South Sudan Is Building Its Electric Grid Virtually From Scratch (ieee.org) 53
After years of civil war, South Sudan is beginning to build the nation's electric sector from the ground up. "With only a handful of oil-fired power plants and crumbling poles and wires in place, the country is striving for a system that runs primarily on renewable energy and reaches more homes and businesses," reports IEEE Spectrum. From the report: Today, only about 1 percent of South Sudan's 12.5 million people can access the electric grid, according to the state-run utility. Many people use rooftop solar arrays or noisy, polluting diesel generators to keep the lights on; still many more are left in the dark. Those who can access the grid must pay some of the highest electricity rates in the world for a spotty and unreliable service. Recently, development banks and foreign companies have started backing projects to revitalize infrastructure and boost power generation amid a relatively tranquil time for the eight-year-old country. Most of the new investment has focused in and around Juba -- the nation's capital and largest city, with some 403,000 residents.
The work to restore South Sudan's electric sector began in earnest in late 2018, after South Sudan's President Salva Kiir reached a peace deal with rebel leader Riek Machar. (Earlier this year, Kiir appointed Machar as vice president.) Last November, South Sudan Electricity Corporation began operating the first section of Juba's rehabilitated distribution network. Power Construction Corporation of China strung up new 33-kilovolt lines, replacing the city's 11-kilovolt lines, a network that will eventually supply 20,000 additional customers in the capital city. The Chinese firm is also producing 13,450 prestressed concrete poles from a new facility in Juba. The African Development Bank has approved a US $14.6 million loan for the grid project. For now, however, most of Juba's residents are still using their own power supplies to run refrigerators or charge computers. The utility dismantled the old grid, and the upgraded system is proceeding slowly in phases.
The work to restore South Sudan's electric sector began in earnest in late 2018, after South Sudan's President Salva Kiir reached a peace deal with rebel leader Riek Machar. (Earlier this year, Kiir appointed Machar as vice president.) Last November, South Sudan Electricity Corporation began operating the first section of Juba's rehabilitated distribution network. Power Construction Corporation of China strung up new 33-kilovolt lines, replacing the city's 11-kilovolt lines, a network that will eventually supply 20,000 additional customers in the capital city. The Chinese firm is also producing 13,450 prestressed concrete poles from a new facility in Juba. The African Development Bank has approved a US $14.6 million loan for the grid project. For now, however, most of Juba's residents are still using their own power supplies to run refrigerators or charge computers. The utility dismantled the old grid, and the upgraded system is proceeding slowly in phases.
It's a trap. (Score:4, Funny)
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but... but... they don't have the $1 billion to give us to take him back!
Too bad for the USA (Score:1)
I'm sure the Chinese firm did all of this out of the goodness of their own hearts.
There was a day that the United States provided these kind of services. The idea that the Chinese did this with nothing to gain is preposterous. Their gain cou
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United States provided these kind of services
also from the kindness of their hart ?
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But China realizes that as they become more wealthy that they’ll eventually
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United States provided these kind of services
also from the kindness of their hart ?
I'm sure it was for the doe...
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Re: Too bad for the USA (Score:2)
When the USA does it, it's called imperialism, when communists do it it's called investing. Get with the woke scold!
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Smart countries do it _effectively_, with a return on the investment. The Sudan has been a money pit, so far involving at least 25 billion dollars of US aid. Do you see a return on the investment in a nation with so many citizens bent on tribal genocide?
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You misunderstand, that was the goal. They've destroyed the country's infrastructure, and stalled oil production in both North and South Sudan. That petroleum is getting more valuable by the day as the Saudi royalty seem intent on emptying their reserves before the commoners take over. The World Bank/IMF are running into problems now, because the Chinese are offering financing that isn't designed to trap the country in a permanent cycle of indebtedness that forces them to sell off the country's assets at
Re: Too bad for the USA (Score:2)
That's an arguable point. I think it's absolutely not as certain as you suggest.
Certainly, it's been the "gunboat diplomacy" of the latter 20th century - instead of sending in the Sand Pebbles, powerful states that want to make friends send in the bankers (or their proxies).
