You’ve all seen the insane power bills. Gathecha akatudanganya mchana mchana ati power costs would go down as he launched the Olkaria geothermal power station. There is a talker here Meria mata or is it mathaais, I confuse the two, who regularly complains here about power bills.
It’s now quite apparent that there’s a cartel war in the electricity industry. But it is a similar war raging on in most countries on the planet between the Status Quo on one side VS cheap green power/clean power.
It is the war to save the planet. A war to wrest electricity from complete govt. control. Not an easy war. A war full of propaganda and lies.
In Kenya for instance you have the Chinese pushing for coal power and these very same Chinese know quite well the evils of coal power, first hand. In fact they are trying to move to green energy wamejionea wenyewe, but wanatuuzia hio energy.
With the Chinese you have Centum and hidden behind Centum you have the Gathecha’s and friends. Major stakeholders in KPLC. Wenye nchi. There’s also an Arab consortium of fellow billionaires to wrap up coal power. Hata ‘baba’ anasupport this so called “green coal” wakiwa na akina Ruto huko ndani. This is what we know as the Lapset project. Born in the nusu mkate era.
On the other side you have international tree huggers who don’t want Kenyans to go through what their countries have gone through with pollution and all. But these fellows are also lobbying for their green power companies. I imagine Obama is in that lot with his green power movement or Power Africa Initiative.
And there’s a lot of money at play here folks. Shitload of money because Africa is apparently the future!
As expected the Gathecha’s are winning in the propaganda front. Mmeona hata agent @spear hapa trying to convince us very strongly how green energy is too expensive, that we don’t need the excess power generated it’s excess where do we take it! Si mnakumbuka hio kama mko na memory? Na anamalizia with the punchline: Green power is irregular and unstable! What do you do at night when there is no sun and yet its impossible to store electricity from day time?
Mimi naweza kwuuliza @spear tu swali moja, do you remember this Swedish company?
Mlituambia that the 600 Megawatts proposed windfarm they wanted to construct in Malindi; that that power generated would be excess and unnecessary. This firm even moved to TZ. Mkatuambia they are just corrupt wazungus out to make a quick buck and dump expensive technology we can’t maintain and we don’t need. Their project cost 2 billion dollars and only required wind.
Why in the world Senor Spear, is the Kenya govt. then building a 1000 Megawatt DIRTY Coal plant and yet mlituambia 600Megawatt ni excess? 600 ni excess, 1000 mtapeleka wapi?
Propaganda. And lies.
Na mkumbuke that was also the time we were told that there is no power to electrify our SGR. We have to wait for Ethiopians to use our Lake Turkana water to dam the Nile upstream so they can build a dam to sell us electricity for our train! Sijasahau.
This is the 1000MegaWatt Lamu Power station:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamu_Coal_Power_Station
Wanadanganya it will be very clean almost zero emmissions as compared to 600 MegaWatt offshore wind farm.
The Lamu plant costs the same as the Swedish wind farm: About 2 billion dollars. It is on shore and will consume almost a thousand acres whereas the Swedish plant was to be offshore at sea.
To add insult to injury the Lamu Coal power station will require $180 million worth of coal imported every year from South Africa. That’s why they are building the Lamu port for the coal being shipped in. Meanwhile the wind farm would only need wind…
It is said that Kenya’s rift valley has the ability to generate over 5000Megawatts or even more of geothermal, wind and solar power if well utilized. Kenya has more than sufficient wind and solar energy to even become a serious power exporter. And we don’t even need Obama or the Chinese or the Swedes to construct super expensive windfarms and solar panels. We can do it ourselves if we wanted to! We can actually construct solar panels for the whole Nation if we want to! Sisi Wakenya!
Californa the fourth biggest economy on earth is going completely green by 2045. 100% renewable power:
Of course and as expected the status quo there doesn’t like that. They are saying power bills have shot up. Housing has become expensive because of these new measures… green house gases have not reduced. Even P.S. Nyoike in the video below says we should not copy California because there are no benefits and it’s very expensive. Nashindwa aren’t you the same fellows who were saying the SGR shouldn’t be analyzed from a cost perspectivebut rather from a development angle. What are the development benefits of SGR not how much it will cost?
And by the way that Swedish wind farm would’ve comfortably supported an electric SGR. Why is California going green and yet Kenya is talking of coal and even nuclear power?!
P.S. Nyoike also adds that with wind farms and solar you have to have other backups which makes costs shoot up. But si basi tutatumia hydroelectricity usiku?
There’s a documentary on Nat geo about a city can’t rememver whether its China or Turkey where every house has solar panels. They generate so much solar power that they sell excess power to the national grid. If the national grid has excess it passes on to France to Russia and so on. Electric grids are linked for export purposes. Each house in that city has a special meter. At night the national govt. provides power since there’s no sun. The special meter subtracts the energy you sold during the day to the govt. , from the govt. power and you pay the net which is very minimal.
I write all these because on Sunday Jeff Koinange asked ‘why I’m I paying shs.72,000 a month in power bills? Kwani nimekuwa factory?’
He wasn’t bragging. He was asking the right questions. Why 72,000 na tuko na jua na wind na maji? He brought us these two news features on the Turkana wind farm. Turkana wind farm costs Kshs. 70 billion and can generate over 300Megawatts to power a million homes. Ongezea Turkana na ile ya Swedes na ingefikisha 1000Megawatts kama ya coal plant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9EMjFPz0Es
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32j5EUM4phA
Very good news features. As you can see the status quo through Ketraco wanajaribu kukataa na transmission lines. Hawataki tuonje cheap power.
Halafu jana usiku Sharon Momanyi of KTN News brought us part 2 of Coaled Case. Two decent documentaries about the Lamu Coal power stations. Highly informative. But an observant eye can tell that the first story was done before handshake and the second story is post handshake and the tone changes. She even interviews govt. officials in the second one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8eyWbCq-s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WJ2vRNlnpE
Two different power sources. An analysis. Wind farm vs Coal.
In conclusion mimi nikaulizwa I don’t think coal power is necessary. I think there are cheaper and cleaner alternatives, achievable mainly if we could just pull away these greedy wenye nchi’s tightfisted control of our electricity.