A uniquely Nigerian set of Problems
Jared Mathews, who did two tours of duty with the US Army in Afghanistan provides a retrospective and forward-looking narrative on President Buhari and Nigeria.
Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as the newest Nigerian president on May 29 2015, ousting incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan by more than 2.5 million votes. Buhari, a moderate Muslim with a reputation for being a stern disciplinarian, made the eradication of Boko Haram a pillar of his presidential campaign. Now is the time for the president to make due on his campaign promises and work to unify a culturally fractured Nigeria plagued with one of the most violent Islamic groups in not only Africa but the entire world.
Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group once nicknamed the Nigerian Taliban has carved a path of destruction throughout northern Nigeria for the last 6 years attacking government, military and civilian targets indiscriminately.
For Buhari to be successful he will have to remedy two primary domestic issues –education and the chronic poverty in northern Nigeria. With only 20 to 40 percent of secondary school students (ages 13-18) currently literate across northern Nigeria, a substantial and comprehensive education system will have to be established with the support of the local Muslim communities. In addition to a massive education reform, Buhari will have to invest heavily in the infrastructure of the north to initially create jobs and ultimately provide a region crippled with poverty, with some regions (Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, and Jigawa) reporting more than 80 percent of its population without food, safe drinking water and shelter.
For these two massive undertakings, Buhari will undoubtedly have to first provide both safety and security to the entire region before any of these vast programs can be instituted safely.
However, the world’s 20th largest economy experienced a decline from the steady 7 percent growth they have come to expect over the last four years, while also dealing with stagnating oil prices sitting at roughly $50 dollars a barrel after a steep decline in January, leaving Nigeria in an economically precarious situation. Economic troubles aside, Buhari inherits a nation fractured by at least 16 different ethno-linguistics groups, two major religions with a host of sub sects of each religion, creating even more tension amongst the wildly diverse population.
Buhari’s main efforts are twofold. The first is aimed at rooting out the corruption within the Nigerian government by reducing the size of his administration, and the second is focused on reducing the cost of everyday government operations.
However, many within the Nigerian government are concerned that Buhari’s methodical plans may in fact cause significant delays proving detrimental to the country as a whole as it faces a rapidly declining economy, Boko Haram’s prolonged insurgency, as well as the ever tenuous socially fractured population. Buhari has spent the last six months purging potentially corrupt Nigerian politicians from his administration, and he is said to be working with Chad, Niger, and Cameroon to establish a regionalized united military effort to root out Boko Haram from the four countries’ porous borders.
If Buhari is successful in creating this coalition of West African nations against Boko Haram, this will be a massive step forward for the U.S. and its allies in the War on Terror, ostensibly providing the blueprint for future multi-nation resolutions in which the United States and its allies can provide the military training and support to not only deny, degrade and defeat violent extremist organizations but also provide the training and careful guidance to the Nigerian, Nigerien, Chadian, and Cameroonian militaries which in turn may provide future stability to the region, in turn allowing for more foreign investments throughout the areas.
With Nigeria on the cusp of becoming a member of the G20, a strong leadership performance by Buhari can leave a legacy of a booming Nigerian economy, a safe and secure multiethnic state, with an experienced and capable government, police and military force that will be able project power within its own borders as well as aid its neighbors in the borderless War on Terror.
Furthermore, if Buhari is not able to cobble together a multinational force of African countries to combat Boko Haram, the international community will have to take action on Nigeria’s behalf. In the last six years Boko Haram has gained vast swaths of territory in Northern Nigeria mainly but also made incursions into Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Boko Haram cannot be left to fester and has shown that it cannot be contained and left to the Nigerians to be dealt with.
However, given the importance that President Obama and his administration have placed on securing the region from Boko Haram and other violent extremist organizations, Boko Haram is absent in Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey’s most recent U.S. military strategy report published in June. The report highlights the necessity and dire importance of denying and degrading the resources, terrain and abilities of violent extremist organizations throughout the Middle East, yet only mentions Africa as a mere afterthought.
Considering just six short months ago, Exercise Flintlock 2015 took place in this year’s host country of Chad, marking the largest joint military exercise in Africa to date with over 20 countries participating in the regional exercise. As per the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership, Exercise Flintlock has occurred every year since 2005, headed by the 10th Special Forces Group and Africom the training exercise focuses on developing security capacity, the building of professionalism, and the promotion of multilateral sharing of information amongst the participating countries. Exercise Flintlock is a tangible representation of the importance regionalized military training is for the United States in regards to West Africa and the surrounding region.
The international community has tried several strategies in dealing with extremist organizations such as containment with the help of the African Union around the failed state of Somalia since the early 2005 against the consistent threat of Al Shabaab as well as targeted drone strikes and international task forces against Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Ansar Dine and Al Mourabitoun with limited long term successes in both Mali and Algeria. If Buhari is to be successful, he will be one of the first countries to provide an apt and capable ground force to combat extremism in the region with the help of U.S. advisors and highly effective airstrikes.
Nigeria faces a host of problems not just the Clockwork Orange-esque ultra violence of Boko Haram, to include rampant poverty and an endemic education crisis in Nigeria’s northern states. Despite its position as Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria remains at 152 out of 176 countries on the Human Development Index. Despite the substantial influx of foreign investment following the sweeping economic reforms of the 1980’s and beyond, Nigeria’s burgeoning oil industry has grown substantially, however the effects of these investments has yet to trickle down in any way to the people. Conversely poverty has grown each year, now affecting more than 80 percent of the population of the northern states.
Nigeria’s agriculture makes up 40 percent of the country’s GDP, yet the vast majority of farmers operate small plots of land without irrigation practices leaving each year’s harvest completely dependent upon rainfall. Analysts estimate the current amount of land currently being used for farming could be doubled from 35 million hectares to 71 million hectares improving crop yields, and the overall agricultural productivity of the region. However, the stark lack of basic infrastructure in Nigeria’s northern states poses a significant problem for farmers attempting to bring their goods to market leading to crop spoilage and wasted efforts. Without access to new technology and equipment that could drastically improve crop yields, the same practices are being used year in and year out causing irreparable damage to the land itself only furthering the previously mentioned crises. And the exodus of young men from these regions leaving to find employment elsewhere only furthers the dearth of human capital in the region.
In addition to the complicated realities of the Nigeria’s economic/ infrastructure problem, education is a paramount concern to Nigerians as a whole. While a majority of northern states hover between 10 to 20 percent of children enrolled in primary school, southern states sit between 60 to 70 percent demonstrating the vast disparity in infrastructure a surviving remnant from 19th century British colonialism. With 21 percent of men and 38 percent of women with no education whatsoever, targeted reforms to the education institutions of the northern states is absolutely dire, which poses a significant problem for President Buhari who has repeatedly stated he has a “national plan for Nigeria, not a northern plan”. Universal reforms will not right this ship.
Boko Haram is not the entire problem with Nigeria but intersects all three major issues. Due to the frequent and barbaric attacks on schools throughout the northern states, many northerners feel they have no choice but to keep their children at home, sacrificing their education for the illusion of safety. Whether children are kept at home the population still faces the sporadic and brutal assaults at random in which villagers are slaughtered by the dozen. As the populations of these small towns and villages are killed off, land goes untilled, harvests spoil or are never planted and the north’s slip into poverty and malnutrition becomes more pronounced.
Will Africa Feed China? A special Review
A book authored by Deborah Brautigam. Reviewed by Bobert Wekesa.
It is safe to say that Professor Deborah Brautigam is a “leading” China-Africa scholar and in some respects “the leading” China-Africa scholar. “A leading” and “the leading” labels are not without controversy, and so is “China-Africa” versus “Africa-China” – but these are issues for another day. Suffice it to mention that, when the Johns Hopkins professor produces a book on the topic, it is bound to attract attention.
My sense is that Will Africa Feed China? has attracted the kind of attention that a Brautigam book would, though less so than her 2009 book, The Dragon’s Gift. Brautigam is known in Africa-China circles for calling attention to and debunking taken-for-granted myths about Chinese interests in Africa. Just punch in the word “myth” in the search bar of her popular blog and you see myth-bursting writ large. While her 2009 book alluded to the separation of fact and fiction in Africa-China engagements at a time when Africa-China relations were on a meteoric rise, her latest work is even more pointed in puncturing ill-informed suppositions. The Dragon’s Gift generally and fleetingly disabused erroneous media generated yarns. The new book can essentially be read as a repudiation of the deleterious role of the media in circulating wrong-headed tall stories about “Chinese land grab” heft in Africa.
It is with this role of the media in Africa-China engagements as well as Africa-China scholarship that I am here concerned. But before attempting a media-focused appraisal of Will Africa Feed China?, it is worthwhile summarising reviews on the book since its October 2015 release.
A review of reviews
As expected, reviewers have appraised the book in differing ways. Salutary reviews with an eye on the buyer’s pockets would be expected from the publisher, booksellers and book endorsers – no disappointments there! Independent reviewers may however provide a detached barometer on how the book has been received. One reviewer concludes that “the prose flows well” but a “narrow” focus on “proving a negative” and approaching the topic from the Chinese rather than African end of things are drawback. The same reviewer also reckons Brautigam focused on agriculture to the exclusion of other Chinese interests in Africa. This is echoed by another reviewer whose appetite was whetted for more than Brautigam offered, the argument being that she could/should have offered some pro-African agricultural development recommendations. Another reviewer is all thumbs up for the book and uses Brautigam’s debunking of media myths to throw in their own observations on how and why media and civil society are forces of negativity. Some do little else than regurgitate some of Brautigam’s debunking while others endorse the book as “an engaging, eye-opening read”, one that “throws many buckets of cold water on a narrative that many perhaps want to believe is true, to fit pre-ordained opinions and viewpoints”.
One reviewer posits that the book would not have been necessary in the first place. This is because the mere thought of Africa feeding China is an unfathomable, rhetorical proposition. However this reviewer finds the book necessary because “there are plenty who believe otherwise. And it’s not just pot-smoking conspiracy theorists”. Some of the respected news outlets such as The Economist are said to be the, well, rumormongers. It is quite telling to note that a quasi-review-cum-report based on the book by The Economist did not push back on Brautigam’s dim view of media-generated hyperbole by The Economist itself.
All in all, it is safe to conclude that Will Africa China? has received favorable coverage. Even criticism at the book for offering too little in terms of scope can be read in positive terms as readers wanting more. A perusal of the reviews suggests they are quick and holistic appraisals of the book. Reflecting on the deeper disciplinary and methodological considerations of Brautigam’s new offering might perhaps provide different reading of Africa-China engagements. In my case, the fact that the book seeks to debunk media-created myths provides an opportunity for reflection on the link between the two major variables of the book: media and communications on the one hand and the agricultural sector on the other hand.
The media dimension
While China’s agricultural interests in Africa is the main focus of the book, there is little doubt that media and communications is an important subtheme. Consider, for instance, the incidence of the keywords related to media and communications: Article, data/databases, editorial, headline, Internet, journalism/journalists, opinion, magazine, media, news, newspaper, piece, radio, report, reporters, story, television and website. These words appear at least 112 times on their own and at least 119 times as part of a specific organisational media platform (for example, Sinochem website or Google or New York Times) or a country’s media (Chinese website for instance). Collectively, “media code” appears at least 230 times which on average means once per page.
In what amounts to the problem of the statement, Brautigam writes that “hunger and food security, land grabbing, the fate of small farmers in faraway African villages, Chinese migration” are crucial issues plagued by “inadequate data, all covered by the international media with TV, radio, and newspaper stories of sharply varying accuracy”. Media is found to be problematic in circulating fiction rather than fact, warranting Brautigam’s “peeling away layers of myths” in an effort that required “extensive fieldwork” with an eye on “a more balanced and realistic account”. In analyzing the book, one can put aside the ‘main’ agricultural investment dimension of the book and concentrate on the media subtheme. Such an endeavour would in essence mean that the ‘complementary’ media dimension is elevated to become the main theme, while the main agricultural theme is stepped down to become the complementary theme.
