04/04/2014
The Egyptian energy crisis:
Egypt has been facing a shortage in its energy supply since 2005 and at the time, Eng. Hassan Younes (Minister of Electricity), had developed a three stages plan (from 2007 to 2012; from 2012 to 2017; from 2017 to 2022) to face the growing and uncontrolled demand of the most subsidized commodity in the Egyptian economy. In this plan, Egypt had a target to reach 20% of its energy production through a renewable source by 2020 contributing to a balanced energy mix which, through a series of reforms, could have also helped us remove subsidies and improve our economy.
Unfortunately, the short sightness of the Egyptian decision makers never carried forward with this program and we find ourselves today dealing with a series of main problem in the energy sector: 1. Our power stations are old and need maintenance, 2. Our National Grid is in terrible shape as we never had the financial resources to upgrade it (we preferred to waste our money to make heavy consuming industries use subsidized fuel and sell us their end product at world market price) 3. The power blackouts are severly effecting economic and social life in Egypt 4. We don't have have any type of investment in new projects because we don't even have a framework to regulate the market, 5. Renewable energy remians a mysterious technology that everyone speaks about in Egypt but no one applies it because it competes with a heavily subsidized market, 6. We can't afford buying fuel to power the existing power plants and last... 6. The cement industry lobby won their battle in maintaining their strong corporate profits, by obtaining the green light to use coal to power their factories, from a weak government (Cement industries formed a cartel that raised prices incontrollably in the past weeks in Egypt threatning the Government and the construction industry) that prefers to pollute its air and kill its citizens for the sake of Foreign Direct Investments by the same industry that has been profiting from subsidized gas prices for years.
It is worth to mention that the Egyptian Minister of Environment, Dr. Laila Iskander, has pointed out on different occasions that coal is not the solution and that the cement industry can use solid waste just like their colleagues in those countries where the use of coal is forbidden but, a single woman, could not fight her colleagues who are the same short sighted people who have contributed to the collapse of the health, educational and civil system of Egypt.
With this latest decision, the bill to pay, will be extremely high and the excuse that using coal will creat thousand of jobs only adds up to all the excuses the rulers of this country have used to illude its citizens for centuries.
The transportation of coal requires port terminals that are equipped to receive it and a solid railway system to transport it to the location of use. Obviously, in Egypt, the Government believes that Egypt must be different so everyone should start getting prepared to see large trucks transporting coal with all its correlated risks. Egyptians would rather pay with their health for their comfort rather than invest in the existing alternatives because we have always been weak in front of the foreign investors who keep exploiting our citizens, environment and resources for their own personal benefit.
Alternative solution: it is time that we change public lighting to energy saving bulbs (with this IMMEDIATE action we can already use power from a power plant for other use), TURN THEM OFF during the day, teach people what efficiency is, produce our day time electricity from the sun (we do have the land for huge solar fields!) and at night from wind, natural gas, biomass and waste. How can we finance all of that? By actually applying the correct pricing of a product and start working to improve this country rather than keep killing its people. The life of an Egyptian is worth more than your reputation as "saviours" dear policy makers: coal was used in the industrial revolution in the UK during the 18th century... welcome to the 21st century dear Eng. Mehleb & Co!
