part 223 Nov 2022 18:43
“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.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