Thus, it is not just that Brautigam sets out to establish Chinese agricultural investments in Africa, but that she sets out to establish Chinese investments in Africa by closely analyzing media coverage of the phenomenon. To belabor the point, Brautigam could as well have swatted away media coverage on the topic and gone straight for the juggler – Chinese agricultural investments in Africa. Indeed, Brautigam is forthright: “This book challenges four widespread beliefs about Chinese agricultural engagement in Africa that have shaped conventional wisdom, circulating through influential policy circles and popular culture (read media) ….”
What motivates Brautigam’s focus on the circulation of misinformed information on Chinese agricultural investment in Africa? Food, Brautigam suggests, is a highly sensitive and political matter on its own. But things are made worse when the media fuels speculation about a supposedly food-ravenous China devouring food-hungry Africa’s farmland. The real and present danger is that media consumers assume that “because it featured in The Economist, The Guardian or the website of a famous think tank, it must be true”. Worse still, “the nature of knowledge circulation is such that first impressions are very hard to erase”.
In an almost equivalent to “gotcha journalism”, the book’s methodology is one where a media item is identified and re-narrated, then deconstructed in a bid to overturn falsehoods, errors and hyperbole. Brautigam’s approach can thus be said to be mixed methods, triangulating development economics with a media-based qualitative content analysis. Upfront, Brautigam implies that the book is work in progress as it could “provide a baseline for current and future analyses”.
Straddling the continent, the most telling examples of mismatches between media-generated content and reality are in Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal (West Africa); Democratic Republic of Congo (Central Africa); Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, (Southern Africa) and Tanzania, Uganda (East Africa); Mauritania (Maghreb); Ethiopia, Sudan (Horn of Africa). Thus, the most incisive debunking is done on selected cases, in 18 African countries.
The media theme can be broken down in any number of ways. Consider the why and wherefores. For instance, on the one hand, Brautigam makes generalisations on why and how the media report Chinese agricultural engagements with Africa the way they do. On the other hand, Brautigam makes reference to individual media covering specific Chinese agricultural engagements with/in Africa.
Why the media gets it wrong
A number of independent and interrelated factors are presented to explain why the media report the way they do the supposed “land grabs”. It is “not easy” for media to “avoid sensationalism” and “there is little investigative” reporting. The media relied on “easy to access”, unverified content from the Internet generally but websites and databases specifically which was then published as fact. A related consideration is that unsubstantiated information flows back and forth from websites, databases, media, think tanks, books, journals, etc., is “recycled …[as] facts long after their sell-by date”. The genesis and wide circulation of the inaccuracies is described as follows: “Some of the early efforts to collect data on Chinese investments have been flawed”. Indeed, some of the investments captured in datasets “failed to move beyond a press conference or an expression of interest”. Interestingly, some aspects of the China-land-grab sensation come from China itself! This is because in their zeal to report only the positive side of the story, Chinese media “predictably fail to cover” problematic agricultural issues while contributing to exaggerations.
How the media gets it wrong
An analytical media-centric reading of the book would show that the generic ‘why’ considerations impel the generic ‘how’ aspects. On the one hand, it is not just one media item that circulates inaccurate data, but “hundreds of newspaper articles and editorials, sensational statements and robust myths”. It is via the relentless blitz that the Chinese-land-grab story is conditioned into a home truth. This is the case of the media citing erroneous databases and websites. On the other hand, “the headlines and media reports turned into “data” that became the foundation for analysis by researchers in NGOs, universities, and think tanks”. This second point is a reverse: the researchers, academics, policymakers, etc., source their information from the media. By looking at the problem from both the database/website prism and the journalism/media prism, Brautigam manages to demonstrate the link between media and interested parties such as civil society and academia in the Africa-China knowledge production sphere.
Overall, Will Africa Feed China? is a valuable book not just because it calls attention to myths in the Africa-China field, but because it pinpoints some of the sources of rumours such as a supposed Chinese government strategy to settle one million Chinese people in Africa. Moreover, the media-based approach utilized by the author is not only a first for book-length project but contributes new thinking in the linkages between various Africa-China disciplinary persuasions.
Room for further work
Several issues can be picked up from the book. One, as Brautigam herself puts it, the book should not be taken as conclusive on Chinese engagements but a work in progress. The stories and fieldwork are concentrated in 18 out of the 54 African countries. Even within the 18 countries, it is safe to conclude that only a number of cases of rogue reporting were investigated by Brautigam and her team. In short, Brautigam has made a major contribution in pinpointing some cases of Chinese agricultural investments in Africa but a conclusive book on the topic is yet to be written.
While Brautigam offers some views on why the media gets it so wrong, it would appear she does not go to the heart of why the myths arise in the first place. There must be philosophical and ideological factors that impel journalists, particularly Western journalists to spread the unverified information beyond the dearth in investigative journalism rigour. There also must be philosophical and ideological factors that inform Chinese journalists’ unwitting contribution to the misinformation. Brautigam could have embellished her book with thoughts on these perspectives from the Africa-China media and communications field.
I would agree with the reviewer who argues that, on balance, the book is more inclined towards explaining the China end of things more than it does the African story. One needs only to compare and contrast Chinese and African sources to conform this. It is for this reason that I would categorize the book as “China-Africa” rather than “Africa-China”. Additionally, the book is presented from an essentially Western scholars’ perspective, which is an important perspective that needs to be understood as such. One of the many ways to back up the claim that the book approaches the topic from a Western rather than Chinese or African perspective is to consider the media establishments cited. The bulk of the news media featuring in the book are Western: Inter Press Service, CBS News, Washington Post, Daily Mail, The Atlantic, The Economist, The New York Times, The Guardian, Asian Business (part of the Wall Street Journal), Financial Times, Associated Press, Voice of America, Christian Science Monitor, Africa-Asia Confidential (UK-based), Reuters, CNN, and Harper’s Magazine. The Chinese media cited are: Far Eastern Economic Review, China Daily, Xinhua, Beijing Morning Post, Caijing, Hunan Daily, Peking Review, China Business News, CCTV, GuojiShangbao and China Economic Herald. Only three African media appear: the Savanna magazine of Mozambique, Gazette de la Grande Ile of Madagascar and The Herald of Zimbabwe.
The media-based approach that Brautigam uses ably serves to debunk myths yes, but from a scholarly media and communications perspective it is rather unsystematic. One may pose the question of just how many media outlets that have information relevant to the topic miss out from Brautigam’s analysis? Indeed, this calls to mind the lively debate between Brautigam and the US-based Centre for Global Development (also known as AidData) when the latter released a report on Chinese economic activities in Africa based on media content in 2013. Brautigam has contributed an important approach towards getting down to the facts in Africa-China engagements: undertake the hard work of verifying facts through extensive secondary research and fieldwork before you publish figures. But her approach is not quite comprehensive. This is where the media-based data collection method proposed by AidData seems a better bet, albeit one fraught with the potential for the double, even triple data citation that Brautigam warns us about. It would appear that the ideal approach in the use of media to obtain accurate, complete, quality and credible Africa-China data lies somewhere between Brautigam’s rigorous approach and big data approach. In fact, as one of the book reviewers points out, this would be unnecessary if the Chinese and African governments had data and were ready and willing to share it.
Energy and sustainable development in Nigeria: the way forward
Sunday Olayinka Oyedepo.
Abstract.
Access to clean modern energy services is an enormous challenge facing the African continent because energy is fundamental for socioeconomic development and poverty eradication. Today, 60% to 70% of the Nigerian population does not have access to electricity. There is no doubt that the present power crisis afflicting Nigeria will persist unless the government diversifies the energy sources in domestic, commercial, and industrial sectors and adopts new available technologies to reduce energy wastages and to save cost.
This review examines a set of energy policy interventions, which can make a major contribution to the sustainable economic, environmental, and social development of Africa's most populated country, Nigeria. Energy efficiency leads to important social benefits, such as reducing the energy bills for poor households. From an economic point of view, implementing the country's renewable energy target will have significant costs, but these can partly be offset by selling carbon credits according to the rules of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ agreed some 10 years ago, which will result in indirect health benefits.
Nigeria could benefit from the targeted interventions that would reduce the local air pollution and help the country to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Many factors that need to be considered and appropriately addressed in the shift to its sustainable energy future are examined in this article. These include a full exploitation and promotion of renewable energy resources, energy efficiency practices, as well as the application of energy conservation measures in various sectors such as in the construction of industrial, residential, and office buildings, in transportation, etc.
Keywords
Sustainable energy Renewable energy Energy efficiency Energy conservation
Review
Background
Energy plays the most vital role in the economic growth, progress, and development, as well as poverty eradication and security of any nation. Uninterrupted energy supply is a vital issue for all countries today. Future economic growth crucially depends on the long-term availability of energy from sources that are affordable, accessible, and environmentally friendly. Security, climate change, and public health are closely interrelated with energy[1]. Energy is an important factor in all the sectors of any country's economy. The standard of living of a given country can be directly related to the per capita energy consumption. The recent world's energy crisis is due to two reasons: the rapid population growth and the increase in the living standard of whole societies. The per capita energy consumption is a measure of the per capita income as well as a measure of the prosperity of a nation[2].
Energy supports the provision of basic needs such as cooked food, a comfortable living temperature, lighting, the use of appliances, piped water or sewerage, essential health care (refrigerated vaccines, emergency, and intensive care), educational aids, communication (radio, television, electronic mail, the World Wide Web), and transport. Energy also fuels productive activities including agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, industry, and mining. Conversely, a lack of access to energy contributes to poverty and deprivation and can contribute to the economic decline. Energy and poverty reduction are not only closely connected with each other, but also with the socioeconomic development, which involves productivity, income growth, education, and health[3].
The energy crisis, which has engulfed Nigeria for almost two decades, has been enormous and has largely contributed to the incidence of poverty by paralyzing industrial and commercial activities during this period. The Council for Renewable Energy of Nigeria estimates that power outages brought about a loss of 126 billion naira (US$ 984.38 million) annually[4]. Apart from the huge income loss, it has also resulted in health hazards due to the exposure to carbon emissions caused by constant use of ‘backyard generators’ in different households and business enterprises, unemployment, and high cost of living leading to a deterioration of living conditions.
Moreover, according to the Central Bank estimate in 1985, Nigeria consumed 8,771,863 tonnes of oil equivalent[5]. This is equal to about 180,000 barrels of oil per day. Since then, oil consumption in Nigeria has drastically increased. The effect of this increase on the economy relying solely on revenue from oil is tremendous. Also, the Department for Petroleum Resources[6] reported an amount of petroleum of more than 78% of the total energy consumption in Nigeria. In the present predicament as a nation, it is obvious that depending mainly on fossil fuel (petroleum) is not enough to meet the energy needs of the country. Since Nigeria is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources such as hydroelectric, solar, wind, tidal, and biomass, there is a need to harness these resources and chart a new energy future for Nigeria. In this regard, the government has a responsibility to make renewable energy available and affordable to all.
Many indigenous researchers have looked into the availability of renewable energy resources in Nigeria with a view to establishing their viability in the country. Onyebuchi[7] estimated the technical potential of solar energy in Nigeria with a 5% device conversion efficiency put at 15.0 × 1014 kJ of useful energy annually. This equates to about 258.62 million barrels of oil equivalent annually, which corresponds to the current national annual fossil fuel production in the country. This will also amount to about 4.2 × 105 GW/h of electricity production annually, which is about 26 times the recent annual electricity production of 16,000 GW/h in the country. In their work, Chineke and Igwiro[8] show that Nigeria receives abundant solar energy that can be usefully harnessed with an annual average daily solar radiation of about 5.25 kW h/m2/day. This varies between 3.5 kW h/m2/day at the coastal areas and 7 kW h/m2/day at the northern boundary.
