Ethiopia emerges as a world leader on renewable energy

The Positive :

The world’s super powers, USA, Russia, and China, owe their strength to an extraordinary dependence of oil. Renewable energy remains a limited, almost exotic concept laden with under investment even in the richest countries. Oil and other fossil fuels act as the life blood of developed countries and play an important role within the development of up and coming nations, is this dependence completely necessary or justified? Ethiopia is a massive country with the highest human population of any land-locked country in the world, and it is a country with an incredible demand for electricity yet non-reliant upon oil. Limited trade links from the sea and a history of oil price fluctuations has made Ethiopia’s demand for power dependant upon renewable energy. With these power production limitations, it would be safe to assume that development is relatively slower than similar countries. However, untruthful of Ethiopia in recent times has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world and the top non-oil dependant African country. Ethiopia initially began to harness its massive water based energy potential in the 70’s, and in more recent years has been heavily focusing funds towards many colossal hydroelectric dams throughout the country. - See more at: thepositive.com...

Although access to oil is seen as unreliable, a common argument against renewable energy, specifically hydroelectricity, is that it is strongly dependant of weather, specifically in hot countries. Africa definitely possesses the correct weather system to increase the questionability surrounding their hydro-electrical reservoirs. And though Ethiopia has a sizeable hydro-electrical infrastructure that is ever increasing, the country’s total dependence of hydro-electricity commonly leads to blackouts in times of drought. To rectify this problem, Ethiopia has begun to increasingly harness its expansive supply of natural power, advancing even farther away from the well expected country archetype of oil, coal and gas. Ethiopia’s rich natural resource base and acceleratory demand for power has made it a leader of interest for non-conventional energy providers worldwide. Foreign investors happily provide the vast majority of investment; this means billions can be funnelled into truly monumental structures of power production. -

Way to go Ethiopia, one of the rising stars of the African Lions, my reason for posting this is, why are we who have the tech savvy which is the envy of the known world not doing more, we are in some damn near untenable situations with murderous regimes simply to get access to dead dinos in liquid form, not to mention our own reserves are used for overseas markets and not for local consumption..ahem!! did I say
"Our"...I should have said multi-national corps that get subsidies for drill baby drill at no real benefit to the majority of Americans who do not own oil shares.

edit on 8-5-2015 by Spider879 because: (no reason given)

Aww you're messing with Big Oil's narrative that it's unfair to ask developing nations to not use fossil fuels.

a reply to: Spider879

Brilliant post Spider, sadly we have just elected a minion of the oil company's into power so little, apart from words will be invested in freeing Britain from the oil cartels and banks.

Way to go Ethiopia and what a recovery from past poverty. One of the oldest cultures in the world an certainly one that moves with the times as it obviously has less corruption that we do.

a reply to: Spider879

If only the rest of the world could follow this move...

But that is a vain dream as long as big oil corps controls the economy...

S&F

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Spider879

If only the rest of the world could follow this move...

But that is a vain dream as long as big oil corps controls the economy...

S&F

Then I fear we will be left behind because of greed and stupidity.

a reply to: Spider879

Not for long. New methods of crowdfunding are making their way up thanks to Internet. One day some civilian sector will come up with a local green grid. It's bound to happen. And once only one local grid works, everyone else will jump in and give a try. Competition will rise, and, with it, improvement.

The days of big oil are counted. Maybe that's why some news sources are trying to boycott Internet ("Internet is an addiction", "Internet is a mental health issue", "Internet is evil", etc)... Perhaps things such as Kickstater and internet-based crowdfunding are becoming threats to some corps high up.

Good on Ethiopia.
But lets not forget, they still receive billions of $ of aid every year from the West.
In the late 90s, the Russians wrote off 5 billion $ of Ethiopia debt.
All this great technology is from the West and Asia, not Africa.

When all the countries of Africa, can stand on their own two feet, without white man looking after them, then it will truly be a Lion continent.
Thats if all the tribes stop wanting to kill each other, the Meglomaniac despots stop their greed, the people actually grow their own food and stop having babies in time of drought etc etc.

