Launch an African Solar Project
Big Question: Why is it that African countries, their universities and their private sectors are unable to put together, a project involving research and development in solar energy? I have just heard a story on NPR about a new scramble for Africa on the part of international consortia. This is a potentially huge industry for a market that should be worth trillions of dollars in 20 years. Why should Africa not be the biggest consumer and exporter of this industry? Africa should produce the energy-sector equivalent of Google, with headquarters in Africa.
I think Africa should redesign the power grid, and make the generation and distribution of energy more decentralized and dependent on solar panels. With the low overhead that production in Africa should contend with, powering up every home and business should employ all of the young unemployed, scattered all over the continent. It should also create enormous wealth and increase the size of the middle class tremendously.
If done properly, it would become the project that lays the groundwork for a truly integrated, continental economy. It should also lead to the tremendous democratization of technical skills in Africa and move the continent closer to the great Kwame Nkrumah's dream about what Black Power would mean in an African context.
Monday, June 3, 2013
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