The average amount of sunshine hours all over the country is estimated to be about 6.5 h. This gives an average annual solar energy intensity of 1,934.5 kW h/m2/year; thus, over the course of a year, an average of 6,372,613 PJ/year (approximately 1,770 TW h/year) of solar energy falls on the entire land area of Nigeria. This is about 120,000times the total annual average electrical energy generated by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). With a 10% conservative conversion efficiency, the available solar energy resource is about 23 times the Energy Commission of Nigeria's (ECN) projection of the total final energy demand for Nigeria in the year 2030[9]. To enhance the developmental trend in the country, there is every need to support the existing unreliable energy sector with a sustainable source of power supply through solar energy.
Moreover, many indigenous researchers have also explored the availability of wind energy sources in Nigeria with a view of implementing them if there is a likelihood for their usage. Adekoya and Adewale[10] analyzed the wind speed data of 30 stations in Nigeria, determining the annual mean wind speeds and power flux densities, which vary from 1.5 to 4.1 m/s to 5.7 to 22.5 W/m2, respectively. Fagbenle and Karayiannis[11] carried out a 10-year wind data analysis from 1979 to 1988, considering the surface and upper winds as well as the maximum gusts, whereas Ngala et al.[12] performed a statistical analysis of the wind energy potential in Maiduguri, Borno State, using the Weibull distribution and 10-year (1995 to 2004) wind data.
A cost benefit analysis was also performed using the wind energy conversion systems for electric power generation and supply in the State. Each of these reports point to the fact that the nation is blessed with a vast opportunity for harvesting wind for electricity production, particularly at the core northern states, the mountainous parts of the central and eastern states, and also the offshore areas, where wind is abundantly available throughout the year. The issue then is for the country to look at ways of harnessing resources towards establishing wind farms in various regions and zones that have been identified as possessing abilities for the harvesting of wind energy. Akinbami[13] reported that the total hydroelectric power potential of the country was estimated to be about 8,824 MW with an annual electricity generation potential in excess of 36,000 GW h. This consists of 8,000 MW of large hydropower technology, while the remaining 824 MW is still small-scale hydropower technology. Presently, 24% and 4% of both large and small hydropower potentials, respectively, in the country have been exploited.
Akinbami et al.'s assessment[14] indicated that the identified feedstock substrate for an economically feasible biogas program in Nigeria includes water lettuce, water hyacinth, dung, cassava leaves, urban refuse, solid (including industrial) waste, agricultural residues, and sewage. The authors' views include the following: Nigeria produces about 227,500 tonnes of fresh animal wastes daily. Since 1 kg of fresh animal wastes produces about 0.03 m3 gas, then Nigeria could produce about 6.8 million m3 of biogas every day. In addition to all these, 20 kg of municipal solid wastes per capital has been estimated to be generated in the country annually.
The prime objectives of this paper are (1) to review the current status of the energy resources, the energy demand, and supply in Nigeria and (2) to explore the prospects of utilizing renewable energy resources and to increase the energy efficiency as a possible means of sustainable development in Nigeria.
Energy situation in Nigeria
Nigeria is Africa's energy giant. It is the continent's most prolific oil-producing country, which, along with Libya, accounts for two-thirds of Africa's crude oil reserves. It ranks second to Algeria in natural gas[15]. Most of Africa's bitumen and lignite reserves are found in Nigeria. In its mix of conventional energy reserves, Nigeria is simply unmatched by any other country on the African continent. It is not surprising therefore that energy export is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Also, primary energy resources dominate the nation's industrial raw material endowment.
Several energy resources are available in Nigeria in abundant proportions. The country possesses the world's sixth largest reserve of crude oil. Nigeria has an estimated oil reserve of 36.2 billion barrels. It is increasingly an important gas province with proven reserves of nearly 5,000 billion m3. The oil and gas reserves are mainly found and located along the Niger Delta, Gulf of Guinea, and Bight of Bonny. Most of the exploration activities are focused in deep and ultra-deep offshore areas with planned activities in the Chad basin, in the northeast. Coal and lignite reserves are estimated to be 2.7 billion tons, while tar sand reserves represent 31 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The identified hydroelectricity sites have an estimated capacity of about 14,250 MW. Nigeria has significant biomass resources to meet both traditional and modern energy uses, including electricity generation[16].
Table1 shows Nigeria's energy reserves/potentials. There has been a supply and demand gap as a result of the inadequate development and inefficient management of the energy sector. The supply of electricity, the country's most used energy resource, has been erratic[17].
Table 1
Nigeria's energy reserves/capacity as in December 2005
Resource type Reserves Reserves (BTOE)c Reserves (× 107) TJ
Crude oil 36.2 billion barrels 4.896 20.499
Natural gas 166 trillion SCFa 4.465 18.694
Coal and lignite 2.7 billion tonnes 1.882 7.879
Tar sands 31 billion barrels of oil equivalent 4.216 17.652
Subtotal Fossil 15.459 64.724
Hydropower, large Scale 11,000 MW 0.0341/year
Hydropower, small Scale 3,250 MW 0.0101/year
Fuel wood 13,071,464 hab
Animal waste 61 million tonnes/year
Crop residue 83 million tonnes/year
Solar radiation 3.5 to 7.0 kW h/m2/day
Wind 2 to4 m/s (annual average) at 10 m in height
aSCF, standard cubic feet; bforest land estimate for 1981; cBTOE, billion tonnes of oil equivalent. Adapted from ECN[18].
The situation in the rural areas of the country is that most end users depend on fuel wood. Fuel wood is used by over 70% of Nigerians living in the rural areas. Nigeria consumes over 50 million tonnes of fuel wood annually, a rate which exceeds the replenishment rate through various afforestation programs. Sourcing fuel wood for domestic and commercial uses is a major cause of desertification in the arid-zone states and erosion in the southern part of the country. The rate of deforestation is about 350,000 ha/year, which is equivalent to 3.6% of the present area of forests and woodlands, whereas reforestation is only at about 10% of the deforestation rate[19].
The rural areas, which are generally inaccessible due to the absence of good road networks, have little access to conventional energy such as electricity and petroleum products. Petroleum products such as kerosene and gasoline are purchased in the rural areas at prices 150% in excess of their official pump prices. The daily needs of the rural populace for heat energy are therefore met almost entirely from fuel wood. The sale of fuel wood and charcoal is mostly uncontrolled in the unorganized private sector. The sale of kerosene, electricity and cooking gas is essentially influenced and controlled by the Federal Government or its agencies - the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the case of kerosene and cooking gas, and the PHCN in the case of electricity. The policy of the Federal Government had been to subsidize the pricing of locally consumed petroleum products, including electricity. In a bid to make the petroleum downstream sector more efficient and in an attempt to stem petroleum product consumption as a policy focus, the government has reduced and removed subsidies on various energy resources in Nigeria. The various policy options have always engendered price increases of the products[20].
With the restructuring of the power sector and the imminent privatization of the electricity industry, it is obvious that for logistic and economic reasons especially in the privatized power sector, rural areas that are remote from the grid and/or have low consumption or low power purchase potential will not be attractive to private power investors. Such areas may remain unserved into the distant future[21].
Meanwhile, electricity is required for such basic developmental services as pipe borne water, health care, telecommunications, and quality education. The poverty eradication and Universal Basic Education programs require energy for success. The absence of reliable energy supply has not only left the rural populace socially backward, but has also left their economic potentials untapped. Fortunately, Nigeria is blessed with abundant renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, biomass, and small hydropower potentials. The logical solution is increased penetration of renewables into the energy supply mix[15].
Energy consumption pattern in Nigeria
Energy consumption patterns in the world today shows that Nigeria and indeed African countries have the lowest rates of consumption. Nevertheless, Nigeria suffers from an inadequate supply of usable energy due to the rapidly increasing demand, which is typical of a developing economy. Paradoxically, the country is potentially endowed with sustainable energy resources. Nigeria is rich in conventional energy resources, which include oil, national gas, lignite, and coal. It is also well endowed with renewable energy sources such as wood, solar, hydropower, and wind[17].
The patterns of energy usage in Nigeria's economy can be divided into industrial, transport, commercial, agricultural, and household sectors[22]. The household sector accounts for the largest share of energy usage in the country - about 65%. This is largely due to the low level of development in all the other sectors.
The major energy-consuming activities in Nigeria's households are cooking, lighting, and use of electrical appliances. Cooking accounts for a staggering 91% of household energy consumption, lighting uses up to 6%, and the remaining 3% can be attributed to the use of basic electrical appliances such as televisions and pressing irons[9]. The predominant energy resources for domestic and commercial uses in Nigeria are fuel wood, charcoal, kerosene, cooking gas and electricity[20]. Other sources, though less common, are sawdust, agricultural crop residues of corn stalk, cassava sticks, and, in extreme cases, cow dung. In Nigeria, among the urban dwellers, kerosene and gas are the major cooking fuels. The majority of the people rely on kerosene stoves for domestic cooking, while only a few use gas and electric cookers[23].
The rural areas have little access to conventional energy such as electricity and petroleum products due to the absence of good road networks. Petroleum products such as kerosene and gasoline are purchased in the rural areas at prices very high in excess of their official pump prices. The rural population, whose needs are often basic, therefore depends to a large extent on fuel wood as a major traditional source of fuel. It has been estimated that about 86% of rural households in Nigeria depend on fuel wood as their source of energy[24]. A fuel wood supply/demand imbalance in some parts of the country is now a real threat to the energy security of the rural communities[22].
The energy consumption per capita in Nigeria is very small - about one-sixth of the energy consumed in developed countries. This is directly linked to the level of poverty in the country. Gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income are indices that are used to measure the economic well-being of a country and its people[25]. GDP is defined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a given country in a given period of time (usually a calendar year). The per capita income refers to how much each individual receives, in monetary terms, of the yearly income that is generated in his/her country through productive activities. That is what each citizen would receive if the yearly income generated by a country from its productive activities were divided equally between everyone.
Current electricity situation in Nigeria
The electricity system in Nigeria centers on PHCN, which accounts for about 98% of the total electricity generation[26]. Power generation by other agencies such as the Nigerian Electricity Supply Company relies on thermal power for electricity generation unlike PHCN, which relies on both hydro- and thermal power. However, electricity is also a consumer of fuel and energy such as fuel oil, natural gas, and diesel oil. The importance of these sources of energy and fuel for generating electricity has been decreasing in recent years. However, hydropower that is relatively cheaper than these sources has grown to be more important than other sources[27]. However, more recently, the Power Authority has generated electricity through a mix of both thermal and hydro systems. All the power, distribution, and substations are specially interlinked by a transmission network popularly known as the national grid. The entire electricity generated nationwide is pooled into the National Control Centre, Osogbo, from where electricity is distributed to all parts of Nigeria.
The national electricity grid presently consists of 14 generating stations (3 hydro and 11 thermal) with a total installed capacity of about 8,039 MW as shown in Table2. The transmission network is made up of 5,000 km of 330-kV lines, 6,000 km of 132-kV lines, 23 of 330/132-kV substations, with a combined capacity of 6,000 or 4,600 MVA at a utilization factor of 80%. In turn, the 91 of 132/33-kV substations have a combined capacity of 7,800 or 5,800 MVA at a utilization factor of 75%. The distribution sector is comprised of 23,753 km of 33-kV lines, 19,226 km of 11-kV lines, and 679 of 33/11-kV substations. There are also 1,790 distribution transformers and 680 injection substations[28]. Table2 shows a summary of the generation capabilities of PHCN power stations as operated in the year 2008 (January to December)[29].
