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

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.

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.

However, is Kenya’s industrialisation process in conformity with Article 42 of the Constitution which promises all people the right to a clean and healthy environment? Several red flags suggest otherwise.

First, while the Lamu coal plant tender has already been awarded, a comprehensive environment impact assessment report for the Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) project, under which it falls, is yet to come to the public eye.

The Lapsset project is shrouded in secrecy and opacity.

Legitimate quest for environmental information that should accompany a project of LAPSSET’s magnitude, allowing citizens to interrogate the project, has been drowned out by a din of noise from people motivated by political and financial interests.

Secondly, the coal plant is poised for take-off in a legal vacuum. There are inadequate laws and mechanisms to ensure insulation of the public from the project’s virulent effects.

The National Environment Management Authority appears complicit. It is instructive that the 2008 Air Quality Regulations promulgated under the Environment Management and Coordination Act are still in draft form.

In the US, for example, implementation of the Clean Air Act has significantly helped reduce cases of illness arising from pollution.

Controversial

Thirdly, investment in controversial energy options such as coal and nuclear must be accompanied and informed by elaborate research on viable alternatives and efficient technology use. Little is known about research and technology use in respect of coal and nuclear energy in Kenya.

Fourth, as the proposed investment in coal energy shows, Kenya’s development path is inconsistent with transition to ‘‘a low carbon climate resilient development pathway’’ as a means of realising vision 2030.

The gung-ho manner of implementing the high carbon Lamu coal project suggests that adequate thought has not been given to issues of sustainability, adaptation and mitigation envisaged in the Kenya National Climate Change Action Plan and the health impacts I previously alluded to.

I suggest in no way that Kenya ignores renewable energy investments, my point however is renewable energy investments being pursued vis a vis other non-renewable options are tokenistic.

Neither a strategy nor any renewable energy benchmarks are currently explicit. Kenya should develop deliberate and conscious benchmarks to significantly shore up its percentage of renewable energy use.

With an energy mix comprising about 68 per cent biomass, Kenya possesses a fairly clean slate that affords us the luxury to embrace renewable energy as our predominant energy paradigm without severe economic losses as is the case with highly industrialised countries making the transition.

I know many naysayers exist out there, but so did they when the Wright brothers set out to develop the first aircraft.

The author is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a doctoral candidate at Bayreuth University in Germany.