I so hope Africa becomes a green superpower. It's only a matter of time. But it's a massive concern that global corporations will reap the benefits instead of the African people.
The problem with most African development plans is that they are all being pushed by foreign companies for the purpose of creating an export product, rather than products and services to provide for Africans. When the main benefit to Africa is a meagre paycheck to the workers, this is not enough benefit. Infrastructure built in African needs to somewhat belong to Africa, so unless a good proportion of the energy and water being produced is used to enrich their lives, then they really should be skeptical about accepting such foreign investments.
Got to start somewhere, imo stimulating and enhancing the economics of the region by influx of investments and paying jobs with paychecks is the very first step. I understand your view point but consider how there will be development in the way you want without this very first step. If it was possible then why has it not yet happened? The answer is lack of stable economic foundation and investments. Investments and pay checks leads to stability and next generation can receive more goal oriented education towards nice jobs within the growing economy and industry. I ll tell you why there are no solar on houses in the video, they lack the financial strength to purchase solar. Why lack of paychecks, they are not oblivious oh shit we have sun lol they know, and yet they cant get solar. So foreign money is a great way to ignite the domestic economy, making it self sustainable and flourishing in relative short time if done right. Hopefully corruption will not destroy eventual progress.
"if we allow these projects to take place in enclaves, that would decouple them from Namibia's development" Yeah they would develop faster before helping the rest of the country catch up
Did you know that Hydrogen is a greenhouse gas? It doesn't directly keep heat in, but it hinders natural processes that remove methane from the atmosphete. Methane is 20x the greenhouse gas CO2 is, so if it stays up there longer, it will ve a lot worse. Also, efficiency wise, it is a huge waste of resources to process hydrogen. Likley, this is to be set up to export to richer nations like European nations. A major problem is, its energy density is sp low, that they would need to ship 4x the amount required for natural gas. It's not a good solution.
The investors of these projects generally want to secure an energy supply for somewhere in the international market. Not only can they not expect a power connection to exists, if one was built or did exists, it would be a connection going across multiple national borders, with many of those countries being politically unstable. These would not be secure energy corridors. Electricity needs to be consumed as it is produced. Batteries can be used for short term storage somewhat, but expecting grid-scale battery storage to last beyond a day or so is pretty much not feasible for battery energy storage. Bulk long term storage of energy is currently best done in the form of a chemical fuel, so making green fuels is one way of addressing this issue. These fuels can then be used to supplement energy production for either short term or seasonal supply shortages. Added to this, these energy rich chemicals are very important as a feedstock for a wide range of industrial commodities and so could be used as a direct replacement for those derived from geological sources. But some of the power produced should definitely go out on power lines, but that would be for serving the local energy markets of the African nations. And it would be up to those nations to try and procure advantageous energy deals from these foreign developers.
@@nolan4339 much of what you say makes sense but I've been led to believe that pumped hydro is basically the most efficient storage system. Why is hydrogen electrolysis more effective for storing energy?
@@anonymousAJ Effectiveness really depends on what application you need the energy for. Pumped hydro is quite effective as a medium term energy storage mechanism. it is good for storing much of that energy for days to weeks and quite efficient at around 70%(I think), but it falls a bit short in terms of seasonal energy storage because the system has the most value by constantly cycling its capacity. Added to that, It's energy is completely tied to the grid and so is inadequate off grid applications and less utility for energy exports, and developments of the systems are generally tied to geography, making build locations fairly constrained. Production of Hydrogen, and it's derivative chemicals can, in theory, reach competitive round-trip efficiencies (around 80% efficiency to create, and 80% efficiency when utilized in a fuel cell, equaling 64%) (however additional losses can occur with storage compression or further transformations, and my numbers may not be right), but the uses for these hydrogen based fuels, which can effectively be stored indefinitely and transported anywhere provides quite a bit more utility and flexibility than energy storage systems that are tied to the grid. Naturally, having a mix of both systems is useful, however in my opinion there will likely be higher demand and development of hydrogen synthesis facilities than new pumped hydro installations.
@@nolan4339 indeed current numbers are around 20-30%, not 64%. Quite low but that's also the efficiency of combustion engine. The issue is the volume hydrogen takes (much bigger than oil) and that's why the expert says there will never be enough to supply all European dreams. At the maximum for steel and heavy transport (+cargo ship and maybe flights maybe in 2030 if the technology exists for not too long distances... But still far off and uncertain). So using hydrogen as energy storage is quite low on the priority list of interesting use cases to reduce CO2 emissions. Hydro, lithium batteries or nuclear are better suited and don't suffer from low efficiency 3 Transformations sun -> electricity -> Hydrogen -> electricity (replace sun by coal and you see that it adds another step while compared with coal). I'm not saying it's impossible but a low efficiency and complicated thing (+ doesn't exist on a large scale yet, so there are probably some engineering challenges on the way) when you compare with alternatives. "Theoretically feasible doesn't mean feasible, otherwise nuclear fusion would power the world since long".
What a joke. Building a desalination plant, but don't think to supply the people living in slums with a regular supply of good quality drinking water... real smart... but 100% typical of the people who claim to be "environmentally aware" and "socially responsible". This project shows that "developed" countries and the majority of aid organisations don't really want lesser developed countries to have access to cheap and reliable electricity and all the benefits that this enables - they just want a tax haven, and access to cheap labour, with the ability to say they are "green".
