This essay was submitted to Open Philanthropy's Cause Exploration Prizes contest.
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From Energy Deprived Poor Africa.
1 I have been brought up in an agricultural background and have been a part of it from age 12, helping my parents feed our livestock, tending to our crops, and spraying our fields, among other farm practices. Unfortunately, in an economy without sufficient energy, children have to help around.
2 Agricultural engineering is the Physics in agriculture, namely Farm Power and Machinery, Farm structures, Soil water and irrigation, Post-Harvest Processing/Technology, Domestic waste management, and Renewable energy
3 According to the UN reports on global food security and nutrition, in 2021, 1 out of 5 people in Africa was affected by hunger. In Kenya, 36.5% of our population are food insecure(1 in 3), I suspect a higher pc now with food prices up to 3× and essential household items up by 50%+
4 Kenya has a total pop of ~55M pp today. 46% live on less than $1 a day. 35% of children under the age of 5 are chronically malnourished. And yet, you see headlines like, 'The Benefits of Hunger' by the UN!
5 "We would have to produce our food and clean our toilets. No wonder people at the high end are not rushing to solve the hunger problem. For many of us, hunger is not a problem, but an asset."
https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1544749718496055296?t=eU01MpTcMPA7l4blj2Julw&s=19
7 Steel prices for bars and sheets are up by more than 50%. Typical iron sheets from $5 to $11 each. 50kg typical Cement bag up from $6 to $9.5 and that has affected the construction industry. When people can't afford food and the 3/4 pillars of modern civilization how do we develop?
8 And yet the IMF felt that Kenya isn't paying its loan quickly. They were pushing the government to double the fuel prices. A liter of petrol from $1.4 today from $.9 last year. IMF wants it to be $3-expensive than Australia's $2.5!
https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/economy/imf-drops-tough-stance-on-kenya-s-fuel-subsidy-3805942
9 Energy is the one sector that drives all the other industries. An average African uses energy an average person used in France and Germany in 1860; if that is not enough, the same amount of energy an American uses in 19 days for one year or less than an American refrigerator.
10 Africa as a whole, which has about ⅙ of the world population, uses less than 4% of the total world electricity. That means we also suffer from extreme energy poverty.
11 In Kenya, more than 65% of our energy demand is met by Firewood/biomass. Yes, we plant and tend trees for firewood, it's like the man just discovered fire! A very dirty fuel btw, kills more than 700K Africans per year, up to 2.5M globally.
https://www.iea.org/news/global-energy-crisis-shows-urgency-of-accelerating-investment-in-cheaper-and-cleaner-energy-in-africa
13 With clean environments, better education, and opportunity-filled economies-why Asians are the #1 global tourists today with most parts of China among countries with top life expectancy in the world!
14 Coal is climbing the ladder in Germany, the UK, the US, and Aust reopening their coal power plants, and China opening up more coal power plants than the rest of the world combined this year-and more planned. Who wouldn't admire the Chinese government, they don't buy into the net zero shenanigans!
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/14/europe-africa-energy-crisis-gas-oil-fossil-fuels-development-finance-hypocrisy-climate-summit-world-bank/
15 Shenanigans that have made Sri Lankans succumb to poverty & chaos, Ghanaians, Italians, and Dutch Farmers protest against insensitive anti-human policies-I made a tweet a month ago on N supporting life & the gov wouldn't dare go after fertilizers as it would bring chaos!
16 News media in Canada refuse to report the Farmers' protests but instead report 'People driving tractors..'! Same old net zero shenanigans.. and yet CA is only responsible for 1.5% of GHG emissions. And seen a decrease in emissions over the years
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/trudeau-event-at-brewery-cancelled-as-apparent-convoy-protesters-set-up-outside
17 Solar and Wind, the 2 energy sources being pushed forward by the alarmists, won't be able to supply a global av. electricity of 60% per year. Hydro and Geo are amazing. But you will learn that Hydro, just like Nuclear, is decriminalized.
18 The best solar PV in the tropics will generate electricity 25% of the time and 12% for Germany-a waste of $700B+! The cost of batteries makes solar and wind power stations super expensive.
19 And look at what's happening in Germany with #1 electricity costs in Europe btw. Manufacturing industries will be forced to shut down as more than 30% of total costs are for e. And the manufacturing sector uses 50% of total Germany's e.
