Page 53 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 23
P. 53
Leadership
industry. much electricity as the Three
Gorges Dam.It could be the
Energy generation from any world`s largest hydroelectric
source other than solar or wind plant with an output of 42,000
has been the target of the green MW per year. Grand Inga could
lobby who lie when they omit power Africa. The Inga Falls
to admit that wind and solar are a series of rapids where the
cannot supply sufficient energy Congo River drops 96 meters
for industrial use, or for that over a 15km stretch. The
matter, a national grid baseload longest single drop is 21 meters,
which by the way is needed to making it the longest waterfall
bump start wind turbines and to in the world.
take up the shortfall when the
sun is not shining and the wind The green lobby produces
is not blowing, as well as the papers such as `The Musina
manufacturing of turbines and Makhado SEZ Environmental
solar panels. As electricity is Impact Assessment Process`.
the backbone of any economy, The paper was written by the
theirs is not an action to African Centre for Citizenship
protect the environment or the and Democracy. The research
planet, but an attack on the was funded by Friedrich Ebert
alleviation of poverty through Stiftung.
the industrialization of African
economies. It is an attack on Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
development. sponsored an article in the
Mail&Guardian to report on the
Africans must not allow webinar convened by them to
themselves to be drawn into brandish Musina Makhado SEZ
European`s attempt at national as unsustainable, un-ecological
suicide by de-industrialization. and unworkable.
In a similar situation, the George Fossil Free South Africa calls
Soros/Open Society funded for disinvestment from all fossil
NGO, International Rivers, is fuel projects. They claim the
the primary campaigner against withdrawal of funding for the
the construction of Grand Inga MMSEZcoal plant by China, as
which if completed, has the a victory.
potential to supply a large part
of the entire African continent There are many people in
with electricity produced from Limpopo Province who have
hydro power. The mighty legitimate concerns about
Congo is China`s great Yellow contamination and reduction of
River. Grand Inga has the the water supply, air pollution
potential to generate twice as and the destruction of the
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