Nigeria: We Need Low Carbon Energy Infrastructure (1)

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At various points in the last 150 years, the global community had flirted with ideas and opportunities that could have led to the attainment of a low carbon global economy. For instance, in the 1880’s experiment with renewable energy technologies resulting in the near emergence of commercial scale solar plants but before they could be integrated into the power grid, these experiments were abandoned with the advent of cheap hydrocarbon oil and World War 1. Also during the 1980’s, just immediately after the oil peak price shocks of the 1970’s, these abandoned experiments were revived with renewed vigour.

Many governments in the west invested so much in the research and development of renewable energy technologies from solar to wind all the way to ocean wave energy but this adventure was short lived with the stability recorded in the international price of crude oil. Today, we are back to square one with the real threats of climate change. Indeed, the extant situation is different from the two previous scenarios of the 1880’s and 1980’s because of the “excess luggage” of climate change. The pertinent question that arises here is: what can we do differently this time to successfully execute the “green mandate” and usher in the renewable energy revolution? Humanity can prevent catastrophic climate change and adopt programmes, projects and policies that reduce energy usage by unleashing the full potentials of energy efficiency in concert with renewable energy resources. Target-setting has failed to achieve needed reductions in hydrocarbon emissions because of the mindset that treats climate change as a mere pollution problem instead of being addressed as a fundamentally development challenge which it is.

The 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen last December could have accelerated this transition. A bouquet of political will and the right policies can get the world on track to mitigate climate change in the near term while also meeting medium to long term demand for energy services especially by providing energy access for the world’s poorest. What is needed is a transformation of the entire global energy system and this is happening already. According to statistics released by leading climate change conscious institutions and organizations, world gross domestic product (GDP) increased 156% while global energy demand (GED) rose 39%, pushing up global hydrocarbon emissions by 38% between 1990 – 2007. Note that the emissions level was less than the energy demand itself and this has been made possible by advances in energy efficiency. There is a huge quantum of space for improvement because more than half of the energy that we generate does not provide us with useful services because of “lost in transit” syndrome that plagues centralized grid infrastructures.

I’ll leave you to imagine the energy we lose in our transmission effort to get some folks in Calabar or Sokoto to enjoy the dividends of electricity generated in Kainji hydropower station in Niger state. In addition, according to the international Energy Agency (IEA), the projected investment in grid electricity worldwide in the next two decades can only take about 300 million people out of the energy poverty threshold of 1.7 billion people who are trapped in this dark threshold. What then happens to the remaining 1.4 billion energy poor populations? This is where renewable energy comes on a ‘redemption mission” allowing us to generate electricity in-situ, off-grid fashion and allowing you deploy the resources you would have spent on transmission costs in other pressing areas like health and education. In 2007 alone, renewable energy accounted for more than 18% of total global energy supplies. Solar, wind, biomass, geothermal and other green technologies have experienced an average of double-digit annual growth rates in the last decade. The renewable energy share of additional global electricity generation leaped from 5% in 2003 to 23% in 2008 and this is minus significant hydropower generation. It is instructive to remind us that even in the face of the current global financial crisis, the cleantech industry continues to enjoy boom and is the least affected by the credit crunch of the last 12 months. Already, most Scandinavian countries and core European nations like Germany and Spain are leading the way in showing how to avoid hydrocarbon emissions as well as meet their energy needs by leveraging on the platform presented by energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. China’s case presents a unique “the good, the bad and ugly” scenario in simultaneous fashion.

Posted on July 11, 2010 · in Global

Tagged as: low carbon global economy