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Ed Webb

Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt are marketing solar power to Europe while sub Saharan Africa... - 0 views

  • north African nations have been making major progress with power generation. Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have invested tens of billions of dollars in renewable energy projects—particularly solar power—as a springboard to drive their energy ambitions. By harnessing the power of the Saharan sun, these countries hope to not only bring down the cost of solar technology, but also scale it for larger use, enhance energy security, create cleaner environments, and boost the creation of new business opportunities.
  • the low access, poor reliability and high prices of electricity cost African economies an average of 2.1% of their GDP, according to the World Bank
  • Even though the continent’s power generating capacity has slowly improved over the years, rationing, rolling shortages, and blackouts continue to hamper many countries development—including economic giants like South Africa and Nigeria. These cutoffs stunt economic growth, hindering small and large businesses alike as well as schools and hospitals.
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  • a new, intercontinental energy corridor between north Africa and Europe by delivering power to homes in Italy and France
  • “Solar energy is an emerging opportunity that cannot be ignored,” says Zandre Campos, chief executive of ABO Capital, an Angola-based fund which invests in energy, agriculture, and technology. Campos said north African nations were “true innovators” for spearheading these infrastructural projects and for building on the falling price of solar panels and the improved efficiency of light bulbs and appliances
Ed Webb

Proposed Initiative Could Make Tunisia Regional Supplier of Alternative Energy : Tunisi... - 0 views

  • Nur Energy, a collaboration between the British solar plant developer NurEnergie and Tunisian investors, recently held a conference in Tunis announcing the commencement of construction on the world’s biggest solar energy export project.
  • Privileged by its proximity to Europe and an abundance of renewable natural resources, North Africa could play a central role in an envisioned integrated electrical network joining Europe and the Middle East. Consisting of solar, wind, and hydroelectric means of electrical production, the backbone of this network would be the sun-soaked deserts of North Africa.
  • “The countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe are facing the challenge of giving future generations access to clean and sustainable energy. Thanks to the complementarity of their renewable resources and their seasonal demand for energy, these regions make ideal partners
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  • the Desertec Foundation, in cooperation with the Tunisian National Advisory Council for Scientific Research and Technology, has launched an initiative to enhance scientific cooperation. Eighteen universities and research facilities in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe will collaborate through this network to promote the transfer of knowledge and expertise between the member institutions
Ed Webb

Sidi Bouzid Without Water: "Birthplace of the Revolution" Continues to Lack Basic Servi... - 0 views

  • Fahim Brahm, a worker at Tunisia’s SONEDE water company, supported these claims. “The cut-off is due to an increase in consumption – especially in light of the hot weather – and is also due to weak electrical production capacity. The water cut-offs have nothing to do with people not paying the water distributor,” he asserted. Brahm explained that the water supply has been severed every day in the entire governorate of Sidi Bouzid from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm, with suspensions sometimes lasting the entire day.
Ed Webb

New Ethiopian dam flares tensions over water access | Mada Masr - 0 views

  • Ethiopian media said that the country's government finished plans to establish a second main dam on the Nile, irrespective of the rising tensions with Egyptian authorities. “Members of the left-wing of Ethiopia's ruling party are accusing the US of disturbing the balance in the region by supplying Egypt with F16 jets, as well as millions of dollars in military aid, which gave Egypt the courage to pressure the rest of the Nile Basin countries,” the Somalian Sun reported according to Al-Masry Al-Youm. “There’s no need to acquire Egypt’s approval for establishing any dams in Ethiopia since Egypt previously established the High Dam without Ethiopia’s approval,” the newspaper added.
  • The 6,000-megawatt Renaissance Dam, which heads a 63-billion cubic meter reservoir, is expected to generate three times the electricity generated by the Aswan High Dam and hold twice the amount of water held in Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest lake.
Ed Webb