Table 2
Summary of generation capabilities of PHCN power stations as operated in 2008 (January to December)
Plant Operator Age (year) Type Installed capacity (MW) Average availability (MW) Availability factor Number of units installed Current number available
Kainji PHCN 38 to 40 Hydro 760 438.86 0.58 8 6
Jebba PHCN 25 Hydro 578.4 529.40 0.92 6 4
Shiroro PHCN 22 Hydro 600 488.82 0.81 4 4
Egbin PHCN 23 ST 1320 694.97 0.53 6 5
AES AES 7 GT 315 233.91 0.77 9 9
Ajaokuta STS NA GT 110 24.88 0.23 2 2
Sapele PHCN 26 to 30 ST/GT 1020 156.60 0.15 10 1
Okpai AGIP 3 GT/ST 480 394.56 0.88 3 3
Afam PHCN 8 to 45 GT 709.6 82.12 0.09 20 3
Delta PHCN 18 GT 912 211.67 0.24 18 12
Geregu PHCN NA GT 414 305.14 0.74 3 3
Omoku RS 3 GT 150 87.27 0.87 6 4
Omotosho PHCN 1 GT 335 256.58 0.77 8 2
Olorunsogo PHCN 1 GT 335 271.46 0.81 8 2
Total 8,039 4176.24 0.50 93 45
Adapted from PHCN[30].
As it can be seen in Table2, the existing plants operate at far below their installed capacity as many of them have units that need to be rehabilitated, retrofitted, and upgraded[31]. The percentage of generation capability from hydro turbines is 34.89%; from gas turbine, 35.27%; and from steam turbines, 29.84%. The relative contribution of the hydropower stations to the total electricity generation (megawatt per hour) is greater than that of the thermal power stations.
In terms of the consumption of electricity, a classification into three groups has been proposed (industrial, residential, and street light consumption). In 1970, the total electricity consumption stood at 145.3 MW/h; this increased to about 536.9 MW/h in 1980. However, in 2005, the total electricity consumption had increased to 1,873.1 MW/h[32]. On the generation side, these values of 176.6 MW/h in 1970 increased to 815.1 MW/h in 1980. By the end of 2005, the achieved total electricity generation was 2,997.3 MW/h[32]. Comparing the per capita power generation to that of other countries, Nigeria has the lowest among the countries, as shown in Table3, while the USA has the highest per capita electricity generation.
Table 3
Country statistics of electricity generation and per capita consumption
Continent Country Population (million) Generation capacity (MW) Per capita consumption (kW)
North America USA 250 813,000 3.2
South America Cuba 10.54 4,000 0.38
Europe (central) UK 57.5 76,000 1.1
Europe (eastern) Ukraine 49 54,000 1.33
Middle East Iraq 23.6 10,000 0.42
Far East South Korea 47 52,000 1.10
Africa Nigeria 140 <4,000 0.03
Egypt 67.9 18,000 0.27
South Africa 44.3 45,000 1.02
Adapted from Okafor and Joe-Uzuegbu[17].
In spite of the contribution of electricity to the total gross domestic product, it is evident that Nigeria is facing several problems. The incapacity of the electricity subsector to efficiently meet the demand for electricity in the country has been caused by a number of problems, which have been detrimental to economic growth. The Central Bank of Nigeria[26] has identified nine problems associated with the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) (now PHCN):
1.
Lack of preventive and routine maintenance of NEPA's facilities, resulting in huge energy losses.
2.
Frequent major breakdowns, arising from the use of outdated and heavily overloaded equipment.
3.
Lack of coordination between town planning authorities and PHCN, resulting in poor overall power system planning and overloading of PHCN equipment.
4.
Inadequate generation due to operational/technical problems arising from machine breakdown, low gas pressure, and low water levels.
5.
Poor funding of the organization.
6.
Inadequate budgetary provision and undue delay in release of funds to PHCN.
7.
PHCN's inefficient billing and collection system.
8.
High indebtedness to PHCN by both public and private consumers who are reluctant to pay for electricity consumed when due.
9.
Vandalizing and pilfering of PHCN equipment.
In addition to these, most of the existing electricity plants in Nigeria are underutilized or not functioning at all. Numerous reasons could be sighted as responsible for the underutilization of these plants. Some of which are (1) scarcity of relevant manpower for adequate maintenance and general consumer indiscipline; (2) lack of essential spare parts for maintenance of the plants; (3) absence of local manufacturing capabilities;(4) lack of systematic studies of distribution networks to reduce the extraordinary losses that usually accompany haphazard system expansion; and (5) inability to convert gas flares to a source of electricity[33].
The inefficiency as well as the inadequate facilities to boost electricity supply also have been major causes of the increasing gap between the demand and the supply of electricity. This could be due to the fact that there are only 14 generating stations in Nigeria (3 hydro and 11 thermal stations). Out of the approximated 8,039 MW of installed capacity in Nigeria, not more than 4,500 MW is ever produced. This is due to poor maintenance, fluctuation in water levels powering the hydro plants, and the loss of electricity in transmission. It could also be due to the 80-MW export of electricity each to the republic of Niger and Benin. ‘Apart from serving as a pillar of wealth creation in Nigeria, electricity is also the nucleus of operations and subsequently the engine of growth for all sectors of the economy’[34]. It has been indirectly re-echoed that electricity consumption is positively related to economic growth and that the former is a causal factor of the latter. This means that electricity consumption has diverse impacts on a range of socioeconomic activities and consequentially the living standards of Nigerians.
Notwithstanding the above pitfalls that had rendered public electricity supply in Nigeria unreliable and inefficient, the trend of its utilization has grown significantly over the past years. Figure1 shows the total electricity consumption in megawatts per hour and the various sectorial decompositions. Electricity utilization by the industrial sector has been fairly static because of the unreliable nature of the public electricity supply system in the country. Thus, many companies have resolved to provide their own power-generating sets as sources of electricity, leading to huge transfer costs on their products and services.
Studies and experiences have shown that power generation in the country has been dismal and unable to compare with what has been obtained in smaller African countries. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) gave the following performance indicators in Table4 for Nigeria's electricity sector compared with those of some other countries[28]. The data for some Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries such as Botswana and South Africa are comparable to those of the USA and France. The performance of the Nigerian power sector on the International Best Practices comparative rating is disgraceful. Perhaps, no other sector feels it as much as the manufacturing industrial sector wherein some notable international companies and organizations are on self-generated electricity 24 h/day for the 365 days of each year, as confirmed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in 2009[36]. The survey showed that, on average, manufacturers generated about 72% of the total power required to run their factories.
Table 4
Power supply reliability indices (international best practices)
Index USA Singapore France Nigeria (NEPA data) Nigeria (MAN study)
SAIDIa(min) 88 1.5 52 900 ≥60,000
SAIFIb(number/year 1.5 NA NA 5 ≥600
CAIDIc(h) 0 NA 0 9 15
ASAId 1 1 1 NA ≤0.4
aSAIDI, System average international duration index − Annual average total duration of power interruption to a consumer, in minutes; bSAIFI, System average interruption frequency index − Average number of interruptions of supply that a consumer experiences annually; cCAIDI, Consumer average interruption duration index − Average duration of an interruption of supply for a consumer who experiences the interruption on an annual basis, in hours; dASAI, Average service availability index − Ratio of (Consumer hours service availability)/(Consumer hours service demanded). Adapted from Fagbenle et al.[28].
The Nigerian energy challenge
Nigeria's energy need is on the increase, and its increasing population is not adequately considered in the energy development program. The present urban-centered energy policy is deplorable, as cases of rural and sub-rural energy demand and supply do not reach the center stage of the country's energy development policy. People in rural areas depend on burning wood and traditional biomass for their energy needs, causing great deforestation, emitting greenhouse gases, and polluting the environment, thus creating global warming and environmental concerns. The main task has been to supply energy to the cities and various places of industrialization, thereby creating an energy imbalance within the country's socioeconomic and political landscapes. Comparing the present and ever increasing population with the total capacity of the available power stations reveals that Nigeria is not able to meet the energy needs of the people. The rural dwellers still lack electric power[37].
The nature of Nigeria's energy crises can be characterized by two key factors. The first concerns the recurrent severe shortages of the petroleum product market of which kerosene and diesel are the most prominent. Nigeria has five domestic refineries owned by the government with a capacity to process 450,000 barrels of oil per day, yet imports constitute more than 75% of petroleum product requirements. The state-owned refineries have hardly operated above a 40% capacity utilization rate for any extended period of time in the past two decades. The gasoline market is much better supplied than kerosene and diesel because of its higher political profile. This factor explains why the government has embarked on large import volumes to remedy domestic shortages of the product. According to the Minister for Energy, the subsidy to support the imports of gasoline alone will be in the range of 700 to 800 billion naira in 2008[38]. The weaker political pressures exerted by the consumers of kerosene (the poor and low middle class) and diesel (industrial sector) on the government and the constraints on public financing of large-scale imports of these products, as in the case of gasoline, largely explain their more severe and persistent market shortages[39].
The second dimension of Nigeria's energy crises is exemplified by such indicators as electricity blackouts, brownouts, and pervasive reliance on self-generated electricity. This development has occurred despite abundant energy resources in Nigeria. The electricity market, dominated on the supply side by the state-owned PHCN, formerly called NEPA, has been incapable of providing minimum acceptable international standards of electricity service reliability, accessibility, and availability for the past three decades[40]. The nature of this poor record in electricity supply is apparent in the trend in transmission and distribution losses shown in Figure2. The double-digit transmission and distribution losses are extremely large by international standards and are among the highest in the world. The system losses are five to six times higher than those in well-run power systems. The high level of power losses and the significant illegal access to the public power supply are indicative of the crisis in the industry.
Though the peak electricity demand has been less than half of the installed capacity in the past decade, load shedding occurs regularly. Power outages in the manufacturing sector provide another dimension to the crisis. In 2004, the major manufacturing firms experienced 316 outages. This increased by 26% in 2005, followed by an explosive 43% increase between 2006 and 2007. Though no published data exist, the near collapse of the generating system to far below 2,000 MW for prolonged periods of time suggests a reason for the number of outages in 2008 to be very high. This poor service delivery has rendered public supply a standby source as many consumers who cannot afford irregular and poor quality service substitute more expensive captive supply alternatives to minimize the negative consequences of power supply interruptions on their production activities and profitability. An estimated 20% of the investment into industrial projects is allocated to alternative sources of electricity supply[3].
In summary, the causal factors in Nigeria's energy crisis include the following:
Prevalence of a regime of price control.
Weak concern for cost recovery and lack of adequate economic incentives to induce the state-owned companies (NNPC and PHCN) to engage in efficient production and investment behavior. This seems apparent in the existence of large input and output subsidies.
Multiplicity of economic and noneconomic objectives without proper identification of the trade-offs among these different objectives. This is implicit in its pricing policies in both electricity and petroleum products markets.
Institutional and governance failures which induced gross distortions and inefficiency in production, investment choices and high costs of operation, low return on investment, and expensive delays along with cost overruns in the state energy enterprises.
Energy demand projection
There is an increasing demand for fuel energy due to the increase in economic development and civilization all over the world. Industry is one of the most important energy-consuming sectors in the world. According to Mitchel[41], energy is essential to our way of life. It provides us with comfort, transportation, and the ability to produce food and material goods. Historically, energy consumption has been directly related to the gross national product, which is a measure of the market value of the total national output of goods and services[42].
According to Sambo et al.[43], population is a major driver of energy demand, while its most important determinant is the level of economic activity and its structure measured by the total gross domestic product (GDP) alongside the various sectors and sub-sectors of the economy. Population projection of Nigeria was expected to grow from 115.22 million in 2000 to 281.81 million by 2030 at an average annual rate of 2.86% between 2000 and 2030.
Based on the models developed by the ECN, the country's energy demand was analyzed for the period from 2000 to 2030 with the use of the Model for the Analysis of the Energy Demand (MAED) and the Wien Automatic System Planning (WASP) package (Table5). It can be said that the energy demand of Nigeria will be approximately 2.5-, 3-, 3.5-, and 4.5-fold between the years 2000 and 2015 and approximately 8-, 13-, 17-, and 22.5-fold between the years 2000 and 2030 based on a 7% (reference), 10% (high growth), 11.5% (optimistic), and 13% (optimistic) GDP growth rate per annum, respectively. This increase in the energy demand is due to the high level of economic activities expected in Nigeria as measured by the total GDP.