20 The cost of e has gone up from ~€50 per MWh to €350! That's a 7-fold increase in less than 2 years when it should be leading the way with its high share of clean e.
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1544709859194683394?t=XAzZB6EDvpauGGMqGK8Hgg&s=19
21 In Australia, electricity prices have gone up 3× this year! Of course, green policies! 45% of total electricity bills go directly to poles and cables btw.
https://apo.org.au/node/317318
22 With 10,000 Km of planned renewable energy transmission cables and poles by 2035, plus the high costs for S&W backup, they won't come down! Aus is only responsible for only 1.4% of GHG emissions!
Note: States generating e from FF have their cheapest
23 Kenya has 2700 MW of electricity installed, and 93% of our electricity demand is usually met by hydro and geo, ~900MW for each, 300MW for wind, 30MW for solar, and thermal/fossil fuels at ~600MW. The cost of setting up a KW is $2500 for hydro, $3600 for geo, $2800 for wind, and $5000-6000 for nuclear
24 Note the cost of the dilute intermittents is without electricity backup sources and batteries, which would make solar and wind generation prices exorbitant.
25 What's the deal with EVs? The west and EU are obsessed with EVs! Cobalt used in batteries comes from Congo where children supply 40% of the mining labor. Why would they care? The environment comes first!
26 Anyway, out of the total EV sales this year, China takes 50%. China's energy is 85+% FFs btw. 90% of the solar PV sold globally is from China and N Asia.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/668749/regional-distribution-of-solar-pv-module-manufacturing/
27 There have been reports of forced labor, drugging of workers, hostile living conditions, and sexual abuse in those solar PV manufacturers in China. Biden banned one of those companies from supplying the US the PVs last year, demand went up, Biden unbanned it!
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-lawmakers-ask-biden-administration-why-some-china-solar-giants-left-off-slave-2022-07-12/
https://twitter.com/wang_seaver/status/1543024237862010880?t=8Ez_gyRPq6Aozvpy3WcvyA&s=19
28 In the US, a person telling you to buy an EV is probably mad rich(15% can afford EVs btw), & I honestly think EV subsidies, coming from FF taxation mostly, are a way the gov steals from the poor. And, 225 tons of raw materials to produce an EV is a lot of mining/impact don't you think?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-18/electric-vehicles-are-out-of-reach-for-most-u-s-consumers
29 The 4 pillars of modern human civilization are Ammonia for fertilizers, Cement for buildings, Steel for machines and buildings, and Plastics. Plastics are used everywhere, and yet you hear so many negatives about them
30 I was a Greenpeace member back in University-active physically and online. I realized plastics were majorly found in slums-where the poorest live. The plastics/polythene are how they carry food. Plastic plates and cups, plastic chairs, plastic shoes(<$2), and mattresses.
31 ¼ of primary components of healthcare products. A syringe is one of the most essential tools in a hospital. Floaters, parachutes, inhalers, gloves, raincoats, diving equipment, eyeglasses, and toothbrushes.. are life-saving plastics! Up to 150k elephants were killed yearly for their tusks, plastics saved them.
32 That said, the US and the EU should stop using Africa as their dumpster! For the waste and plastic wastes
Picture
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-behind-e-waste-dump-africa-180957597/
https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1548913321528946688?t=uRau8lzXxrjv-mtDLQ65UQ&s=19
33 As Europe reopens its coal electricity generation power plants, it isn't going to open up fertilizers manufacturing plants planned earlier in Africa-cus it will clash with its green shenanigans!
https://twitter.com/ClimateDepot/status/1544749718496055296?t=eU01MpTcMPA7l4blj2Julw&s=19
34 But the EU is very busy talking to Nigeria and other African countries to supply them with the oil! One wonders what they will do with the oil when they plan to eliminate all FF cars from their roads by 2035
35 Africa-1.4B people-uses less than 5% of the world's fertilizers, Asia-4.7B-uses 60%. An average Chinese uses 390kgs of fertilizer in a Ha while an av. Africans use about 15kgs per Ha per year. And yet improving agriculture is the one surest way for Africans to beat both hunger and poverty!
