[lorenzo]

And then now, ladies and gentlemen, the world's largest hydroelectric plant: the Inga. Never heard of it? No problem, you will, soon.

Imagine the Three Gorges Dam. You've heard about its gigantism. And it looks big if you look at it from space, doesn't it? Well, in fact it's a pretty tiny boring little dam. When finished, it will have a capacity of a meagre 18,000 MW, providing a pathetic 10% of China's energy needs.

Now imagine something a bit bigger. Imagine a few hundred thousands of cubic metres of water falling each second on a few turbines, 150 metres below... The Inga dams have a capacity of 42,000 MW. I repeat: forty two thousand megawatts. More than the Itaipú, the Three Gorges and several Grand Coulees combined!

This potential, which is difficult to imagine indeed, is enough to power the entire African continent's industrialisation for the coming decades AND even to sell excess electricity to Europe.

The Inga rapids and dams are located on the Congo River, the world's second largest river. You've never heard of them because they're a well kept secret, or because you can't stand the idea of it as it shatters your doomer view on the world.
The Belgians and dictator Mobutu built it, then it went dead because of the civil war in the Congo, but now it's being rebuilt and expanded, by credible companies and investors.

Congo River to Power Africa Out of Poverty

An advantage of the Inga - besides powering the entire African continent and Southern Europe - is that it is located in a dead zone of rocks, where no trees grow and no people live. So the environmental critics don't have a leg to stand on.

Another advantage is that the Inga will deliver dirt cheap electricity that will be used to process the feedstock for the estimated 10 to 15 million barrels of biofuels a day that can be produced, sustainably and without threatening food production or biodiversity in the countries in the vicinity of the dam (the DRCongo, the RCongo and the Central African Republic).

Moreover, the Inga plant will power the pipelines that bring these liquid biofuels to both the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean (in the future they might power the biogas pipelines).

In short, Africa will not have any energy worries whatsoever (in potentio). One dam can power the entire continent's development for the next decades, and the combination of cheap electricity and biofuel production adds to the bright green future of the continent.

Finally, all eyes of the world are on the DRCongo. This country, which is already being described as the China of Africa, and which is one of the potentially richest countries on the planet, will hold historic elections at the end of July. If they succeed and stability returns, analysts predict it to become the bioenergy power house of the future, with the potential to become the world's largest liquid fuel exporter.
No wonder all big parties - from the Chinese to the EU to the Americans and the Arabs are all feverishly visiting the country these days. They're talking about multi-billion investments, about annual growth predictions for Congo of 10 to 12% (currently: 7%), and of the chance to rapidly lift the population out of poverty - China style.

The Inga and the biofuels exports will play a crucial role in this process.


For those who understand French (or Dutch), visit the Congoforum, where you find all the info on the Congo fever that's gripping the world: http://www.congoforum.be/fr/

Fact sheet about the Inga.


Cheers, your never tiring bioenergy optimist.

[basil_hayden]

The only problem I see is that the project is in Africa, so nothing will ever come of it. Put that dam on any other continent and it works great. There's just something very very wrong with the continent of Africa. China could straighten it out I bet.

[PolestaR]

Sounds good, hope it gets completed.

Electricity doesn't dampen my doomer vision, why would it? Powering Africa isn't like an "OMFG" achievement. It's Africa. They mostly live in mud houses with thatch roofing. That being said good on them for doing it.

Even if all of our cars and trucks and airplanes *already* ran on electricity and all we needed to do was find the electricity sources we would still be fucked.

BTW a dam always impacts the environment, always, so don't say otherwise.

[Dreamtwister]

Anyone familiar with the term "Single point of failure"?

[Zardoz]

Anything happened on this since the February 2005 date of the press release?

I agree with the doomers who are all so skeptical of anything substantially good happening in the kleptocracies of Africa. Sorry to be so negative, but when you look at the situation realistically, it's hard to be hopeful. For example:

"The Belgians and dictator Mobutu built it, then it went dead because of the civil war in the Congo..."

Exactly...