Table 5
Total projected energy demand (MTOE)
Scenario 2000 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Reference (7%) 32.01 51.40 79.36 118.14 169.18 245.19
High growth (10%) 32.01 56.18 94.18 190.73 259.19 414.52
Optimistic (11.5%) 32.01 56.18 108.57 245.97 331.32 553.26
Optimistic (13%) 32.01 72.81 148.97 312.61 429.11 715.70
Adapted from ECN[44].
The trends of the projected energy demand are shown in Figure3. In 2005, the total energy demand based on a 10% GDP growth rate revealed that the household segment had the largest share of all the sectors. The sectorial energy demands in the 2030 plan period, however, showed the highest growth rates for the industrial, followed by the services, household, and transport sectors in that order (Table6). The electricity demand (extracted from the total energy demand) shows an increasing trend from the base year 2005 to 2030 in the four adopted growth scenarios, respectively, as shown in Figure4, indicating a high economic growth rate leading to a substantial increase in the electricity demand. The energy consumed over the years shows a decreasing trend with an increasing population, necessitating a corresponding increase in the energy output. Hence, the country's large energy efficiency potential needs to be exploited (Table7). In 2007, the total primary energy consumed was 11.4 million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE) with petroleum products having the largest share of 67.3% of the total consumption, amounting to a total average consumption of 78.7% between 2002 and 2007. This level of consumption was followed by that of hydropower at 23.9%, natural gas at 8.7%, and coal at 0.05% with their respective total average consumption standing at 16.08%, 5.17%, and 0.04% for the period from 2002 to 2007 as shown in Table8. Flaring adversely reduced the maximum contribution of natural gas to the total energy consumption mix in spite of its abundance in the country as most of the oil fields lack appropriate infrastructure for gas production. The general Niger Delta security issue (bunkering, sabotage, etc.) have also weakened most of the oil and gas projects[45].
Table 6
Total energy demand based on a 10 % GDP growth rate (MTOE)
Item 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 Average growth rate (%)
Industry 8.08 12.59 26.03 39.47 92.34 145.21 16.2
Transport 11.70 13.48 16.59 19.70 26.53 33.36 4.7
Household 18.82 22.42 28.01 33.60 33.94 34.27 2.6
Services 6.43 8.38 12.14 15.89 26.95 38.00 8.7
Total 45.01 56.87 82.77 108.66 179.75 250.84 8.3
Adapted from ECN[46].
Table 7
Per capita primary energy consumption in Nigeria
Year Energy consumed (MTOE) Population (million) Per capita energy consumption (TOE/capita)
2002 18.783 122.365 0.153
2003 19.106 126.153 0.151
2004 16.267 129.927 0.125
2005 17.707 133.702 0.132
2006 12.421 140.003 0.089
2007 11.387 144.203 0.097
Adapted from CBN and NBS[32, 47, 48].
Table 8
Commercial primary energy consumption by type (average percentage of total)
Type 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Average
Coal 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.05 0.05 0.04
Hydro 11.93 14.20 17.39 12.04 17.03 23.90 16.08
Natural gas 2.84 1.9 4.54 5.5 7.52 8.73 5.17
Petroleum products 85.20 83.87 78.04 82.45 75.44 67.32 78.71
Adapted from CBN[32, 49].
Throughout the world, electricity is the most widely used and desirable form of energy. It is a basic requirement for economic development, national development, meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and for an adequate standard of living. As a country's population grows and its economy expands, its demand for electrical energy multiplies. If this demand is not met adequately, a shortage in supply occurs. This shortage can assume crisis proportions and possibly affect achieving sustainable energy development.
The electric power capacity demand by projection in Nigeria would be approximately 3.5-fold between 2010 and 2020 and 7.5-fold between 2010 and 2030, respectively, at a growth rate of 7%, while the projected supply by fuel mix shows a similar trend with the demand at both growth rates of 7% and 13% (Table9). There is a wide disparity in the energy demand to the supply ratio in Nigeria both in the present and the future. This necessitates an urgent need for alternative energy sources and efficient energy usage in order to avert looming energy crises.
Table 9
Electric power capacity in Nigeria
Electric power demand
2010 2020 2030
Demand (MW%) Supply (MW%) Demand (MW%) Supply (MW%) Demand (MW%) Supply (MW %)
Fuel type 7 13 7 13 7 13 7 13 7 13 7 13
Coal 0 0 6.515 16.913 15.815 63.896
Gas 13.555 31.935 37.733 78.717 85.585 192.895
Hydro 3.702 3.902 6.479 6.749 11.479 11.479
Nuclear 0 0 3.530 11.005 11.872 36.891
Small-hydro 40 208 140 1.000 701 2.353
Solar 5 30 34 750 302 4.610
Wind 0 500 1.471 3.791 5.369 15.567
Total 15.730 33.250 17.303 36.576 50.820 107.600 55.903 118.836 119.200 297.900 131.122 327.690
Supply by fuel mix and demand for 7% and 13% GDP growth. Adapted from ECN[44, 46].
These projections for continued rapid energy growth imply some severe problems for the future resource depletion, energy degradation, associated environmental problems, fuel shortage, etc. Indeed, many of these problems are already happening; thus, energy conservation is concerned with ways to reduce energy demand, but yet achieve the same objective as before.
To achieve its objective of sustainable development, Nigeria needs to substantially increase the supply of modern affordable energy services to all its citizens while, at the same time, maintaining environmental integrity and social cohesion. In addition, a robust mix of energy sources (fossil and renewable), combined with an improved end-use efficiency, will almost certainly be required to meet the growing demand for energy services in the country. Technological development, decentralized non-grid networks, diversity of energy-supply systems, and affordable energy services are imperative to meeting the future demand.
The role of renewable energy technologies in sustainable development
Renewable energy has an important role to play in meeting the future energy needs in both rural and urban areas[50]. The development and utilization of renewable energy should be given a high priority, especially in the light of increased awareness of the adverse environmental impacts of fossil-based generation. The need for sustainable energy is rapidly increasing in the world. A widespread use of renewable energy is important for achieving sustainability in the energy sectors in both developing and industrialized countries.
Nigeria is blessed with a large amount of renewable natural resources (Table1), which, when fully developed and utilized, will lead to poverty reduction and sustainable development.
Renewable energy resources and technologies are a key component of sustainable development for the following primary reasons:
They generally cause less environmental impact than other energy sources. The implementation of renewable energy technologies will help to address the environmental concerns that emerged due to greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), oxides of sulfur (SOx), and particulate matters as a result of power generation from oil, natural gas, and coal. A variety of renewable energy resources provide a flexible array of options for their use. They cannot be depleted. If used carefully in appropriate applications, renewable energy resources can provide a reliable and sustainable supply of energy almost indefinitely. In contrast, fossil fuel resources are diminished by extraction and consumption.
They favor system decentralization and local solutions that are somewhat independent of the national network, thus enhancing the flexibility of the system and providing economic benefits to small isolated populations.To seize the opportunities presented by renewable energy resources in sustainable development, Nigeria needs to establish renewable energy markets and gradually develop experience with renewable energy technologies. The barriers and constraints to the diffusion of renewable energy should be overcome. A legal, administrative, and financing infrastructure should be established to facilitate planning and application of renewable energy projects. Government must play a useful role in promoting renewable energy technologies by initiating surveys and studies to establish their potential in both urban and rural areas.
Because renewable energies are constantly being replenished from natural resources, they have security of supply, unlike fossil fuels, which are negotiated on the international market and subject to international competition, sometimes even resulting in wars and shortages. They have important advantages, which could be stated as follows:
Their rate of use does not affect their availability in the future; thus, they are inexhaustible.
The resources are generally well distributed all over the world, even though wide spatial and temporal variations occur. Thus, all regions of the world have reasonable access to one or more forms of renewable energy supply.
They are clean and pollution-free and are therefore a sustainable natural form of energy.
They can be cheaply and continuously harvested and are therefore a sustainable source of energy.
Unlike the nuclear and fossil fuels plants which belong to big companies, governments, or state-owned enterprises, renewable energy can be set up in small units and is therefore suitable for community management and ownership. In this way, the returns from renewable energy projects can be kept in the community. In Nigeria, this has particular relevance since the electricity grid does not extend to remote areas, and it is prohibitively expensive to do so. This presents a unique opportunity to construct power plants closer to where they are actually needed. In this way, much needed income, skill transfer, and manufacturing opportunities for small businesses would be injected into rural communities.
Energy and sustainable development in Nigeria
Sustainable energy involves the provision of energy services in a sustainable manner, which in turn necessitates that energy services be provided for all people in ways that, now and in the future, are sufficient to provide the basic necessities, affordable, not detrimental to the environment, and acceptable to communities and people[51, 52, 53]. Linkages between sustainable energy and factors such as efficiency and economic growth have been investigated[54].
The energy sector plays a pivotal role in attempts to achieve sustainable development, balancing economic and social developments with environmental protection (encapsulated in the ‘strap line’ for the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development of ‘people, planet, and prosperity’). Energy is central to practically all aspects of sustainable development. Energy is central to the economy because it drives all economic activities.
This characterization of energy directs our attention to its sources in nature, to activities that convert and reconvert this energy, and finally to activities that use the energy to produce goods and services and household consumption. Traditionally, energy is treated as an intermediate input in the production process. This treatment of energy's role understates its importance and contribution to development. All economic activities and processes require some form of energy. This effectively makes energy a critical primary factor of production. Given the state of technological advancement in the economy, capital and labor perform supporting roles in converting, directing, and amplifying energy to produce goods and services needed for growth and poverty reduction[3].
Energy services are essential ingredients of all three pillars of sustainable development - economic, social, and environmental. Economies that have replaced human and animal labor with more convenient and efficient sources of energy and technology are also the ones that have grown fastest. No country in modern times has succeeded in substantially reducing poverty without adequately increasing the provision and use of energy to make material progress[55]. Indeed, by not ensuring a minimum access to energy services for a broad segment of the population, economic development of developing countries such as Nigeria beyond the level of subsistence has proven to be a real challenge.
At the national level, energy propels economic development by serving as the launch pad for industrial growth and, via transport and communications, providing access to international markets and trade. Reliable, efficient, and competitively priced energy supplies also attract foreign investment - a very important factor in boosting economic growth in recent times. At the local level, energy facilitates economic development by improving productivity and enabling local income generation through improved agricultural development (irrigation, crop processing, storage, and transport to market) and through non-farm employment, including micro-enterprise development. As an indicator of local recognition of the importance of energy for businesses, Nigerian manufacturers, who were asked to rank the constraints on their firms' activities, identified power breakdowns, and voltage fluctuations as their top two problems[46]. Recent developments in Ghana's energy sector support this point[56].
Energy has also strong and important links to the environment. Many energy sources are drawn directly from the environment, requiring a sound management for these sources to be sustainable. Furthermore, energy use affects the environment. Emissions from fossil fuels, for example, reach beyond the local and national levels to affect the global environment and contribute to climate change. The poorest people often live in the most ecologically sensitive and vulnerable physical locations. These areas may be the most affected by the predictable effects of climate change such as an increased frequency of extreme events, for example floods, drought, rising sea levels, and melting ice caps. The risks facing poor people are often increased by the unsustainable use of biomass resources[3].
The connection between energy, the environment, and sustainable development is worth highlighting. Energy supply and use are related to climate change as well as such environmental concerns as air pollution, ozone depletion, forest destruction, and emissions of radioactive substances. These issues must be addressed if society is to develop while maintaining a healthy and clean environment. Ideally, a society seeking sustainable development should use only energy resources which have no environmental impact. However, since all energy resources lead to some environmental impact, an improved efficiency and environmental stewardship can help overcome many of the concerns regarding the limitations imposed on sustainable development by environmental emissions and their negative impacts[55].
Energy is directly linked to the broader concept of sustainability and affects most of civilization. That is particularly evident since energy resources drive much if not most of the world's economic activity, in virtually all economic sectors. Also, energy resources, whether carbon-based or renewable, are obtained from the environment, and wastes from energy processes (production, transport, storage, utilization) are typically released to the environment. Given the intimate ties between energy and the key components of sustainable development, the attainment of energy sustainability is being increasingly recognized as a critical aspect of achieving sustainable development[55].