36 A-Ha of land in the US was producing 2T of corn/maize in the early 1900s, today it produces an average of 11T. A-Ha in Kenya produces an average of 3T per Ha today. With the double fertilizer prices, we will produce less... We have seen what organic farming did to Sri Lankans.
37 A 20% decrease in rice production, ~30% for tea, and up to 50% for rubber! Manure has only 5-6% N whereas Urea has 46% N! 100kg per Ha app vs 20T manure app.. why would one go organic?
38 Organic farming is for the very poor because they can't afford fertilizers (developing world) and the very rich want to stay close to cruel mother nature! Otherwise, no African wants to die healthily of hunger. We need plenty of food. We want more fertilizers and machinery for our fields.
39 Organic farming is for the very poor because they can't afford fertilizers (developing world) and the very rich who want to stay close to cruel mother nature! Otherwise, no African wants to die healthily of hunger. We want food. We want more fertilizers and machinery for our fields.
40 And yes, we can quantify what a machine does in terms of how many people would substitute it, but in some cases, we cannot. An example is the number of people required to uproot a tree stump-which is perfectly quantifiable, but what of the number of people needed to fly a lab sample from Kenya to California?
41 Likewise, can one quantify the number of people required to push a vaccine through a vein-a substitute for a needle? I know; it does not make sense at all! But, as Alex notes in my favorite book, Fossil Future, machines amplify and expand our capabilities. .
42 For example, machines have reduced the time needed to produce a kg of wheat in the US from 10 mins in 1800 to 2 seconds today. Machinery reduced the time required to produce a kg of wheat from 10 mins in 1820 to under 2 seconds today, in the US. We have to impact our environment to sustain ourselves and machines are just a whole other level of human ingenuity!
43 Machines require a lot of energy, and without machines, we wouldn't have a civilization. Without them, America would starve. Only 2% of the US population is actively & directly involved in farming. The 2% make America the #1 agricultural exporter!
44 In Beijing China, farm mechanization is at 70%. India is at 45%, Kenya at 2%, and Ethiopia at 1%! Other than South Africa and Egypt, mechanization is less than 5% throughout Africa. In the coming decades that will rise, we will need more FFs.
45 One of the easiest ways to empower our women would be via economies having cheap reliable plentiful energy. In a field where physicals rule over brains, females will suffer as males are naturally stronger. What a man can do..? Yes, in a developed world.
46 According to FAO, the world loses a third of its food as waste=1.3Billion tonnes. 6% of total GHG emissions are from food waste(btw, Africa emits around 3 % of the total GHGs).
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
47 The Waste and Resources Action Program noted that 75% of the wasted food is perfectly edible in the UK.
https://wrap.org.uk/taking-action/food-drink
48 The world produces food enough for 12B+ people today. Reducing PH losses from a third to let's say 1/5 means we reduce farmed land, energy use, and every other input by ⅒, in turn feeding 1B people with the saved food!
49 The US, for instance, uses 1% of its total energy to directly produce food, and ~ 19% in distribution, marketing, refrigeration, and cooking! One of the easiest ways to reduce energy consumption and in return GHG emissions is through finding better ways for Post-Harvest processing-PHP-not through EVs!
50 Also a change from coal to nat gas would be another way to reduce emissions. The US has seen a decrease in the carbon emissions from FF use by 50% and up to 90% reduction in poisonous gases
Recommendations.
1. The top most would be providing subsidized fertilizers in plenty. Agriculture has a greater potential to save Africa.
2. Cheap energy sources. A start would be building biogas digesters in villages. Energy is the most important after food. A cleaner substitute for dirty firewood would be a great investment and gasifiers wouldn't get the work done because they are mostly for generating electricity. LPG would be a feasible solution too. But then refiling means money.
Most families rear livestock and we have elders throughout the villages. Keeping it full wouldn't be a problem. Or substitute animal waste for human waste from our schools.
3. Investing in Post-Harvest Technology. That's a problem even the developed world is facing but even worse in developing countries. Look at the wasted food in terms of money generated from selling the excess.
4. Exports farms. In peak season Africa produces alot of high quality chemical free foods that would be sold upto 10× the buying prices.
5. Invest in educating a few bright young people depending with the particular area picked from the list. Not only do they understand their locality, they also speak the local languages and it is building rural communities.