[gigacannon]

One of my fellow cadets told me that he used to work for a water company. I asked him whether or not drinking water is pumped with energy exclusively from petroleum products, and he said he didn't know, so I'm assuming that fresh water is pumped using power from the national grid, which isn't exclusively petroleum-dependent.

That's not relevant here, but he did mention that there are plans (I don't think they've yet been approved) to construct a dam on the river Severn. He said that the energy from the hydroelectric dam would be used to pump fresh drinking water to nearby areas. That's about as logical and sustainable as you can get.

Africa suffers terribly from war, though, and I really don't know if any degree of investment can prevent that. The quickest road to personal wealth is military coup; but because of that, each government is as open to attack. Worse still, each regime is as brutal as the last, so a revolution is actually needed. I suppose that the only hope is for African leaders to realise that a free, tolerant and peaceful society with good infrastructure is the best way to maintain personal wealth, personal and national happiness and prosperity. Security needs to be profitable.

Unfortunately, corruption always pays.

[PolestaR]

I suppose that the only hope is for African leaders to realise that a free, tolerant and peaceful society with good infrastructure is the best way to maintain personal wealth, personal and national happiness and prosperity. Security needs to be profitable.

Yes you are right, the western idealogy which you think they should adopt is SO much better. Having a car and working all sunlight hours in an office is the only way to measure wealth, as long as you have a home on mortgage I guess.

[TorrKing]

Natural destruction on a massive scale is what I call it. When China breaks up, which it of course will do given time, it will just be a big nasty scar that will heal very, very slowly.

Torjus Gaaren

[gigacannon]

I suppose that the only hope is for African leaders to realise that a free, tolerant and peaceful society with good infrastructure is the best way to maintain personal wealth, personal and national happiness and prosperity. Security needs to be profitable.

Yes you are right, the western idealogy which you think they should adopt is SO much better. Having a car and working all sunlight hours in an office is the only way to measure wealth, as long as you have a home on mortgage I guess.

Having never actually worked a conventional 9/5, I can still rest assured than it's better than dying at the age of 30 from famine, pestilence, or war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse don't ride down the accounting department corridor every day, do they?

[PolestaR]

Having never actually worked a conventional 9/5, I can still rest assured than it's better than dying at the age of 30 from famine, pestilence, or war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse don't ride down the accounting department corridor every day, do they?

So you value life by quantity then, not quality? I don't see why age has anything to do with it. I am pretty sure the average age of death in Africa is high 40s too.

The typical view that dying is the worst thing ever is a common one, but something which is too often just bandied about by non thinking lennonites.

[thor]

Mommy, mommy, how do I screw up the Congo river? By building a gigantic dam my pumpkin.

[Specop_007]

I suppose that the only hope is for African leaders to realise that a free, tolerant and peaceful society with good infrastructure is the best way to maintain personal wealth, personal and national happiness and prosperity. Security needs to be profitable.

Yes you are right, the western idealogy which you think they should adopt is SO much better. Having a car and working all sunlight hours in an office is the only way to measure wealth, as long as you have a home on mortgage I guess.

Having never actually worked a conventional 9/5, I can still rest assured than it's better than dying at the age of 30 from famine, pestilence, or war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse don't ride down the accounting department corridor every day, do they?

lol, oh how true it is.
Choice A: Rape, pillage, war, starvation and disease. But damnit, I dont spend my day in the office!
Choice 2: 8 hours a day in the office. But I'm fed, have a house, car, dont have my daughters/wife raped daily, dont have people trying to kill me!

Gee, which choice do I want....Hmmm....I sure do hate that office life.....



Having gotten my chuckle for the day.....

I hope they get the dam built. That would truly be kick ass. Unfortunately Africa is black....a black hole that is. Everything gets sucked into it and disappears. Its a shithole continent that will, unfortunately, probably never amount to anything.

[PolestaR]

Choice A: Rape, pillage, war, starvation and disease. But damnit, I dont spend my day in the office!
Choice 2: 8 hours a day in the office. But I'm fed, have a house, car, dont have my daughters/wife raped daily, dont have people trying to kill me!

