it’s high time Nigeria started implementing technologies that would move its electric power industry forward.
A scheme of how the waste-to-energy plant functions (image courtesy arc21.org.uk)
K.S. Sivaprasad, an Indian national, got interested in the waste-to-energytechnology when he visited the USA in the 1970’s, during the country’s energy crisis. He came back to India to work on his own designs and created his first prototype in the 1980’s. But couldn’t implement the technology in India because of the nation’s huge bureaucracy. So, Malaysia beckoned.Come and do it in our country, they said. The federal government of Malaysia spent 45 million dollars on Sivaprasad’s plant and sited it in Kajang, a place near Kuala Lumpur. The plant was opened for business in 2009. Now, it consumes 700 tons of trash per day and generates 5.5 megawatts of electricity. Further, it is undergoing expansion that will give it the capacity to generate ten megawatts.
While India chucks 188 million tons of waste per day and is unwilling to convert them to energy, China projected that, by 2015, it will produce three gigawatts of power from its waste-to-energy factories. Also, President Obama gave an executive order that would facilitate waste-to-energy production, and, according to the White House, save manufacturers $100 billion in ten years.
Kaduna state in northern Nigeria used to host many factories that produced textile and other products. However, the chief ingredient, electricity, has been reluctant to gravitate towards the factories. As a result, multiple factories have long closed shop. Their ghosts, however, still linger waiting for the right leader to bring them back to life. It’s hoped that Nasir El-Rufai, the governor-elect of Kaduna state, is such a leader.
Textile factories thrived in Kaduna in the past simply because Nigeria is a huge market, and cheap labour was in abundance. The market has only expanded and cheap labour is still here. But while Chinese textile companies have the electricity to produce and government incentives to motivate them, there has been a total blackout all over Nigeria, and successive administrations did not sufficiently care to set things to mend.
In one of his campaigns, El-Rufai complained that there is a limit to what he can do if elected governor regarding shared responsibilities between the state and federal governments. Interestingly, he gave the example of electricity, saying if the FG, the chief administrator in the sector, refuses to cooperate, there would be little he could do.
Except that there is a lot he can do. Governor Fashola of Lagos state has just commissioned a waste-to-energy plant in Lagos which costs him only 1.3 billion naira. The project was funded by West Africa Energy.
Mallam Nasir El-Rufai could create several of those or partner with Sivaprasad and, together with our local engineers, generate 5.5 megawatts to feed to the national grid. Sivaprasad’s cost of $45 million (N9.2 billion) is not too much to pay for a plant that would have a sustainable source of fuel.
As is already apparent, the FG’s privatization of the power sector has not been the solution we thought it would be. “These people bought the companies with the understanding that there is not enough generation,” a former managing director of one of the distribution companies (DISCOs) told me. “But they’re just sitting down without sourcing for more.”
An even better way to generate electricity for Kaduna is for the factories to use the same waste-to-energy technologies to produce their own. That’s how manufacturers in the US, where it’s called combined heat and power (CHP), are benefitting from Obama’s directive. A factory producing electricity within its own premises has many advantages: energy efficiency of the factory, evacuation of its own waste that can be repurposed immediately.
Thanks to the waste-to-energy system, it was possible to keep a hospital in Mississippi running when hurricane Katrina knocked out electricity for 52 hours in 2005. The hospital invested $4.2 million in the system, and saves $800,000 annually in energy bills. Many of the CHP plants pay for themselves in just five years.
Crave Brothers, a dairy and cheese farm in Wisconsin, expanded its business with a waste-to-energy system using cow manure to provide the biogas for electricity generation. The installation was projected to pay for itself in five years.
Traditionally, five to ten percent of energy generated at our regular power plants are lost in transmission, thereby making the in situ CHP or waste-to-energy system more advantageous. And when factories don’t put too much pressure on the grid because they produce their own electricity, it brings power costs down and engenders reliability for everyone.
In his blog for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Peter Lehner wrote:“Investing in industrial efficiency does a lot more than stop waste — it’s an investment in American manufacturing. Meeting the President’s goal of 40 gigawatts of new Combined Heat and Power (CHP) by 2020 would mean $40 to $80 billion in capital investment flowing into American industry.”
My check on Alibaba.com shows that one can buy a waste-to-energy machine with a capacity ranging from 30KW to 300KW for $20,000—$146,000.
The way waste-to-energy works is simplicity itself. The factory sorts burnable materials from trash and heats it at 850 degrees for at least two seconds. The heat creates steam which drives a turbine, which, in turn, generates electricity. This technology is in constant development. However, the state-of-the-art equipment is reported to capture up to 98% of the energy it generates.
From Somalia, with its chaotic generator-fed electricity suppliers, to government-supported and incentives-laden systems in Malaysia, across the world, due to the inefficient grid, individuals and companies fashion self-help ventures to power homes and businesses with or without the help of government.
Therefore, this is a one-page summary for Governor Nasir El-Rufai or any governor who wishes to hit the ground running and pursue waste-to-energy technologies. I’m focusing on El-Rufai for two reasons. One, his state already hosts factories waiting to be revived. Two, he counts among the very few politicians with the unshakeable will to help their people and the guts to carry through any idea that merits implementation. It may also be that I’ve wasted my time: El-Rufai might have gone far with his own ideas in this direction.
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