Use of renewable natural resources, combined with efficient supply and use of fossil fuels with cleaner technologies, can help reduce the environmental effects of energy use and help Nigeria replacing the existing, inefficient fossil fuel technologies that pollute the environment.
As a complementary measure, careful management of energy resources is important to promote economic growth, protect ecosystems and provide sustainable natural resources.
Thus, energy sustainability is considered to involve the sustainable use of energy in the overall energy system. This system includes processes and technologies for the harvesting of energy sources, their conversion to useful energy forms, to provide energy services such as operating communications systems, lighting buildings, and cooking[57]. The reform of the energy sector is critical to sustainable development in Nigeria. This includes reviewing and reforming subsidies, establishing credible regulatory frameworks, developing policy environments through regulatory interventions, and creating market-based approaches such as emission trading[58]. Globally, countries are developing strategies and policies to enable a sustainable development of their energy resources, thus contributing to fuel economic and social developments, while reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The energy sector is very strategic to the development of the Nigerian economy. In addition to its macroeconomic importance, it has major roles to play in reducing poverty, improving productivity, and enhancing the general quality of life. If Nigeria is to take the path of sustainable energy, it is important to accurately and technically model the energy demand and supply scenarios and their impacts on the economy, resources, and society along with the environment, for both medium and long terms. From such analyses, we can derive information that is vital for policy construction and investment[59].
Energy efficiency and energy conservation in sustainable development
Energy efficiency means an improvement in practices and products that reduce the energy necessary to provide services. Energy efficiency products essentially help to do more work with less energy[60]. Energy efficiency is also defined as essentially using less energy to provide the same service[55]. In this sense, energy efficiency can also be thought of as a supply of resource - often considered an important, cost-effective supply option. Investment into energy efficiency can provide additional economic value by preserving the resource base (especially combined with pollution prevention technologies) and mitigating environmental problems.
Energy efficiency (EE) improvements have multiple advantages, such as the efficient exploitation of natural resources, the reduction in air pollution levels, and lower spending by the consumers on energy-related expenditure. Investments in EE result in long-term benefits, such as reduced energy consumption, local environmental enhancement, and overall economic development. Energy use has environmental impacts, regardless of the source or mechanism. For example, hydroelectric projects affect their local ecological systems and displace long-standing social systems. Fossil fuel power creates pollution in the extraction, transportation, and combustion of its raw materials. The long-term storage of waste products of the nuclear power industry is an issue to be resolved. Cost-effective energy efficiency is the ultimate multiple pollutant reduction strategy[61]. In Nigeria, a lot of energy is wasted because households, public and private offices, as well as industries use more energy than is actually necessary to fulfill their needs. One of the reasons is that they use outdated and inefficient equipment and production processes. Unwholesome practices also lead to energy wastage.
In Nigeria, the need for energy is exceeding its supply. In view of these circumstances, primary energy conservation, rationalization, and efficient use are immediate needs. Getting all the possible energy from the fuel into the working fluid is the goal of efficient equipment operations. This leads to a higher productivity and saves not only money, but also influences the safety and life of the equipment and reduces pollution[62]. Steps taken to minimize energy consumption, or to use the energy more effectively, are steps in the right direction to preserve the global environment. Energy conservation measures or recommendations are often referred to more positively as opportunities. Two primary criteria for applying energy conservation are that it is easy to implement and that its payback is brief. Ease of implementation and duration of payback period have been used to classify Energy conservation opportunities into three general categories for use: in maintenance and operation measures, in process improvement projects, and in large capital projects[61].
Energy conservation and energy efficiency are separate but related concepts. Energy efficiency is achieved when energy intensity in a specific product, process, or area of production or consumption is reduced without affecting output, consumption, or comfort levels. Promotion of energy efficiency will contribute to energy conservation and is therefore an integral part of energy conservation promotional policies[63]. Energy efficiency encompasses conserving a scarce resource; improving the technical efficiency of energy conversion, generation, transmission and end-use devices; substituting more expensive fuels with cheaper ones; and reducing or reversing the negative impact of energy production and consumption activities on the environment. Energy conservation is a tangible resource by itself that competes economically with contemporary energy supply options. In addition to this, it offers a practical means of achieving four goals that should be of high priority in any nation that desires quick and sustainable economic growth and development. These are economic competitiveness, utilization of scarce capital for development, environmental quality, and energy security. It enhances the international competitiveness of the industries in the world markets by reducing the cost of production. It optimizes the use of capital resources by directing lesser amounts of money in conservation investment as compared with capital-intensive energy supply options. It protects the environment in the short run by reducing pollution and in the long run by reducing the scope of global climate change. It strengthens the security of supply through a lesser demand and a lesser dependence on petroleum product imports.
No energy supply option may be able to provide all these benefits. Energy conservation is a decentralized issue and is largely dependent on individual, distinct decisions of energy supply, which are highly centralized. The housewife, the car driver, the housing developer, the house owner, the boiler operator in industry, and every other individual who consumes energy in some form or another are required to participate in energy-saving measures. It calls for a collective endeavor and is dependent upon the actions of people in diverse fields although the people involved may not be sufficiently informed or motivated to conserve energy[64].
Renewable energy and energy efficiency as climate change mitigation strategies
The Inter-government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme to provide authoritative information about the climate change phenomenon, asserts that the warming of the last 100 years was unusual and unlikely to be natural in origin[58]. The IPCC has attributed the warming of at least the second half of the century to an increase in the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Human activity is largely responsible for the emission of these gases into the atmosphere: CO2 is produced by the burning of fossil fuels (coals, oil, gas) as well as by land-use activities such as deforestation; methane is produced by cattle, rice agriculture, fossil fuel use, and landfills; and nitrous oxide is produced by the chemical industry, cattle feed lots, and agricultural soils. As humans have increased their levels of production and consumption, greenhouse gas emissions have also increased; since 1750, at the time of the industrial revolution, CO2 emission has increased by 31%, methane by 15%, and nitrous oxide by 17%. Moreover, the emissions of these gases continue to rise steadily[65].
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was integrated to the Kyoto Protocol as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change[66]. CDM projects allow investment by entities from industrialized countries into projects in developing countries. In return for this investment, carbon credits (in this case, certified emission reductions) are received by the investor in the industrialized country. This enables the industrialized country to meet its emission reduction targets given by the Kyoto Protocol more cost-effectively, while promoting sustainable development in developing countries. CDM projects may also be unilateral, i.e., they take place in the developing country without a project partner from an industrialized nation.
Investment into clean energy facilities is recognized as the best way to increase the participation of Nigerian proponents in the CDM process and hence the global carbon market. Clean energy investment is defined as follows: investment into an energy supply and utilization system that provides the required energy with minimal negative environmental and social consequences[67]. Investment into clean energy systems can also be viewed as an investment into energy sources and technologies that are significantly less environmentally damaging than in the status quo case. Investment into clean energy systems provides the most effective and optimally efficient path to an increased CDM participation in Nigeria and hence an effective participation in the global carbon market.
The salient characteristics of clean energy investment are as follows:
The resulting system results in little or no emissions of obnoxious gases and particulates;
The clean energy technologies have a carbon footprint that is much lower than the baseline emission scenario;
The technology is accessible, and the required investment is available for adoption in developing countries like Nigeria;
The implementation of the clean energy technology will contribute to sustainability.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies are prominent in most sustainable development programs, for example, the Agenda 21[68]. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the second assessment report, the stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at levels that will prevent serious interference with the climate system can only be achieved by dramatically increasing the implementation of renewable energy. In one IPCC scenario, in which greenhouse gases are stabilized by the year 2050, the share of renewable energy in the global energy balance must increase tenfold from the current level. In developing countries, the required increase is even more dramatic, estimated at 20-fold between 1990 and 2050. Further improvements in energy efficiency and energy conservation can reduce emissions in the shorter term, thus ‘buying time’ for the required changes in energy production[69].
Nigeria is one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in Africa. The practice of flaring gas by the oil companies operating in Nigeria has been a major means through which greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions in this area are among the highest in the world[70]. Some 45.8 billion kW of heat are discharged into the atmosphere of the Niger Delta from flaring 1.8 billion ft3 of gas every day[58]. Gas flaring has raised temperatures and rendered large areas uninhabitable. Between 1970 and 1986, a total of about 125.5 million m3 of gas was produced in the Niger Delta region, about 102.3 (81.7 %) million m3 were flared, while only 2.6 million m3 were used as fuel by oil-producing companies and about 14.6 million m3 were sold to other consumers[71, 72]. The use of renewable energy sources will reduce the over dependence on the burning of fossil fuel. Moreover, instead of flaring gas in Nigeria, the gases can be converted to methanol and used as a fuel for both domestic and industrial use. With good energy efficiency practices and products, the burning of fossil fuel for energy will be greatly minimized.
Conclusions
From the energy outlook of Nigeria, it is very clear that the energy demand is very high and is increasing geometrically while the supply remains inadequate, insecure, and irregular and is decreasing with time; the mix has hitherto been dominated by fossil resources which are fast being depleted apart from being environmentally non-friendly. The energy supply mix must thus be diversified through installing an appropriate infrastructure and creating full awareness to promote and develop the abundant renewable energy resources present in the country as well as to enhance the security of supply.
There is clear evidence that Nigeria is blessed with abundant resources of fossil fuels as well as renewable energy resources. The major challenge is an inefficient usage of energy in the country. As a result, there is an urgent need to encourage the evolvement of an energy mix that will emphasize the conservation of petroleum resources in such a manner enabling their continued exportation for foreign earnings for as many years as possible.
The opportunities for conserving energy in our various sectors - office building and residential areas, manufacturing industries, transportation, electricity generation and distribution, and electricity equipment and appliances - were presented in this work. The various areas where savings in energy can be made have also been identified. Several guidelines and measures have been suggested to conserve energy in these areas, and if the guidelines and measures are strictly adhered to, then substantive savings in energy will be carried out.
In this study, four economic growth scenarios were dealt with in the review of the energy requirements. These are the reference scenarios of a 7% total GDP growth rate that will ensure the MDGs of reducing poverty by 50% of the 2,000 value by 2015. The high growth scenario of a 10% GDP growth rate in the attempt to eradicate poverty by 2030 and the optimistic scenarios of 11.5% and 13% GDP growth rates that will further increase the rate of economic development.
In order to ensure the sustainability of energy supply and subsequently the sustainable economic development of the country, the government has to intensify the further implementation of renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. As observed in quite a number of successful countries promoting renewable energy, such as Germany, Denmark, and Japan, a strong and long-term commitment from the government is crucial in implementing any kind of policies which will lead to the development of renewable energies, in particular, and a sustainable development, in general.
Recommendations
In this study, it is established that renewable energy and energy efficiency are two components that should go together to achieve sustainable development in Nigeria. The need to conserve the present energy generated in the country using energy-efficient products and the appropriate practices is essential for sustainable development. Therefore, it is recommended that the country should do the following:
Develop policies on energy efficiency and integrate them into the current energy policies. A comprehensive and coherent energy policy is essential in guiding the citizens towards an efficient usage of its energy resources.
Promote energy-efficient products and appropriate practices at the side of the end users and energy generation.
Create awareness on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Establish an agency to promote the use of energy-efficient products and ensure the appropriate practices.
Develop and imbibe energy efficiency technologies.
Carry out a resource survey and assessment to determine the total renewable energy potential in the country as well as identify the local conditions and local priorities in various ecological zones.
Establish a testing and standards laboratory for renewable energy technologies similar to that in South Africa.
Take advantage of global partnerships, such as the Residential Energy Efficiency Project initiative of UK, to assist the country in a creative integration of renewable energy systems.
Establish a renewable energy funding/financing agency such as India's Indian Renewable Energy Agency.
Develop appropriate drivers for the implementation of energy efficiency policies.
