Browsing: Cost of energy transition in Africa

• Asking developing nations to ignore natural gas in the energy transition plan is essentially requesting that they ignore half their power capacity.
• Currently, far too many people in Africa can’t buy milk from a refrigerated grocery aisle, do schoolwork after sunset, or get an X-ray at their local hospital.
• Many Western states supplement their grids with wind or solar but ultimately rely on natural gas, oil, or coal.

Western leaders often urge African nations to make a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. They seem to think that African nations can switch to renewable power sources fairly easily if a good energy infrastructure is already in place.

But this is not the case in Africa, where roughly half of the population lacks access to electricity. Far too many of our people can’t buy milk from a refrigerated grocery aisle, do schoolwork after sunset, or get an X-ray …