Ethiopia dam fears exaggerated, say experts : EgyptMonocle - 0 views

  • Political outbidding aside, local and international experts claim that Egypt’s concerns regarding water and power shortages that may result from the construction of the Ethiopia dam are unfounded, and that the dam could in fact provide more resources for Egypt. Ethiopia, a Nile Basin country, diverted the flow of the river last week in preparation for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a $4.2 billion project on the Blue Nile, which started in 2011. Egypt has demanded a halt in construction but to no avail since Ethiopia is pressing ahead with the project even as it continues to hold official talks with Egypt, which fears the dam could cause water and power shortages. Ethiopia claims it has reported evidence to claim otherwise. Of the 84 billion cubic meters (BCM) of the Nile water, which reaches the Aswan High Dam annually, 68 percent comes from the Blue Nile. A 10-man tripartite commission, composed of four international experts, two Egyptians, two Sudanese and two Ethiopians, has claimed that although “inconclusive”, the results from its year-long analysis of the project and inspection of the site show  that it will not significantly impact Egypt or Sudan.
  • A Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was created in 1999 to begin cooperation among Nile riparian countries, but its participants have failed to reach an agreement to date. Tensions have been rising since 2007 when negotiations stalled, leading to the signing of a Cooperative Framework Agreement in 2010 by five upstream states to seek more Nile River water,  a move fiercely opposed by Egypt and Sudan.
  • It is predicted that by 2050, at the current rates of consumption, Egypt will be under extreme water stress since 95 percent of its population is living on the Nile basin, compared to 39 percent in Ethiopia. With annual precipitation at 150 mm/year and few water resources, according to a government report released last February, Egypt’s per capita share of water is 660 cubic meters – well below the international standard of water poverty of 1,000 cubic meters – compared to Ethiopia, where the per capita share is about 1,575 cubic meters. Egypt has 24 cubic meters per capita access to renewable freshwater compared to Ethiopia, which stands at 1,543 cubic meters.
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  • “The Renaissance Dam is not designed to hold back huge amounts of water, but rather to let the water pass for the generation of hydro-electricity.” Mohammed El-Mongy, of the Water Institute of the Nile, claims that having legal and financial ownership rights in the dam could allow Egypt to reduce loss of water by 6 percent through ensuring water is released right before the peak agricultural season. During his assessment of the Renaissance Dam, Islam Awad, a geotechnical consultant engineer at Dar El-Handasah, discovered that water losses from evaporation could be minimised by 5 percent, equivalent to 0.58 BCM, by storing water in Ethiopia for a period of time before it reaches Egypt.
  • Egypt’s arid climate causes 10 BCM, about 12 percent of its stored water, to evaporate per year. Evaporation rates reach as high as 2,970 mm/year in Egypt, about half of what is lost in Ethiopia at a rate of 1,520 mm/year.
  • Another possible benefit of the Renaissance Dam is its reduction of siltation, a process where soil erosion or sediment spill creates large particles that pollute water. By acting as a barrier, the dam could reduce approximately 160 million tones of silt which flows in the Blue Nile every year, and therefore increases the Aswan Dam’s efficiency in power generation.
  • The Renaissance Dam could also have economic benefits if Egypt pursues economic integration with Nile Basin countries and become an investment partner in the project. Egypt’s close proximity to Ethiopia, feasibility of transportation and demand for power, would create a favourable climate for cooperation with Ethiopia. Only 40 percent of the project is locally funded, which means that Egypt could invest in the remaining  60 percent guaranteeing some ownership rights. “Egypt can play a proactive role to economically integrate the 400 million inhabitants that live in the Nile Basin countries,” says Ana Cascao, Programme Manager at Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).
  • Historically, Egypt is seen by many of its African neighbors as being hegemonic and quasi-colonial in its water usage.
Ed Webb