Clean energy facilities should be embraced in the different sectors of the Nigerian economy.
In the following, a partial list of potential clean energy opportunities in Nigeria is presented:
More efficient passive and full usage of solar technologies in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.
Biogas from wastes as a source of cooking fuel in homes.
Use of energy-efficient lighting.
Implementation of renewable biomass as a fuel in highly efficient cook stoves.
Efficient production of charcoal as a fuel in homes and small and medium enterprises.
Use of biofuels in efficient cooking stoves and lamps in homes.
Energy-efficient lighting.
Use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a transport fuel.
Use of biofuels as a transport fuel.
Introduction of a bus rapid transit system to other cities and expansion of the Lagos system.
Shift from high carbon intensive fuels to natural gas for energy generation in industries.
Development of a CNG infrastructure to distribute natural gas to industries located at sites remote from the existing pipelines.
Implementation of combined heat and power (CHP) facilities in industries.
Implementation of energy efficiency improvements in manufacturing industries.
Implementation of CHP facilities in commercial facilities.
Use of solar and wind energy for irrigation water pumping and farm electricity supply.
Utilization of agricultural residues for electricity generation.
Generation of biogas from wastes produced by the livestock and animal husbandry.
In addition to these, the existing research and development centers and technology development institutions should be adequately strengthened to support the shift towards an increased use of renewable energy. Human resource development, critical knowledge, and know-how transfer should be the focus for project development, project management, monitoring, and evaluation. The preparation of standards and codes of practices, maintenance manuals, life cycle costing, and cost-benefit analysis tools should be undertaken on urgent priority.
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Power System Economics
Steven Stoft.
The first systematic presentation of electricity market design-from the basics to the cutting edge. Unique in its breadth and depth. Using examples and focusing on fundamentals, it clarifies long misunderstood issues-such as why today's markets are inherently unstable. The book reveals for the first time how uncoordinated regulatory and engineering policies cause boom-bust investment swings and provides guidance and tools for fixing broken markets. It also takes a provocative look at the operation of pools and power exchanges.
• Part 1 introduces key economic, engineering and market design concepts.
• Part 2 links short-run reliability policies with long-run investment problems.
• Part 3 examines classic designs for day-ahead and real-time markets.
• Part 4 covers market power, and
• Part 5 covers locational pricing, transmission right and pricing losses.
The non-technical introductions to all chapters allow easy access to the most difficult topics. Steering an independent course between ideological extremes, it provides background material for engineers, economists, regulators and lawyers alike. With nearly 250 figures, tables, side bars, and concisely-stated results and fallacies, the 44 chapters cover such essential topics as auctions, fixed-cost recovery from marginal cost, pricing fallacies, real and reactive power flows, Cournot competition, installed capacity markets, HHIs, the Lerner index and price caps.
About the Author
Steven Stoft has a Ph.D. in economics (U.C. Berkeley) as well as a background in physics, math, engineering, and astronomy. He spent a year inside FERC and now consults for PJM, California and private generators.
The Financialisation of Power in Africa
SARAH BRACKING.
The financial crash of 2008 led people all over the world to ask how far financiers are in control of our lives. To what extent does what they do with our money affect our everyday lives? This book asks whether the crisis, and subsequent use of public subsidies to help the international economy recover, was a unique event, or a symptom of a wider malaise where financiers have effectively usurped the power of governments and are running the political economy themselves.
The Financialisation of Power in Africa argues that growth is not always a good thing. The development of more derivatives and faster financial exchanges are draining businesses of investment capital rather than serving to supply it; applying financial logic does not save nature or protect biodiversity and other species. This book outlines the concept of financialisation and how it has been used in various ways to explain the post-2008 crisis and global political economy. There is a particular focus on these issues in reference to Africa, which has a particular dependence on international money. It takes the perspective of the modern state, exploring how the political economy of development actually works in relation to African governance.
This book is of interest to students of international development and political economy and is a key source for policy makers interested in African studies and economic development.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH BRACKING is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Development at the University of Manchester, UK, where she teaches courses on the political economy of development, and politics and development. Her research focuses on the politics of development in Sub-Saharan Africa and the political economy of development finance.
What to do with the Civilian Joint Task Force when insurgency abates?
Abraham Adonduwa.
The Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF), a militia officially authorized by the Borno State government in 2013 to help tackle Boko Haram, is apprehensive about its future in the event Boko Haram is no longer a threat. For years the extremist sect, Boko Haram, has wreaked havoc in the North East and the Lake Chad region, displacing 2.7million people and killing over 20,000; but while their potency is gradually being diluted by the Nigerian military, serious questions now arise about the employment future of the young men and women who now constitute the Civilian Joint Task Force.
Recently, the Military enhanced its offensive against Boko Haram, and successfully forced them to relinquish their positions and retreat deeper into the Sambisa forest. The Civilian JTF and a dozen other vigilante groups, played a pivotal role in turning the tide. They defended their communities and detained several terrorists whom they handed over to the military. They also joined in some of the raids on terrorist hideouts, successfully driving them out and rescuing their captives, most of whom are females. They engage in clandestine operations, most often disguised in plainclothes to mingle with suspected terrorists and gather intelligence which is passed on to the military.
Although they are mostly armed with machetes, hunter's rifles and homemade weapons, they have no doubt caused an upset in the camps of Boko Haram and helped the military to reduce their threat to citizens. Faced with a possible end to the reign of terror, members of the Civilian JTF are beginning to wonder what the government would do with them when the war against terror is over.
In 2013, when the Borno State Government officially authorized the Civilian JTF, they were promised uniforms and a monthly stipend of about $100, with nearly 2000 of them receiving military training.
That has since stopped as they have been left to fend for themselves even though they continue to put their lives on the line in the service of the country. Some progress has been made however. In June, 350 Civilian JTF members joined the Nigerian Army after they passed through the recruitment process. Last year the state security service accepted about 30 Civilian JTF members into their ranks. But this is hardly enough to cater to the nearly 26, 000 registered members of the Civilian JTF.
According to Community leader, Bulama Mali Gubio; "They now know how to handle arms and ammunition. They are trained in the art of warfare. If after the insurgency you abandon them, then you are planting another seed of discord. They have sacrificed their lives. That's why we've been arguing with the government to make sure that something is quickly put in place before the end of the insurgency.” Many of them now seek different forms of compensation from the government. Some want to be given lands and assistance to get married. Some want to return to school, while others simply want jobs to sustain themselves.
Whatever proposal the government decides to run with, something must be done to ensure that the end of one form of terrorism does not give rise to another, informed by a sense of betrayal and abandonment.
Out of Poverty: What works when traditional approaches fail
Paul Polak.
Reviewed by Mathew Bransworth.
For the past twenty-five years, two questions have kept my curiosity aroused: What makes poor people poor? And what can they do about their poverty?
Because of these infernal questions, I've dozed off during hundreds of long jeep rides with good companions over dusty, potholed roads. I've had thousands of conversations with one-acre farmers with dirt on their hands. We've walked along their patches of ten-foot-high black pepper vines in the central hills of Vietnam beside jungle permanently scarred by Agent Orange. We've strolled together through their scattered quarter-acre plots in the drab brown winter plains of the Gangetic delta in Uttar Pradesh, and they have offered me more cups of steaming tea than my seventy-three-year-old kidneys can take. I love discovering new things from people nobody else ever seems to listen to, and I love talking them into trying out some of the crazy ideas that we come up with together. I have learned more from talking with these poor farmers than from any other thing I have done in my life.
This book will tell their story and describe some of the things these people have taught me. It will tell the story of Krishna Bahadur Thapa and his family, and of how they moved from barely surviving on less than a dollar a day to earning forty-eight hundred dollars a year from their two-acre farm in the hills of Nepal. I tell many stories like Baha - dur's in this book, and I hope that each one of them satisfies another small bit of your curiosity about how people who are extremely poor live their lives and dream their dreams. Best of all, what I learned from these people has been put to work in straightforward strategies that millions of other poor people have used to end their poverty forever.
Each of the practical solutions to poverty I describe is obvious and direct. For example, since 800 million of the people whose families survive on less than a dollar a day earn their living from small farms, why not start by looking for ways they can make more money from farming? And since these farmers work for less than a dollar a day, why not look for ways they can take advantage of their remarkably low labor rates by growing high-value, labor-intensive cash crops and selling them at the time of year when these crops will fetch the highest prices? If it is true that common sense is not really common, and that seeing and doing the obvious are even less so, then some of the conclusions I draw from my conversations with poor people will surprise you: they certainly fly in the face of conventional theory and practice in the development field.
I hate books about poverty that make you feel guilty, as well as dry, academic ones that put you to sleep. Working to alleviate poverty is a lively, exciting field capable of generating new hope and inspiration, not feelings of gloom and doom. Learning the truth about poverty generates disruptive innovations capable of enriching the lives of rich people even more than those of poor people.
The first section of the book explains how I became curious about poverty, describes the process I learned for finding creative solutions to just about any major social problem, and challenges the three great poverty eradication myths that have inhibited doing the obvious to end poverty.
The next section, Chapters 3 to 8, describes what many small-acreage farmers have taught me, a practical approach capable of ending the poverty of some 800 million of the world's dollar-a-day people. For poor people themselves, there is little doubt that the single most important step they can take to move out of poverty is to learn how to make more money. The way to do it is through grassroots enterprises --just about all of the poor are already tough, stubborn, survival entrepreneurs--and they have to find ways to make their enterprises more profitable. For small-farm enterprises, the path to new wealth lies in growing market-centered, high-value, labor-intensive cash crops. To accomplish this, poor farmers need access to affordable irrigation, a new generation of farming methods and inputs customized to fit tiny farms, the creation of vibrant new markets that bring them the seeds and fertilizers they need, and open access to markets where smallacreage farmers can sell their products at a profit. This range of new products and services for poor customers can only be created by a revolution in current design practice, based on the ruthless pursuit of affordability. Chapter 9 describes how the principles discussed in the earlier chapters can be applied to helping poor people living in urban slums and on the sidewalks of cities in developing countries.
In the wrap-up section, Chapter 10 describes the central role poverty plays in most of the problems facing planet Earth; Chapter 11 describes what donors, governments, universities, research institutions, and the rest of us can do to end poverty; and Chapter 12 tells how Bahadur and his family finally moved out of poverty.
My hope is that you will come away from reading this book energized and inspired. There is much to be done.
Nigeria's energy sector: powerless and decrepit
The science that informs the generation of electricity is an old one; but so is the technology of delivering it to consumers for personal and commercial uses. These facts, however, seem to elude policy makers in Nigeria, thus making the country one of the darkest in the world. For the few lucky enough to be connected to the electric grid, electricity arrives sporadically and less than 40% of the time. For the vast majority, diesel and petrol powered generators make the needless hardship a bit tolerable. This should not be the case. Our series on this would culminate in an energy summit in Nigeria in 2017. We begin with this:
OUT in the farthest reaches of Lagos, a bumpy boat ride across the city’s dividing lagoon, Egbin power plant is trying to light up one of the world’s darkest nations. Six turbines growl in its huge belly, watched over by mechanics in a futuristic control room. They say the place is barely recognisable since privatisation in 2013. Output has rocketed since Sahara Group, a Nigerian energy conglomerate, took over. When running at full steam, Egbin generates almost a quarter of the whole country’s electricity.
That is not a particularly stretching target. Of Nigeria’s many daily headaches, power is perhaps the worst. After years in which state-owned power plants decayed, the government changed course by selling power stations and the distribution grids that carry power to homes and businesses. This bold stroke was meant to turn the lights on, and indeed it has encouraged investors to put millions of dollars into upgrading the battered system. Yet the supply of power has failed to respond as hoped in the two years since privatisation. At the moment the country’s big stations produce a pitiful 2,800MW, which is about as much as is used by Edinburgh. Only just over half of Nigerians have access to electricity, and it is still harder for businesses to hook up to the grid than almost anywhere else.