All thru the 80s it was save the Ethiopians from starving, before that the Biafrans, before that somewhere else........
Africans are their own worst enemy.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Spider879

Not for long. New methods of crowdfunding are making their way up thanks to Internet. One day some civilian sector will come up with a local green grid. It's bound to happen. And once only one local grid works, everyone else will jump in and give a try. Competition will rise, and, with it, improvement.

The days of big oil are counted. Maybe that's why some news sources are trying to boycott Internet ("Internet is an addiction", "Internet is a mental health issue", "Internet is evil", etc)... Perhaps things such as Kickstater and internet-based crowdfunding are becoming threats to some corps high up.

Thanx for that lil bit of encouragement, perhaps WE...THE ..PEOPLE can make it happen by bypassing our government and oil baron overlords.

a reply to: Spider879

I should have said multi-national corps that get subsidies for drill baby drill at no real benefit to the majority of Americans who do not own oil shares.

...and no benefit to those who reside in Ethiopia as well.

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, arrived in Addis Ababa on Wednesday (April 30,2014) on the first leg of a trip to Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. He was leading a delegation that included the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the Special Envoy for the Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russell Feingold, the Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador Donald Booth, and the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issue Catherine Russell. In addition to his bilateral discussions, Secretary Kerry was leading the US delegation to the 4th High-Level US-AU dialogue meeting to discuss security issues in sub-Saharan Africa, the promotion of trade, investment and development partnerships, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The main focus of Secretary Kerry’s trip, to Ethiopia, South Sudan, Congo and Angola, is on peace and security issues but arrangements for the first U.S.-Africa leaders’ summit, in August, are also on the agenda as is the situation in South Sudan.

hornaffairs.com...

Water and oil are prime resources.

Suck them dry again...under the guise of establishing infrastructure, curing disease, and developing fair trade. *cough*

Same broken record.

originally posted by: gort51
Good on Ethiopia.
But lets not forget, they still receive billions of $ of aid every year from the West.
In the late 90s, the Russians wrote off 5 billion $ of Ethiopia debt.
All this great technology is from the West and Asia, not Africa.

When all the countries of Africa, can stand on their own two feet, without white man looking after them, then it will truly be a Lion continent.
Thats if all the tribes stop wanting to kill each other, the Meglomaniac despots stop their greed, the people actually grow their own food and stop having babies in time of drought etc etc.

All thru the 80s it was save the Ethiopians from starving, before that the Biafrans, before that somewhere else........
Africans are their own worst enemy.

Well actually much of Africa is doing just that, standing on their own two feet and aid in Africa is but a trickle. investment and trade is what's behind Africa's emerging lions..NOT AID which was what African economist had been calling for all along. klik links below.
African Skylines..The Other Africa
www.abovetopsecret.com...

That Africa have major problems yet to overcome is real, but your out look is waay waay dated matter of fact the African despots that you spoke of is almost gone, the age of an African technological class is emerging example a Kenyan IT company is expanding into India.

Remember Rwanda?? that nation known as Africa's killing fields is poised to be the IT hub in Africa

The infrastrue is being built now and well on it's way..so put your white man's burden on hold for a second it is likely that Africa will bail out European or American economy in the near future if they remain careless like what actually happened in Portugal where Angola bailed out Portugal through loans and investment as they were about to become like Greece.
Portugal indebted to Angola after economic reversal of fortune
The cash-strapped European nation is coming to terms with effects of heavy
investment from its oil-rich former colony
www.theguardian.com...
The above is no way intended to make it seem that all is great in Africa North Africa is a mess, people from poorer non Lion nations still risked life trying to reach Europe..but it ain't exactly your Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad's Africa either.

Star and flag - thank you for sharing. I've always been fascinated by Ethiopia. To quote its last emperor...

"People who see this throughout the world will realize that even in the 20th century with faith, courage and a just cause, David can still beat Goliath" - Emperor Haile Selassie I

... let's hope the same holds true for the 21st century...