Betting on old power sources will hurt Kenya’s energy quest

Opinion and Analysis

People demonstrate on a Tokyo street against the use of nuclear power. Investment in controversial energy options such as coal and nuclear must be accompanied and informed by research. PHOTO | FILE 

By OMONDI OWINO

In Summary

• Kenya's energy policies are geared towards nuclear and coal; options the developed world is retiring.

The proposed 960MW Lamu coal plant has brought to the boil simmering tender wars among fat cats falling over themselves for control of the mouth-watering deal.

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Let’s look beneath the thin veneer of cost benefit analysis, which stands out at first sight, and interrogate deeper issues beyond the project’s alluring promise of consigning blackouts in Kenya to the past.

Recent trends suggest that Kenya’s energy policies aspire to nuclear energy and coal; options that most of the developed world is retiring. Taking coal for instance, the US retired a third of all its coal-fired plants in 2013.

Germany’s aggressive Energiewende, or energy transition, is informed by the country’s vision to generate all its energy from renewable sources by 2050; a target being pursued with the fabled Prussian efficiency.

World over , energy generation is undergoing change in much the same way as the industrial revolution and now the digital revolution.

This calls for selective and futuristic thinking on Kenya’s energy options as opposed to walking the worn out and discredited path of ageing sources.

‘‘In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future,’’ said American moral and social philosopher Eric Hoffer.

The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. The sordid underside of nuclear energy is in the public domain.

The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster convinced Germany to switch off seven nuclear plants and focus on a nuclear-free country by 2022.

Japan intended to strategically phase out nuclear energy by 2040 in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, but later reconsidered this time limit in favour of an open-ended phase-out following industry concerns.

A 2009 report by Physicians for Social Responsibility titled Coal’s Assault on Human Health linked the mineral to heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic liver respiratory diseases; four out of the five leading causes of mortality in the US.

Evidence of coal’s health burden on a community is corroborated by the 2013 report titled Scientific Evidence of Health Effects from Coal Use in Energy Generation published by the University of Illinois School of Public Health.

A coal firing plant in pristine Lamu means that local communities will bear high health costs of electricity generation.

Coal is also one the largest sources of carbon dioxide, fuelling global warming. Now that energy policies in Kenya apparently put old wine into new wine skins, could the foregoing facts dampen the country’s development strategy? I think not.

That Kenya needs to realise its vision 2030 of ‘‘a prosperous country with a high quality of life’’ is indeed a foregone conclusion. Indeed industrialisation without a modicum of health and environmental consequences is a myth.