One reason why privatisation has failed to improve Nigeria’s power supply is that the process itself was flawed from the start. Even as companies were bidding to buy power stations or distribution companies, striking staff prevented them from looking at what they were buying. Once the deals were done they found they had bought rundown equipment and companies whose books had been systematically cooked. More important, though, was that many could not get the gas they needed to power their plants. Government meddling held down gas prices, which meant that many producers would simply flare it off (while extracting oil) instead of bothering to sell it at a deep loss. Moreover, the pipes meant to carry the flammable stuff are rusting and regularly vandalised by thugs demanding money to protect them.
The privatisation process was also incomplete and left the transmission grid (which carries electricity from power stations to the local distribution grids) in the hands of the state. It has not invested much, so huge amounts of power fizzle out on its dilapidated lines. Even if power plants could generate more electricity, the grid would not be able to handle it. At Egbin a handful of people employed by the state-owned transmission network sit watching YouTube clips as their private-sector colleagues beaver away.
Power plants are also owed colossal sums by the agencies that act as middlemen between generation companies and the distributors. Egbin alone is some $225m out of pocket. The intermediaries, in turn, blame distributors, saying they have not been collecting cash from their customers. As for the distributors, they say that the tariffs they are allowed to charge are too low to cover their costs and that, in any case, Nigerians do not pay their bills. Depressingly, the biggest offender is the government, whose various departments and agencies owe almost $300m. “It’s difficult for anyone to go to a military barracks and order them to pay—except if you’ve written your will,” says one insider.
More than a year ago the Central Bank of Nigeria organised a $1 billion loan to plug the gap and avoid a wave of insolvencies among power generators, but only a fraction has been disbursed. Since then a falling currency and shortages of foreign exchange have made it harder for private power producers to service debts denominated in dollars, a currency many chose because it offered lower interest rates than borrowing in naira.
Finding cash (and hard currency in particular) to buy gas, maintain machinery and pay technical partners is a growing strain. Dallas Peavey, Egbin’s chief executive, reckons that without repayment or preferential access to foreign currency he can keep the country’s biggest power station running for just another four weeks.
Still, there are glimmers of hope. In recent years the government has raised the price of gas, and supplies are growing more reliable. Distribution companies are installing new meters, which are harder to fiddle. Unpaid public electricity bills are being chased up. Most crucially, tariffs were increased in February by as much as 45%. It did not go down at all well with locals. But if Nigerians can be convinced to pay their bills, it ought to get some cash flowing through the system. That would be a start.
ISIS in Africa: The Danger of Political Correctness
Hussein Solomon.
That the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is spreading into Africa is increasingly self-evident. This is a worrisome development given the fact that whilst north Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) are overwhelmingly Muslim, one-third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is Muslim[1]. The spreading of ISIS’ tentacles in Africa is taking place at a time when religious intolerance is on the rise on the continent with a concomitant rise in terrorist incidents. Nigeria’s Boko Haram, alone, has carried out more than 1,000 attacks since 2010 which has resulted in the deaths of 10,000 people and a further 6 million affected by this terrorist violence. The 300,000 Nigerian refugees who have fled this tsunami of terrorism and have sought refuge in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger provide adequate testimony to the human costs of such terrorism[2].
In Algeria, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) commander Gouri Abdelmalik aka Khaled Abu Suleimane announced that he and his troops were breaking away from AQIM which according to him had `deviated from the true path’ and established themselves as the Caliphate Soldiers in Algeria (Jund-al-Khilafah). He made clear that this new grouping was now aligned to ISIS. Posting a communique on jihadi websites, Abdelmalik addresses the self-styled caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, `You have in the Islamic Maghreb men if you order them they will obey you’[3]. In Tunisia, similar developments are occurring with the militants of the Uqba ben Nafi Brigade shifting allegiance from AQIM to ISIS[4]. It is easy to understand the attraction to ISIS and the growing disenchantment of younger militants with Al Qaeda with its ageing leadership and its inability to carry out a major attack against the West. By contrast, ISIS with its slick recruitment videos, it carving out a large swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria and its military successes in spite of Western airstrikes is especially appealing to the youth.
For some groups, the appeal to of ISIS may be far more pragmatic. Boko Haram, meanwhile, has formed a tactical alliance with ISIS which means that the groups are sharing intelligence, tactics and materiel support. Alignment with ISIS may well have a decisive impact on power relations between these non-state groups with their rivals. In July 2014, as rival groups fought for control of Benghazi, Ansar al-Sharia’s alignment with ISIS proved decisive. Libyans who fought with ISIS in Iraq and Syria were then ordered to return to their home country and fight on the side of Ansar al-Sharia. These hundreds of battle-hardened veterans proved decisive in Ansar al-Sharia’s capture of several parts of Benghazi[5]. The lesson learned for other Islamist groups on the continent could not be clearer – align with ISIS and you are assured of victory!
Part of the problem dogging an effective response to the spread of ISIS is the danger of political correctness – the notion that ISIS reflects some major deviation in Islamic political thought and that its ideology therefore is anathema to most Muslims. The Obama Administration, Bob Taylor argues, `…seems to have a rule never to identify Islam with “terrorism”’[6]. Such a perspective, of course, is reinforced by clerics and other Muslim bodies denouncing ISIS[7].
Go beyond the superficial denunciations of ISIS, however, and closely look at its ideology and one cannot but come to the conclusion that ISIS is a natural outcome of much discourses in political Islam for the past 200 years. Ideologically speaking, how is ISIS’ violent attempts to “purify” Islam different from the Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia which declared even fellow Muslims who did not follow the Wahhabist creed apostates? Is it not contemptible that whilst we decry the decapitations committed by ISIS, there is no similar outcry in the West against the beheadings committed in Saudi Arabia? Can we see no parallel between ISIS now and Abd al-Qadir’s jihad in north Africa in the 1830s and 1840s who like al-Baghdadi called himself “Commander of the Faithful”. Similarly in the late 19th century Muhammad Ahmad called himself the Mahdi (or Redeemer) and conducted his own jihad in Sudan?[8] The point being made is a simple one: ISIS is a logical product of Islamic history – not some deviant new creed which unfathomably emerged on the Islamic landscape.
In similar vein, viewing ISIS as un-Islamic is extremely problematic given the support their views have amongst large sections of Muslims. A rigorous survey conducted by the University of Maryland and World Public Opinion; for instance, found that 76 percent of Moroccan Muslims and 74 percent of Egyptian Muslims wanted the strict application of shariah law in every Islamic country. Further, the survey revealed that 71 percent of Moroccans and 67 percent of Egyptians desired this outcome: “To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate”[9]. Should we then be surprised when a YouTube video surfaces of a football match in Morocco where fans of the Casablanca club – Raja Club Athletic – chant “Daesh, Daesh” (the Arabic acronym for ISIS) and “God is Great, let’s go on jihad”[10]. Should we be surprised that an estimated 1500 Moroccans have joined ISIS?[11]
The problem with much counter-terrorism discourses is that it approaches its subject matter ahistorically. Viewed in a historical context, one can see ISIS as the logical outgrowth of trends in political Islam which has been with us for the past two centuries. Worse, counter-terrorism discourses imbued with the desire to be politically correct and not to offend misreads ISIS completely. In the process, strategies against ISIS prove ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst. The conclusion is a simple one: expect the cancer that is ISIS to spread and intensify in the coming years.
[1] Fatou Sow, “Secularism at risk in Sub-Saharan secular states: the challenge for Senegal and Mali,” 50.50 Inclusive Democracy. 10 October 2014. Internet: http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/fatou-sow/secularism-at-risk-in-subsaharan-secular-states. Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[2] Lawrence J. Haas, “Horror and Terror in Nigeria: Like the Islamic State group, Boko Haram is wielding a violent brand of Islam,” US News. 23 September 2014. Internet: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/09/23-like-the-islamic-state. Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[3] “Splinter groups breaks from al Qaeda in North Africa,” Reuters. 15 September 2014.
[4] Mordechai Kedar, “ISIS will try for Tunisian next,” 8 October 2014. Internet: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/22627/isis-will-try-tunisia-next/ Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[5] Simon Allison, “Think Again- too late to start worrying about the Islamic State in Africa,” ISS Africa. 7 October 2014.
[6] Bob Taylor, “Rev. James V. Schall’s brilliant analysis of Islam, ISIS, and the West,” Communities Digital News. 10 October 2014. Internet:http://www.commdiginews.com/world-news-rev-james-v-schalls-brilliant-analysis-of. Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[7] “Editorial: Muslim cleric denounce ISIS,” Parker Pioneer. 8 October 2014. Internet: http://parkerpioneer.net/opinion/article_8898fa7e-4f35-11e4-b85b-b33c3de4faf. Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[8] David Motadel, “The Ancestors of ISIS,” The New York Times. 23 September 2014. Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/opinion/the-ancestors-of-isis.html. Date accessed: 3 October 2014.
[9] Andrew G Bostom, ‘Benghazi: From`See No Sharia’ to Ansar al-Sharia’ The American Thinker. 25 October 2012.
[10] James M. Dorsey, “Moroccan fans support for ISIL: Protests of Jihadists,” Hurriyet Daily News. 13 October 2014. Internet: http://hurriyetdailynews.com/moroccan-fans-support-for-isil-protests-or-jihadists. Date accessed: 13 October 2014.
[11] Ibid.
The Niger Delta Avengers; another disgruntled group choses bombs instead of dialogue
Nigeria’s military said it would “crush” rebels in the nation’s crude-producing region after oil companies evacuated non-essential workers due to the deteriorating security situation. The armed forces are aware of a new group in the Niger River delta “who have vowed to cripple economic activities,” Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar said in a statement on Tuesday. “The military will employ all available means and measures within its rule of engagement to crush any individual or group that engages in the destruction of strategic assets and facilities of the government.”
A resurgence of attacks on oil infrastructure caused Nigerian production to drop to the lowest in 20 years last month, compounding the impact of slumping crude prices on Africa’s largest economy. Formerly the continent’s largest oil producer, the nation has slipped into second place after Angola, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A trade union official said oil companies had started evacuating workers.
“For the areas where the attacks took place, the evacuations were done for the safety of the workers,” Chika Onuebgu, Rivers state chairman of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, said by phone Tuesday. “It is not a lock-down, it is just a precautionary measure” and oil operations continue in areas not affected by attacks.
The current attacks echo a similar wave of violence between 2006 and 2009, which ended after militants accepted an amnesty from late-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, disarming in exchange for cash payments. The militants have been frustrated by current President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to scale back the allowances.
Blown Pipelines
“We have very unique problems in terms of pipeline security,” Emmanuel Kachikwu, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum, said on state television Tuesday. “We are aware that in the last few days, pipelines have been blown, but this should not make us lose hope.”
After a local newspaper reported the evacuations on Monday, Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it’s monitoring the security situation and taking steps to ensure the safety of staff and contractors.
About 90,000 barrels a day of output was halted last week following an attack on an offshore platform operated by a Chevron Corp.-led venture that serves as a gathering point for production from several fields. Even before that strike on Wednesday night, Nigerian oil production had fallen below 1.7 million barrels a day for the first time since 1994, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Exxon Mobil Corp., which also has operations in Nigeria, declined to comment on the security situation.
Delta Avengers
A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers said on its website that it was responsible for the attack on the Chevron facility. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified by Bloomberg News. “The government needs to address this very quickly,” Onuegbu says. “Insecurity is becoming a big problem in the Niger delta with the return of these attacks.”
In February, Shell declared force majeure -- a legal clause that allows it to stop shipments without breaching contracts -- after an attack on a pipeline feeding the Forcados terminal, which typically exports about 200,000 barrels a day. The International Energy Agency estimated last month that Nigeria could lose an estimated $1 billion in revenue by May, when it expects repairs on Forcados to be completed. The terminal may not restart until June, Kachikwu said April 20.
It’s “highly likely that violence will escalate in the Niger delta as the government increases its military presence and the militants respond with further attacks,” BMI Research said in a note. “In the short term, more oil and gas installations will be targeted.”