Owners and occupiers of commercial buildings, industrial facilities and institutions will be required by law to install approved energy efficiency measures, the energy regulator has said. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has said it will introduce regulations to cut down on energy consumption, wastage and losses in commercial buildings, institutions and industries which are major consumers.
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The daily Nation has breaking news:
France to help Kenya on nuclear plan
It is a great ambition for a country that has yet to develop a decent national electricity grid. But Kenya’s PM and former Minister of Energy is an ambitious man. It is not the first time that the subject has been broached, and it emerges that Kenya has been courting western partners for more than a year:
1 billion USD translates into 73-75 billion Kenya shillings, and it is not unusual in Kenya that the initial costs of a project are drastically revised upwards after inception. In this case, Kenya’s own lack of knowledge on the subject would make such a project a blank cheque for the experts.
Common people like me have a hard time visualising a landscape dotted with high-security nuclear facilites, white plumes of steam rising out of cooling towers, and gleaming pylons joined by wires buzzing with power. I have not even set eyes on such a facility here in Europe!
Why should France pick Kenya, of all other possible candidates, to be the recipient of this “assistance”?
Some digging reveals that this is part of a French-Britain (Brown- Sarkozy) pact to bring nuclear energy to the world.
The Guardian, 22-3.2008: Britain and France to take nuclear power to the world 
It surely cannot be because we have exhausted all our options. I’m certain that it is not because our grid is complete and we have already connected every citizen but our generating capacity is unable to feed the needs of our population.
Nuclear power is not a joke. Those who experienced Chernobyl know that the risks of plant failure are very high. In fact, such is the scare that Chernobyl caused, that some countries in Western Europe are busy decommissioning nuclear power plants, except…..France.
Frequently, we see harrowing pictures of the charred remains of Kenyans who swarm around an overturned petrol tanker, collecting the volatile stuff, until somone lights a cigarette or shorts the battery, incinerating all in the vicinity in a exploding fireball. Would a people so poorly informed about the dangers of petroleum understand the danger inherent in barrels of radiocative waste?
I hope that France is not serious about setting up anything nuclear in Kenya, because they have not solved their own nuclear riddles adequately to be exporting their technology to a third-world country.
According to Greenpeace, there are tons of nuclear waste in France waiting to cause a disaster inside France, either through human error or as a result of sabotage by terrorists. Greenpeace goes on to question France’s claims of success in the nuclear field.
Greenpeace’s stance is not the only one. There are also people in the opposite camp who fully support the French nuclear programme and cite very favourable figures when compared to other sources.
Jerome Kos, Nuclear energy in France – a Sunday Special
One ommission in the pro-nuclear camp is the biggest question of nuclear energy: what do we do with the waste?
Solutions mentioned in pro-nuclear publications, including Jerome’s blog, are never definitive. They revolve around ‘parking’ or ‘hiding’ the waste until a day in the future when it can be processed. This is Greenpeace’s major gripe and it also negates whatever positive CO2 benefits nuclear energy boasts.
What if the French, under the guise of helping Kenya, exported their waste into our country?
Any well-informed person does not have to wrack their memory to recall the Mururoa Atoll. Despite opposition from her allies and inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands, the French went ahead and detonated nuclear devices repeatedly in the area.
Before we all get excited by our PM’s latest foreign conquest and the promises he brought with him, we should ask ourselves whether the nuclear option is viable in Kenya, and whether we have examined all other vailable options.
Are we really ready for the nuclear option and could we live with the scrutiny and distrust surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme? Could Kenya be able to provide the security and safeguards that are necessary in these days of terrorist threats and rogue nations seeking illicit supplies of weapons-grade nuclear material.
I hope that nobody takes our PM seriously in his flirt with plutonium, and he ought to be solving our problems using means that are easily within reach, such as the abundant sunshine!
Dawn, the sun teases its way up the skies....