Jordan's anti-nuclear movement gains steam | Jordan Times - 0 views

  • “If they think they will build a nuclear reactor here, the Bani Hassan tribe will go nuclear,”
  • Irhamouna (or give us a break), a loose grouping of prominent Mafraq citizens, geologists, lawyers and youth activists who have mobilised against the planned nuclear reactor
  • With the presence of grey water produced by the nearby Khirbet Al Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant for reactor cooling, JAEC maintains that the Mafraq site became the only suitable alternative.
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  • Activists also call into question the feasibility of the cooling scheme, pointing out that the 35 million cubic metres (mcm) from Khirbet Al Samra will come in the form of grey water, which is rarely used in reactor cooling. “It seems that everyone knows that a nuclear reactor must be near a lake or an ocean except us,” said Tareq Owaidat of the Mafraq Popular Youth Movement, part of the Irhamouna coalition.
  • “They blew up the gas pipeline in Egypt; is it really that difficult for someone on a donkey to take out a pipe from Khirbet Al Samra?”
  • The Bani Hassan tribe, which accounts for the majority of Mafraq residents, has a solution of their own: Place the nuclear reactor by Tuba in the arid plains of the Central Badia near the Jordanian-Saudi border, where residents are sparse and nomadic. The tribe even has a solution for water to cool the plant: draw water from the Disi Water Conveyance Project, which is to run from the southern desert to the capital, and extend it out into the desert. Energy officials dismiss the proposal. The 35mcm of water required to cool the plant would take a sizeable amount of the 110mcm generated by the water mega-project, they say, while the cost of transporting the water some 90 kilometres into the desert would be “astronomical”.
  • Activists contend that local residents lack the education and expertise to take advantage of job opportunities at the future nuclear power plant. “We have doctors, lawyers, electric engineers,” said Ahmed Mashagbeh. “We don’t have nuclear engineers in Mafraq.”
  • Ahmed Shaqran, Irbid lawmaker and Lower House Environment Committee member, alleged that the ministry is overlooking renewable energy in its “blind pursuit” of atomic energy. “We have such abundant resources in wind and sun, we have to ask ourselves: What if we spend $5 billion on solar energy instead?” Shaqran said.
  • ministry highlights the immaturity of renewable energy technology
  • According to Toukan, the ministry is set to launch its own information campaign later this year to dispel rumours and misinformation surrounding the nuclear programme, with a series of awareness sessions which are to culminate with a visit by IAEA chief Yukiya Amano to Amman
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    via Pat Keys
Ed Webb

New Study Shows Negev Solar Farm is a Death Knell for Wildlife | Green Prophet - 0 views

  • I don’t think the NP:A is as much concerned with solar panels, which absorb sunlight, as they are with the “Brightsource” type of technology of using mirrors to reflect the sunlight towards a central collector that will power a generator or steam powered generator to create electricity.
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    Comment section illuminating (pun intended)
Ed Webb

The Uncounted - The New York Times - 0 views

  • An alarm blares occasional high-temperature alerts, but the buildings themselves are kept so frigid that aviators sometimes wear extra socks as mittens
    • Ed Webb
       
