The Front page of the Wall Street Journal recently featured the story of William Kamkwamba of Malawi. Kamkwamba, 20, is intent on providing electricity to his country "one windmill at a time."
He has started with three, putting them together with plastic pipes and bicycle parts - and anything he can get his hands on. One provides electricity for a television, radio and ten small light bulbs in his family home. Local villagers use it to charge cell phones. He has become a local hero - with reason.
Jeannot Boussougouth, energy analyst with Frost & Sullivan, is an expert on the energy needs of Africa. The continent's electricity supply industry is expected to require investment of $563 billion over the next two decades.
Kamkwamba is now receiving a fine education in Malawi's capital, and perhaps he will one day become part of a massive campaign to attack endemic African suffering and poverty with new power technologies. Wind power could well play an important role, since it is becoming increasingly easy to put small wind turbines close to where electricity is needed.
In this country, there is some stubborn skepticism about the potential of wind power. You can get a good debate going even in the Aurora, Colo. offices of Energy Central. Wind is intermittent and, at least in America, seems to blow more abundantly in the wrong places far from population centers.
While the arguing continues, facts on the ground are fast accumulating. Denmark has declared it intends to get half of its electricity from wind power in the near future. Energy Central recently traveled to the country to learn more about whether such goals are achievable and exportable.
Denmark is not America. But it is a national lab where new wind turbines can be tested and adaptation of the power grid to widespread use of the devices can be perfected.
Denmark has spent many decades investing in development of wind technology. That in turn has sparked the growth of companies like Vestas and LM Glasfiber, which are ready and intent on conquering fast-developing world markets for wind. GE is a major player, but the American manufacturer faces robust competition from many foreign firms, including several well-entrenched Danish players.
Meanwhile, the United States is the world's largest market for wind turbines and ready for explosive growth. Consider Texas: One Danish scientist says that an area 1.5 times the size of the Lone Star state could generate sufficient wind power to power the world. Of course, putting adequate globe-straddling transmission in place could be a challenge.
Legendary Texas oilman and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens also knows wind's potential. The Burns & McDonnell engineering firm is helping him develop a $10 billion, 4,000-megawatt wind farm. TXU and Shell have teamed up on a $4.8 billion, 3,000-megawatt wind project, also in the Texas Panhandle. They would be the world's biggest wind farms.
As Texans and Danes race ahead, the rest of the world watches and wonders about the possibilities.
Back in Malawi, Kamkwamba's mother now knows something about wind power. "Our lives are much happier now," she said.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Malawi farmers up in arms over libido-sapping pump
Malawi will investigate fears that labour-intensive manual irrigation pumps distributed to poor farmers are hurting their sexual performance.
The farmers say using the pump makes them too tired for sex and have voiced their anger to the government.
"The government is aware of the problem, the parliamentarian committee on irrigation is also concerned about it and we intend to start probing and finding out if the pumps are really to blame for the problem," Adrina Mchiela, principal secretary in the Irrigation and Water Development Ministry, told Reuters.
The high-capacity treadle pump, touted as a major reason for improved food security in the southern African country, is designed to lift water from shallow wells and surface sources.
A farmer weighing 60-70 kg (132-154 lb) can draw 5,000 litres of water per hour.
The pumps are imported from India and about 100,000 have been handed out to poor farmers over the past three years.
The farmers say using the pump makes them too tired for sex and have voiced their anger to the government.
"The government is aware of the problem, the parliamentarian committee on irrigation is also concerned about it and we intend to start probing and finding out if the pumps are really to blame for the problem," Adrina Mchiela, principal secretary in the Irrigation and Water Development Ministry, told Reuters.
The high-capacity treadle pump, touted as a major reason for improved food security in the southern African country, is designed to lift water from shallow wells and surface sources.
A farmer weighing 60-70 kg (132-154 lb) can draw 5,000 litres of water per hour.
The pumps are imported from India and about 100,000 have been handed out to poor farmers over the past three years.
Zimbabwe: Hunyani Exports Down, Malawi Blamed
PACKAGING concern Hunyani Holdings has blamed a drop in Malawi's tobacco crop for precipitating the decline in its exports.
Hunyani said the drop in Malawi's tobacco crop in 2007 had resulted in an overall nine percent reduction in the company's export volumes.
"Volumes declined by 18 percent over the prior year.
