eDisplacement

Why Invest in Renewable Energy For Developing Countries?

Leslie Pratch Economic Impact of the Business By Charlie Kayongo M.

Africa unlike the rest of the world is very rich in largely untapped reserves of renewable energy. We have a large market for renewable energy harvesting equipment. The fact that most parts of Africa do not have centrally generated grid electricity provides a unique opportunity for exploring and implementing renewable energy solutions for the continents development.

Modern technology and mass production has made renewable energy affordable to the majority of poor local farmers. Fossil fuels are running out, and the only real answer to tackling global warming is to use renewable sources of energy. This is the power of the future. With harvesting of jatropha and carbon credit we are assured a revenue source to afford purchase of equipment for harvesting a continuous supply of energy to fuel the countries development.

The money invested by world bank through the government and channeled through SACCOs and microfinance institutions, empowers the people of the rural area with capacity through subsidized loans, to access power.

Jatropha bio fuel cash crop gives them the capacity to pay back. Installing clean renewable energy off grid power farms and distributing the power to the village community throughout the country is the key to rural electrification and development. This can be supplemented with solar home systems.

This company will sell power and equipment to the rural community. The company will also sell biofuel stoves and lanterns. This will attract rural people to grow jatropha in large quantity and build capacity for replacing imported fuel and have a potential for export.

In general:

The huge market we have for renewable energy is very active and they would like to install solar. Some are put off because of the high cash purchase cost. They always want to pay for the products and take it with them the same day.

This means that a company must have enough capital to stock solar systems and accessories. The company should also have a well trained workforce as stand by. This needs a company to have enough capital to invest both in stock of various capacities.

The disadvantage local vending companies have is renewable energy systems are capital intensive and to stock them needs a very big capital investment that they do not have. The introduction of rural electrification program solves this problem by enabling the Sacco to pay the vendor upfront while they collect from the farmer on easy installments over a period of 1 to 3 years.

We expect to introduce off grid power supply systems with bio fuel genset as back up. We also intend to encourage local farmers to grow Jatropha as a cash bio fuel crop to supply the needs of the biofuel genset and other bio-diesel engine driven machinery.

We have taken deep interest in Jatropha as a cash crop and source of bio fuel. In our extensive research on this plant we find that it is a suitable plant for the country’s development and a means of a forestation, restoring of soil quality, poverty alleviation and a better health for the people in the villages.

3 years from now we should see several renewable energy off grid farms installed in village locations in different part of Uganda distributing power to the village households. With several jatropha farms in these areas, we should see several extraction and processing facilities at different strategic locations in the rural community where farmers can bring their Jatropha seeds for extraction into bio diesel. This bio diesel would be used to power their back up generators, fuel transport vehicles for their produce, and tractors for large-scale cultivation of farms. We also see conversion workshops being set up in Uganda to change fossil fuel diesel driven vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil.

We should see villages well lit and with different development projects and established cottage industries making most of the day to day used products. Fetching and using of firewood & charcoal in both the villages and the city and its resultant danger to health should be a thing of the past. Uganda should be able to produce fuel and blend fuel with fossil fuels.

Uganda cannot distribute power to the villages relying on the national grid. The way forward is to get distributed renewable energy power supply systems to tap on the country’s vast renewable energy potential to supply power to its people. We must source the technology since the funds to achieve this are in place.

Local economic impact of the business

The bio fuel stove will change the lives of Ugandan people who have been using firewood, charcoal, gas and electricity for cooking. The better, cheaper, environmentally friendly and health advanced cooking system using bio fuel stove. Jatropha as a cash bio fuel crop will increase people’s purchasing power. This will provide jobs to the youth and stop their migration to the cities in search for jobs. This will reduce on the current congestion of the cities.

Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch

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Alternative Energy Possibilities - Some Facts!