It could be the subject of an interesting thesis to see if the net RoI diplomatically worked better with this set of tools vs older, more overt ones. The US's wealth allowed it to dominate the funding war 1946-2000+, but what did it g
Nope (Score:3)
I have been hearing this quasi-imperialist whining about how China is exploiting third-world countries in South America and Africa for their natural resources, while USA is doing nothing, meaning USA should also be there extracting natural resources. But is a problem in this argument. China has become world's prime manufacturing hub, which explains China's voracious appetite for extracting natural resources from across the world. They import natural resources and export finished goods.
The USA, on the only h
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China's investments are two fold.
First, China will be post-industrialist soon and can't count on being a cheap manufacturing base for money. It's already happening with manufacturing moving elsewhere.
So the investments are to first get a source of income - when those cheap places start manufacturing goods, they're going to need infrastructure and other things. Thus China heavily investing in these items ensures when those countries start becoming manufacturing hubs, China gets a cut of that money.
Second is
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China is willing to offer better terms and doesn't demand onerous loans or one sided "partnerships". Plus they don't have the history that Europe and the US does.
The trade war is still a bad idea and most serious economists think so. The nature of relationships is constantly changing but that doesn't justify a self destructive trade war, just continual evolution of the existing agreements and the exercising of soft power.
Re: Nope (Score:3)
They just demand fealty to Xi Jinping. When it comes to votes in the UN and WHO and the World Bank and The Hague, all those countries are suddenly siding with China against justice and even their self interest.
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Exactly how countries would previously side with the US even against their own interests.
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The trade war is still a bad idea and most serious economists think so.
And Mankiw is not a serious economist. Mmokay
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To add to this, Mankiw wrote a few influential papers that are among the most cited in the economics profession. He also wrote influential and intermediate level undergraduate economics textbooks that are used in most colleges and universities today. If you send a kid to college to study economics or related profession, one way or another this kid will run into Mankiw. Same holds for MBA students.
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The argument here is that China's terms are not better. They're the only ones. The USA heading into a post-industrial world does not need those resources despite what armchair US imperialists say.
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US companies would love to have those juicy infrastructure projects, same as European ones. It's just that Africa has been burnt by us before and see how we bankrupted parts of South America and the Far East. China offers much better terms because they see it more as an investment, an opportunity to open up big new markets that are friendly to them, rather than a get rich quick scheme.
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The trade war with China is stupid. This stuff could have been ironed out diplomatically instead of just doing it. There were and are problems with trade with China but Trump's method is needlessly disruptive to American businesses.
While we're talking about Trump and trade agreements, MCA is virtually identical to NAFTA, and we've also implemented most of TPP. So the notion that Trump is improving trade agreements is a daft one
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been ironed out diplomatically is different from just doing it.
Mookay. Gotta laugh at the arguments that Never Trumpers use today.
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I could add to this that the diplomatic negotiation was going to be appropriate maybe 20 years ago, during Bush or Clinton years. But now, after more than 20 years of China deindustrializing USA through completely unfair trade agreements and stealing US technology, you say we need to use some kind of diplomatic negotiation? You gotta be fucking kidding me, you fool. After 20 years of China fucking the USA, USA needs a leader that says to China stop screwing us NOW. STOP NOW or else. And this is what Trump d
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Sure, keep laughing. History will remember your ilk as a pack of enabling idiots.
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History will remember Trump's "trade war" because it will stay on, even after Donald Trump retires. At this point, it's overwhelmingly popular. I can't imagine any democrat daring to turn the dial back. It's idiotic and moronic to have a "free trade" agreement that allows China to export pretty much whatever into the US without any tariffs, but US can't export almost anything (that would require building a factory in China in a 51-49 partnership with them thus ensuring technology transfer or stealing).
But I
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So it's going to be like one of your other actual forever wars then. Trillions down the drain with nothing to show for it.
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China isn't importing goods from the US not because of trade agreements, but because of labor cost advantage. They do import food, because they need it and we have it. If there's a problem with our trade with China, it's not that they won't let us start companies there, it's that we engage in trade with them while they utilize unfair labor. We shouldn't trade with slavers, that's just exporting slavery.
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Indeed if we'd provided a service we could reap the benefits of doing so. Would they even remotely approach the costs of doing so in a nation that has openly sponsored Muslim terrorists for decades? Desite this, the US is a major sponsor and donor of humanitarian aid to the Sudan.
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I'm sure the Chinese firm did all of this out of the goodness of their own hearts.
Don't be absurd, no one is even pretending that this is the case. If you're wondering why the Third World is turning to China for infrastructure projects, both in financing and construction, I'd encourage you to read 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man', or even better the subsequent 'Secrets of the American Empire'.