I can hear all the Africans around the world clapping you off the stage with just how you summed up their life in such few words. Bravo, encore!

[Specop_007]

all dams eventually create environmental messes. They trap silt, nutrients, and heat: the ingredients for a process called eutrophication. It happens in salt and fresh water and is responsible for the decline of the Chesapeake and the extinction of the salmon runs on the East Coast of the US. It is killing the last of the California salmons as well. No damn is a nice dam.

Agreed.
The simple fact is, we cannot not (double negatives are fun!) affect the environment.
Pick your poison. I'll take dams over coal fired plants. At least steps exist to help the fish out by having those whatchyamacallits that fish can take to get around the dam (Fish ladder or some shit)

[mekrob]

Specop, it's not just trading one coal-fired power plant for a single damn. It's trading in 80 coal fired power plants for a single damn. Or 40 nuclear plants!!! Simply stunning.

[lorenzo]

Mommy, mommy, how do I screw up the Congo river? By building a gigantic dam my pumpkin.

Actually, the Congolese don't really care what spoiled white brat pumpkin thinks.

Spoiled white brat pumpkin wants the Congolese to stay poor forever, eternally caught in their 'pristine' environment, like noble savages out of touch with modernity - so that spoiled white brat can watch them on National Geographic and project his hidden racism and his nostalgia for 'pristine' nature, on them.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the Congolese and their river do not merely exist to feature on National Geographic and to satisfy your ultra-conservative desires.

You have dammed every single creek you could dam, so why should the Congolese not dam theirs? Just because you don't like it? Well, if you don't like it, please get together with your fellows and start collecting the money to pay the Congolese for not taking the opportunity of damming the Congo and for not enjoying the development perspectives that it represents.
We're looking at a few hundred billion dollars. If you're ready to go collect some, and to give it to them, then fine. If not, I kindly suggest you keep your racist environmentalism for yourself.


Sorry to be this hard on you, but I'm pretty tired of the hidden racism that underlies so much of the environmentalists' discourse. (Not saying you share that racism, but I took your condescending statement as a starting point to show what this kind of debates often comes down to.)

[strider3700]

Think of it this way. Us westerners pretty much have completely screwed up every last bit of our environment. We're working hard on saving a tiny little bit of it mostly so that we have somewhere nice to take pictures and lie to ourselves that we're saving the world.

Then we see a story about how africans who still sort of have a natural environment around them want to get on the bandwagon and do the same thing we have. It would be kind of us to warn them about whats going to happen don't you think?

We're not being racist we're just trying to point out that your utopian vision of everyone having their cake and eating it too has failed to materialize for a lot of reasons and it's unlikely to ever happen.

[lorenzo]

Specop, it's not just trading one coal-fired power plant for a single damn. It's trading in 80 coal fired power plants for a single damn. Or 40 nuclear plants!!! Simply stunning.

Make that 40 BIG nuclear power plants. (Most plants have a capacity smaller than 1000 MW).

[PolestaR]

Think of it this way. Us westerners pretty much have completely screwed up every last bit of our environment. We're working hard on saving a tiny little bit of it mostly so that we have somewhere nice to take pictures and lie to ourselves that we're saving the world.

Then we see a story about how africans who still sort of have a natural environment around them want to get on the bandwagon and do the same thing we have. It would be kind of us to warn them about whats going to happen don't you think?

We're not being racist we're just trying to point out that your utopian vision of everyone having their cake and eating it too has failed to materialize for a lot of reasons and it's unlikely to ever happen.

I don't see how the DAM will ruin their environment, it will have some impact no doubting it.

I agree with your other points though, too often people like lorenzo think exporting western culture and western ideas to other countries is the best thing for them. We see ourselves with 2 cars in our mortgaged home and go "why they should have this paradise too", because without it we look down upon them as Neanderthals. In reality westerns are spoilt to the bone and need to regress to a more african lifestyle. If anything they can teach us something, not the other way around.