I so hope Africa becomes a green superpower. It's only a matter of time. But it's a massive concern that global corporations will reap the benefits instead of the African people.
as per usual practice adding corrupt elements
It will be fun to watch everything explode
I'm so impressed with this 👏
Video turned into a marketing campaign real quick
The problem with most African development plans is that they are all being pushed by foreign companies for the purpose of creating an export product, rather than products and services to provide for Africans. When the main benefit to Africa is a meagre paycheck to the workers, this is not enough benefit. Infrastructure built in African needs to somewhat belong to Africa, so unless a good proportion of the energy and water being produced is used to enrich their lives, then they really should be skeptical about accepting such foreign investments.
Got to start somewhere, imo stimulating and enhancing the economics of the region by influx of investments and paying jobs with paychecks is the very first step.
I understand your view point but consider how there will be development in the way you want without this very first step.
If it was possible then why has it not yet happened?
The answer is lack of stable economic foundation and investments. Investments and pay checks leads to stability and next generation can receive more goal oriented education towards nice jobs within the growing economy and industry.
I ll tell you why there are no solar on houses in the video, they lack the financial strength to purchase solar. Why lack of paychecks, they are not oblivious oh shit we have sun lol they know, and yet they cant get solar.
So foreign money is a great way to ignite the domestic economy, making it self sustainable and flourishing in relative short time if done right.
Hopefully corruption will not destroy eventual progress.
"if we allow these projects to take place in enclaves, that would decouple them from Namibia's development"
Yeah they would develop faster before helping the rest of the country catch up
Did you know that Hydrogen is a greenhouse gas? It doesn't directly keep heat in, but it hinders natural processes that remove methane from the atmosphete. Methane is 20x the greenhouse gas CO2 is, so if it stays up there longer, it will ve a lot worse. Also, efficiency wise, it is a huge waste of resources to process hydrogen.
Likley, this is to be set up to export to richer nations like European nations. A major problem is, its energy density is sp low, that they would need to ship 4x the amount required for natural gas. It's not a good solution.
There should be cooperation between African countries and Europe with symbiotic relationship so that the world benefits.
Why spend energy converting to hydrogen when you can send electrical power efficiently via lines? Is this intended to be a low-investment project?
The investors of these projects generally want to secure an energy supply for somewhere in the international market. Not only can they not expect a power connection to exists, if one was built or did exists, it would be a connection going across multiple national borders, with many of those countries being politically unstable. These would not be secure energy corridors.
Electricity needs to be consumed as it is produced. Batteries can be used for short term storage somewhat, but expecting grid-scale battery storage to last beyond a day or so is pretty much not feasible for battery energy storage. Bulk long term storage of energy is currently best done in the form of a chemical fuel, so making green fuels is one way of addressing this issue. These fuels can then be used to supplement energy production for either short term or seasonal supply shortages.
Added to this, these energy rich chemicals are very important as a feedstock for a wide range of industrial commodities and so could be used as a direct replacement for those derived from geological sources.
But some of the power produced should definitely go out on power lines, but that would be for serving the local energy markets of the African nations. And it would be up to those nations to try and procure advantageous energy deals from these foreign developers.
@@nolan4339 much of what you say makes sense but I've been led to believe that pumped hydro is basically the most efficient storage system. Why is hydrogen electrolysis more effective for storing energy?
@@anonymousAJ Effectiveness really depends on what application you need the energy for. Pumped hydro is quite effective as a medium term energy storage mechanism. it is good for storing much of that energy for days to weeks and quite efficient at around 70%(I think), but it falls a bit short in terms of seasonal energy storage because the system has the most value by constantly cycling its capacity. Added to that, It's energy is completely tied to the grid and so is inadequate off grid applications and less utility for energy exports, and developments of the systems are generally tied to geography, making build locations fairly constrained.
Production of Hydrogen, and it's derivative chemicals can, in theory, reach competitive round-trip efficiencies (around 80% efficiency to create, and 80% efficiency when utilized in a fuel cell, equaling 64%) (however additional losses can occur with storage compression or further transformations, and my numbers may not be right), but the uses for these hydrogen based fuels, which can effectively be stored indefinitely and transported anywhere provides quite a bit more utility and flexibility than energy storage systems that are tied to the grid.
Naturally, having a mix of both systems is useful, however in my opinion there will likely be higher demand and development of hydrogen synthesis facilities than new pumped hydro installations.
@@nolan4339 indeed current numbers are around 20-30%, not 64%. Quite low but that's also the efficiency of combustion engine. The issue is the volume hydrogen takes (much bigger than oil) and that's why the expert says there will never be enough to supply all European dreams. At the maximum for steel and heavy transport (+cargo ship and maybe flights maybe in 2030 if the technology exists for not too long distances... But still far off and uncertain). So using hydrogen as energy storage is quite low on the priority list of interesting use cases to reduce CO2 emissions. Hydro, lithium batteries or nuclear are better suited and don't suffer from low efficiency 3 Transformations sun -> electricity -> Hydrogen -> electricity (replace sun by coal and you see that it adds another step while compared with coal).
I'm not saying it's impossible but a low efficiency and complicated thing (+ doesn't exist on a large scale yet, so there are probably some engineering challenges on the way) when you compare with alternatives. "Theoretically feasible doesn't mean feasible, otherwise nuclear fusion would power the world since long".
Cheap, renewable energy, enables progression.
What a joke. Building a desalination plant, but don't think to supply the people living in slums with a regular supply of good quality drinking water... real smart... but 100% typical of the people who claim to be "environmentally aware" and "socially responsible".
This project shows that "developed" countries and the majority of aid organisations don't really want lesser developed countries to have access to cheap and reliable electricity and all the benefits that this enables - they just want a tax haven, and access to cheap labour, with the ability to say they are "green".
Energy plants are great , but are not a necessary for survival on earth just a luxury .
Meanwhile you are powering your intricately made phone or computer with said unnecessary electricity.
says you, benefiting from decades of cheap and abundant electricity and all the benefits that it enables.