Starting from scratch (Score:1)
Oil fired plants (Score:3)
One important thing to keep in mind is that South Sudan is sitting on lots of oil. A lot of undeveloped reserves. However, these reserves can't be converted into wealth rapidly not only because of the civil war but also because South Sudan is a landlocked country and its neighbors demand ginormous fees for running the pipelines, effectively skimming a huge amount of the profits. So what do you do when you have lots of cheap oil, but you can't export most of it? At very least it's going to be very smart to install oil fired electricity plants in order to provide this desperately poor country with cheap and plentiful electricity.
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Wasting one of the most useful portable power sources we have on static power generation seems silly. They're pretty much ideal (PDF) [sun-connect-news.org] for solar:
Across the country, solar radiation ranges from 5.5 - 6.0 kWh/m^2/day and proximity to the equator means long daylight hours throughout the year. The north-eastern part of the country experiences pproximately 12 hours of sunshine per day year round.
Sure, you need something to also deliver base power too but oil is definitively something I'd try to use powering cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes etc. first. Then try to become a supplier for adjacent countries. You don't need an oil pipe to the ocean unless you're looking to fill up oil tankers to export to the world market and I've never heard there's that mu
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We're talking about desperately poor country that has been experiencing civil war and genocide (by the hands of Sudanese government) for decades. The idea that the country needs more oil refining capability is nice and dandy, and they should probably invest into it, but this is a country where most people probably can't afford a refrigerator or clothes iron and many also don't have a wall socket to plug it into. The way I see it, I'd rather have cheap electricity first, to plug in TV, refrigerator, and othe
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In this particular case, you don't want any baseload capacity.
Solar during the day and oil at night. No need for a baseload plant that runs 24hrs/day.
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Converting that oil into fuels suitable for cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes etc. is much more complex than the basic refinement to get it to run a boiler in a dirty power plant. That requires infrastructure they don't have.
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When asked why Iran wanted a nuclear power plant when it was sitting on one of the world's largest oil reserves the Shah responded, "Petroleum is too valuable to burn." Possibly the only smart thing the bastard ever said. Look around whatever room you're in at the moment, is there a single thing that wasn't produced with petroleum? Almost certainly not. From the fiberglass reinforcing in the drywall to the dyes in the paint, polyurethane on the wood floor, dies and treatments on the fabric and leather o
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So what do you do when you have lots of cheap oil, but you can't export most of it? ... that most of the time works quite cheaply.
That is easy, it is done like it always was: you ask the USA, or UK to invade the neighbouring countries and set up another puppy regime, that allows the pipelines and takes a small fee. Or you ask France to sent its agents to kill the president
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Puppy regime? Funniest typo I've seen all day.
oil versus diesel? (Score:1)
Re: oil versus diesel? (Score:2)
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Oil-fired power plants is colloquial term that refers to power generation plants running on oil or its derivatives. On, the other hand, the portable power generators are certainly running on either diesel or petrol, because that's what people can ordinarily get at the gas stations.
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Loans (Score:1)
Why a grid at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm also puzzled why they're not doing what you suggest. Here's an opportunity to build a system free from embedded interests.
Invest in some solar PV for everyone's roofs, and batteries sufficient to run the lights and refrigerator overnight, and your need for capacity excess to baseload drops. Smaller generating plants, less overall environmental impact, and future conflicts that wipe out said plants and the distribution infrastructure don't reduce the population to feudal lifestyles.
But no, the answer is
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I have solar and a battery. It is nowhere near adequate for off-grid use, and getting it there would at least quintuple the price as well as bring in an oil or gas engine.
Being able to peak-share with the neighbours is a massive advantage and definitely worth building a grid for. Gaining access to wind power instead of just solar is another massive advantage. (Do not get me started on the shitshow that is small wind turbines).
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I'm off-grid with PV, batteries and petrol backup generator.
I wasn't suggesting full off-grid, just enough battery capacity for overnight lights and refrigeration.
I used to say that being off-grid wasn't cheaper, considering the cost of PV and batteries, periodic replacement vs. quarterly electricity bills, but it was more reliable. Now that PV is about 1/3 cost it was 10 years ago, I'd have to say it's cheaper for me than being grid-connected.
One thing that might affect your cost/benefit assessment, is the
Every country in the world did it that way (Score:2)
Just a bit earlier.