read up on the details ????.
They said they would be raising money in the IPO, so I just don't get what you keep raving on about...
Kibo will grow once it IPOs and starts to bring on more power infrastructure, so, in the time being you either buy or walk away depending on your view of them now and their sp....gla
Thought it was 2021?
Shovel ready, moving at pace, NOT still a car park.
Problem with this paid PR is that it’s done for a reason- whats their cash position looking like?
Nice update
Projects up a running by end of 2023
£10m annual turnover
Well, short positions have to close before suspension etc to crystallise their profit otherwise they are stuck in an open position and have to try and close on the grey market.
Which can be tricky.
Dummy sell loads of tickets today.
Buyer keen?