Leslie Pratch Alternative Energy Solutions By Dennis Moore Hopkins

It’s no secret that the fossil fuels we use to power our homes, offices, and vehicles are limited resources. Scientists have spent decades searching for practical alternative energy solutions that would provide renewable sources of energy. Solar and wind power have been available for quite some time, but people and businesses have been slow to accept the technologies on a wide-scale basis for several reasons. Now that everyone is worried about global warming and the pollutants that are caused by the fossil fuels we use, these alternative energy ideas are becoming more and more popular.

Solar Power

Converting the sun’s thermal energy into a useful power source for humans seems like the perfect solution. The sun is free for everyone to use, and in most areas it shines brightly five out of seven days a week, and modern solar cells can collect and store energy over time. The popularity of solar power has increased dramatically in the past few decades, especially in developing countries. Modern solar cells are very efficient, and they are far less expensive for power companies than traditional energy sources. The real obstacle to widespread use of solar energy is the cost of installing the solar cells necessary to collect and convert the energy to a useful form.

Wind Power

Another form of alternative energy that is gaining in popularity is wind power. Humans have harnessed the power of the wind for centuries using windmills. Modern wind power plants have acres of high-tech wind towers that transfer the wind’s energy to useful electricity. There are two obstacles to the widespread use of wind power: the wind is not constant, and some people believe the windmill farms mar the natural landscape. Proponents of wind technology claim that a modern windmill farm could provide as much power as a nuclear plant, without any harmful pollutants or possible meltdowns.

Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch
Leslie Pratch

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Greenhouse Effect: A Lot of Old Gas?

By Dr. Mark Clayson

The world is ending anytime soon, or so the boffins would have us believe. Greenhouse effect, they say; polar ice caps will melt, drown us all, kill everything, in – um – 21xx something, give or take a few million years.

Come on, they’ve got it wrong before: the Titanic was unsinkable, the war will be over by Christmas, Thalidomide is good for us. We’ve heard it all before.

The evidence seems to be there: winters getting milder, summers longer, halcyon days of splendour and sunlight. Today, birds singing at 5am, outside my frost-laden window

Do we care though? The British Way of Strife is to demand warm weather; millions of us go abroad each year, to soak up those rays and come back as brown as toast. Ask any True Brit what he would like most of all, and he’ll say ‘Heat’

The world has evolved over millions of years, and we’ve only been recording the changes for a few hundred. We obviously made it through the Ice Age okay, and there wasn’t the same kerfuffle and sharp intake of breath as there is now. So here is my theory:

The earth is a complex planet. It’s survived over those millennia and still come out smiling. It will take care of things itself.

There’s another problem too: apathy. Most people demand the use of dirty cars, that spew out diesel and petrol fumes; cities demand heat, light, energy; we demand TV, dishwashers, fridges. All these things create undesirable effects in the atmosphere, but do we care? As long as we don’t have to get the Fairy Liquid out, and don our Marigolds, we’re all right thank you very much.

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You Are Your Own Economy

By Giulietta Nardone

Most of us have been taught to believe the economy is something only experts can “fix.” Witness large segments of the US population wandering around in a funk, feeling frightened, feeling depressed, wondering how and when our president & the head of the treasury will rescue us.

I too used to believe I had no control over the economy.

Then it dawned on me that I am my own economy. That the economy isn’t out there, it’s inside of me. It’s how I feel about myself and the greatness I have to offer.

To make your own economy you need to look within yourself for the greatness you were put on the planet to share, the how-to knowledge that others crave. Once you can discover and release that greatness, you’ll have everything you need to make your own economy.

I liken finding your own economy to the journey Dorothy takes in the, “The Wizard of Oz.” Dorothy spends most of her “story” looking outside herself for ways to get home. She believes she is powerless, that only others hold the power to get her back to Kansas. She spends a lot of time hanging out with others who also feel powerless. Then towards the end of the movie when Dorothy thinks she’s missed the last way home, she asks, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, to help her. Glinda says:

“You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.”

“I have?” says Dorothy.

“Then why didn’t you tell her before?” demands the scarecrow.

“Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”

It’s the same with the economy. You have to learn for yourself that you’ve always had the power to make your own economy. You have to find your inner ruby business slippers and click them together three times.

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