"Domestic volumes were 24 percent lower and this trend was across all market sectors. The decline of nine percent in exports was attributable to reduced tobacco crop in Malawi...The tobacco crop in Malawi was lower and this reduced exports," Hunyani said in a statement accompanying its latest financials.
Last year, Malawi's tobacco production plunged to 140 million kg, down from 158 million kg the previous season.
However, output of the golden leaf is expected to rise to 150 million kg this season, encouraged by higher prices and good rains.
The listed company, which holds a technical aid agreement with one of its major external shareholders, Nampak of South Africa, exports cartons for processed tobacco to Malawi and other neighbouring countries.
Hunyani said both local and export volumes at its corrugated products division had dropped due to curtailed demand for commercial packaging.
Hunyani, which is the largest and most diverse packaging company in the country, runs four operating divisions and produces a wide and diverse range of paper based and flexible plastic packaging from its factories located in Harare and Bulawayo.
Hunyani said the drop in Malawi's tobacco crop in 2007 had resulted in an overall nine percent reduction in the company's export volumes.
"Volumes declined by 18 percent over the prior year.
"Domestic volumes were 24 percent lower and this trend was across all market sectors. The decline of nine percent in exports was attributable to reduced tobacco crop in Malawi...The tobacco crop in Malawi was lower and this reduced exports," Hunyani said in a statement accompanying its latest financials.
Last year, Malawi's tobacco production plunged to 140 million kg, down from 158 million kg the previous season.
However, output of the golden leaf is expected to rise to 150 million kg this season, encouraged by higher prices and good rains.
The listed company, which holds a technical aid agreement with one of its major external shareholders, Nampak of South Africa, exports cartons for processed tobacco to Malawi and other neighbouring countries.
Hunyani said both local and export volumes at its corrugated products division had dropped due to curtailed demand for commercial packaging.
Hunyani, which is the largest and most diverse packaging company in the country, runs four operating divisions and produces a wide and diverse range of paper based and flexible plastic packaging from its factories located in Harare and Bulawayo.
Probe into farm pumps that kill farmers’ libido
BLANTYRE - Malawi is to probe claims that Indian-made manual irrigation pumps used by the country’s poor farmers kill their sexual desire at night, a senior government official said Thursday.
‘We are going to do a thorough study to determine the problem. We hear reports that men get tired and don’t perform at night,’ the irrigation officer who identified himself as S. Maweru, told AFP.
Maweru said if the study proved that the imported pumps were a ‘health hazard’, the government would be forced to improve on the technology and make the pumps ‘user-friendly.’
He did not say how the improvement would come about.
Complaints over the effect of the pumps on the sexual life of their users have been rife in the impoverished southern African nation in the past two years.
Some observers in Malawi noted that the excessive energy exerted by farmers in operating the irrigation machines during the day could be responsible for their loss of sexual desire at night.
About 100,000 treddle pumps, manufactured in India, have been distributed to poor farmers since the past three years to help irrigate their crops to boost maize production, the staple food in Malawi.
Up to 85 percent of farming is done by smallholder farmers who grow 80 percent of the food produced in the country.
Food security is often a pressing issue in the former British colony, where despite a huge fresh water supply, the fields have little irrigation and most farming remains small scale.
Half of the nation’s 12 million population live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day.
‘We are going to do a thorough study to determine the problem. We hear reports that men get tired and don’t perform at night,’ the irrigation officer who identified himself as S. Maweru, told AFP.
Maweru said if the study proved that the imported pumps were a ‘health hazard’, the government would be forced to improve on the technology and make the pumps ‘user-friendly.’
He did not say how the improvement would come about.
Complaints over the effect of the pumps on the sexual life of their users have been rife in the impoverished southern African nation in the past two years.
Some observers in Malawi noted that the excessive energy exerted by farmers in operating the irrigation machines during the day could be responsible for their loss of sexual desire at night.
About 100,000 treddle pumps, manufactured in India, have been distributed to poor farmers since the past three years to help irrigate their crops to boost maize production, the staple food in Malawi.
Up to 85 percent of farming is done by smallholder farmers who grow 80 percent of the food produced in the country.
Food security is often a pressing issue in the former British colony, where despite a huge fresh water supply, the fields have little irrigation and most farming remains small scale.
Half of the nation’s 12 million population live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day.
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