The journey from Amsterdam to Hamburg was in an intercity train that reaches the frontier in just 2 hours and enters Germany at Bad Bentheim. After a changeover in Osnabrück, the journey continues in a north-easterly direction, via Bremen and finally in Hamburg.
Late arrival and the distance to my suburban hotel made a visit to the exhibition on day one impossible. I opted to rest my travel-weary bones and attack the event early on Tuesday.
The city of Hamburg boasts an excellent public transport network, consisting of an elaborate underground light-rail system with its heart the Hauptbahnhof, or Central Station, complemented by efficient buses and taxis.
Hauptbahnhof: the nerve centre of city transport.
Since my mission was hardly recreational, I could only marvel at the beautiful architecture and wonder what the city had in store for one with more time…
The Hamburg Messe is a massive world-class conference and exhibition complex right in the middle of the city and only one metro stop from the central station, yet set in the midst of lush green parks and recreational facilities.
Past the conference centre, to the exhibition.
Main entrance.
The conference centre also has its own exhibition halls and a five-star hotel. I was unfortunately not one of the 4,300 lucky conference participants.
Some facts and figures:
Conference & exhibition area
Trade fairs and exhibitions: approx. 50 / year
Exhibitors: approx. 12,000 / year
Visitors: approx. 900,000 / year
Rented gross area: approx. 950.000 M2
Exhibition halls
Capacity: 11 halls
Gross area: 87,000 M2
Hall areas: 2,940 – 12,990 M2
Hall heights: 6.00 – approx. 18.00 m
Outdoor area: 10,000 M2
There were close to 1,000 exhibitors, with roughly 50% from outside Germany, representing every aspect of the photovoltaic industry. The Closing report puts the visitor total at 40,000.
I gawked at machines for the production of solar cells, high-tech robots for the assembly, lamination and testing of panels, and computer-guided equipment that chases the sun across the heavens to suck in every little ray of energy.
Silicone cabide, a high-tech abrasive
There were many cutting-edge exhibitors, boasting futuristic technologies. For instance, US-based Kornarka is developing organic photovoltaics: plastic sheets that can be sewn onto textiles or used as carport roofs to generate electricity. Cost-effective thin film technology also enjoyed as much attention as traditional silicon-wafer based products.
Kornarka's Power Plastic
As expected, the Chinese were there in force, displaying product lines – and prices – to rival the best of Europe and North America.
Asia was further represented by firms from Korea, India, Japan
While there are still production lines that employ manual labour for the soldering process, automation is now very common in high labour cost regions, but also in factories that seek perfection and consistency in the quality of their product.
Italy’s EcoProgetti, represented by Mr. Alide Montanari, who proudly showcased one of their machines and patienly explained the technology involved:
Eco Progetti's turn-key laser soldering machine.
Contacts galore
BP-Solar, Kyocera, Siemens and Q-Cells (the world leader in solar cell production), had very busy stalls; lots of negotiation going on in secluded booths, with busy hostesses keeping refreshments topped up.
Luckily, all sizes were representd and it was quite easy to approach booth-holders and get valuable information and tips.
Also present were development-oriented organizations, such as the Brussels-based Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE) and the Dutch research outfit ECN . These organizations will be critical in the process of helping less developed regions join the solar revolution.
This event affirmed that solar energy has come of age. My blog covers but a fraction of the activity that took place in Hamburg.
Walking through those vast halls and speaking to solar entrepreneurs of diverse pluimage, I couldn’t help asking myself: where is Africa in all this? Solar energy has come of age, and the continent risks being left behind while the sunshine there surpasses all those nations whose solar technology is charging into the future.
Just before I left, I managed to talk to two visitors from Nigeria and Cameroon. Both share my opinion that Africa seriously needs to enjoin the solar revolution, be it through participation in the ambitious Desertec intitiative, or by promoting off-grid solutions in a scale appropriate for the continent.
Clock tower by the Hauptbaanhof
All in all, a very worthwhile and timely trip!