      Ecological vandalism, and bad for humans, too...
  • Most of the civilian deaths acknowledged by the coalition emerge from this internal reporting process. Often, though, watchdogs or journalists bring allegations to the coalition, or officials learn about potential civilian deaths through social media. The coalition ultimately rejects a vast majority of such external reports. It will try to match the incident to a strike in its logs to determine whether it was indeed its aircraft that struck the location in question (the Iraqi Air Force also carries out strikes). If so, it then scours its drone footage, pilot videos, internal records and, when they believe it is warranted, social media and other open-source information for corroborating evidence. Each month, the coalition releases a report listing those allegations deemed credible, dismissing most of them on the grounds that coalition aircraft did not strike in the vicinity or that the reporter failed to provide sufficiently precise information about the time and place of the episode.
  • They speak of every one of the acknowledged deaths as tragic but utterly unavoidable. “We’re not happy with it, and we’re never going to be happy with it,” said Thomas, the Central Command spokesman. “But we’re pretty confident we do the best we can to try to limit these things.”
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  • Airwars, a nonprofit based in London that monitors news reports, accounts by nongovernmental organizations, social-media posts and the coalition’s own public statements. Airwars tries to triangulate these sources and grade each allegation from “fair” to “disputed.” As of October, it estimates that up to 3,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed in coalition airstrikes — six times as many as the coalition has stated in its public summaries. But Chris Woods, the organization’s director, told us that Airwars itself “may be significantly underreporting deaths in Iraq,” because the local reporting there is weaker than in other countries that Airwars monitors.
  • the coalition, the institution best placed to investigate civilian death claims, does not itself routinely dispatch investigators on the ground, citing access and security concerns, meaning there has not been such a rigorous ground investigation of this air war — or any American-led air campaign — since Human Rights Watch analyzed the civilian toll of the NATO bombing in Kosovo, a conflict that ended in 1999
  • we selected three areas in Nineveh Province, traveling to the location of every airstrike that took place during ISIS control in each — 103 sites in all. These areas encompassed the range of ISIS-controlled settlements in size and population makeup: downtown Shura, a small provincial town that was largely abandoned during periods of heavy fighting; downtown Qaiyara, a suburban municipality; and Aden, a densely packed city neighborhood in eastern Mosul. The sample would arguably provide a conservative estimate of the civilian toll: It did not include western Mosul, which may have suffered the highest number of civilian deaths in the entire war. Nor did it include any strikes conducted after December 2016, when a rule change allowed more ground commanders to call in strikes, possibly contributing to a sharp increase in the death toll.
  • In addition to interviewing hundreds of witnesses, we dug through the debris for bomb fragments, tracked down videos of airstrikes in the area and studied before-and-after satellite imagery. We also obtained and analyzed more than 100 coordinate sets for suspected ISIS sites passed on by intelligence informants. We then mapped each neighborhood door to door, identifying houses where ISIS members were known to have lived and locating ISIS facilities that could be considered legitimate targets. We scoured the wreckage of each strike for materials suggesting an ISIS presence, like weapons, literature and decomposed remains of fighters. We verified every allegation with local administrators, security forces or health officials
  • During the two years that ISIS ruled downtown Qaiyara, an area of about one square mile, there were 40 airstrikes, 13 of which killed 43 civilians — 19 men, eight women and 16 children, ages 14 or younger. In the same period, according to the Iraqi federal police, ISIS executed 18 civilians in downtown Qaiyara
  • in about half of the strikes that killed civilians, we could find no discernible ISIS target nearby
  • By the time the information made its way to the coalition and it decided to act, the mortar had been moved. Such intelligence failures suggest that not all civilian casualties are unavoidable tragedies; some deaths could be prevented if the coalition recognizes its past failures and changes its operating assumptions accordingly. But in the course of our investigation, we found that it seldom did either.
  • On the evening of April 20, 2015, aircraft bombed the station, causing a tremendous explosion that engulfed the street. Muthana Ahmed Tuaama, a university student, told us his brother rushed into the blaze to rescue the wounded, when a second blast shook the facility. “I found my brother at the end of the street,” he said. “I carried him.” Body parts littered the alleyway. “You see those puddles of water,” he said. “It was just like that, but full of blood.” We determined that at least 18 civilians died in this one attack and that many more were grievously wounded. News of the strike was picked up by local bloggers, national Iraqi outlets and ISIS propaganda channels and was submitted as an allegation to the coalition by Airwars. Months later, the coalition announced the results of its investigation, stating that there was “insufficient evidence to find that civilians were harmed in this strike.” Yet even a cursory internet search offers significant evidence that civilians were harmed: We found disturbingly graphic videos of the strike’s aftermath on YouTube, showing blood-soaked toddlers and children with their legs ripped off.
  • Human rights organizations have repeatedly found discrepancies between the dates or locations of strikes and those recorded in the logs. In one instance, the coalition deemed an allegation regarding a strike in the Al-Thani neighborhood of Tabqa, Syria, on Dec. 20, 2016, as “not credible,” explaining that the nearest airstrike was more than a kilometer away. After Human Rights Watch dispatched researchers to the ground and discovered evidence to the contrary, the coalition acknowledged the strike as its own
  • The most common justification the coalition gives when denying civilian casualty allegations is that it has no record of carrying out a strike at the time or area in question. If incomplete accounts like these are standard practice, it calls into question the coalition’s ability to determine whether any strike is its own. Still, even using the most conservative rubric and selecting only those 30 airstrikes the Air Force analysts classified as “probable” coalition airstrikes, we found at least 21 civilians had been killed in six strikes. Expanding to the 65 strikes that fell within 600 meters — for example, the strikes on the home of Inas Hamadi in Qaiyara and the electrical substation in Aden — pushed that figure to at least 54 killed in 15 strikes. No matter which threshold we used, though, the results from our sample were consistent: One of every five airstrikes killed a civilian
  • “We deeply regret this unintentional loss of life in an attempt to defeat Da’esh,” Scrocca wrote, using another term for ISIS. “We are prepared to offer you a monetary expression of our sympathy and regret for this unfortunate incident.” He invited Basim to come to Erbil to discuss the matter. Basim was the first person to receive such an offer, in Iraq or Syria, during the entire anti-ISIS war.
  • “This situation of war,” he continued, “big corporations are behind it.” This is where the real power lay, not with individual Americans. He’d come to believe that his family, along with all Iraqis, had been caught in the grinder of grand forces like oil and empire, and that the only refuge lay in something even grander: faith. He had rediscovered his religion. “There was some bond that grew between me and my God. I thanked him for keeping my son alive. I thanked him that my operation was successful. Now I can walk.”
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