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and get more information on what energy in Africa entails and what is really needed
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growth hub, we're a non-profit research network that tries to use data and evidence to help make energy
policies more effective and the idea is that every person on the planet and every economy
around the world needs affordable, reliable electricity at scale. We can't have a lot of jobs,
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that there is very variance in two different look like the political points and therefore
new innovation in distributed renewable energies bringing some lights to some very remote places
which I am very very sure your organization is very much involved in capturing. So I wonder like
what's your kind of what have you in your experience with Africa what do you think is a
fundamental problem that should be tackled I will not say it's corruption because there is
corruption everywhere you know at different levels so what do you think that the people at the leadership
level or policy level if you may say need to do to actually tackle this challenge of the energy
need especially in Nigeria because I trust you've been in Nigeria you understand the the terrain and
perhaps the policy to some very very large extent so I wonder like if you have any insights that
the government or people listening to the postcards might be able to tap into sure so so Nigeria
is obviously incredibly important because of its size and its its its regional significance
it also Nigeria happens to be a country that is dealing with its electricity problem among the
worst in the world in fact if you if you correlate if you correlate income and electricity use it's
very very tightly correlated so rich countries consume a lot of electricity and poor countries
consume very little and the country that is furthest from the global trend line is Nigeria
wow so Nigeria is you know the average Nigerian consumes something like 80% less electricity than
they should given their income which also is an indicator that the problem of electricity is a major
constraint on Nigeria's growth because it's not even using enough electricity given where it is
in income and obviously Nigeria wants to become much richer so really we have pretty strong evidence
that energy and income move together and Nigeria is a place where where that energy is really a big
big constraint now what's the solution to Nigeria's energy problem yeah I think that the starting
point and that what the point I would want to make for your for your audience is that we expect
there is no one solution right so we expect a lot of different things from the energy sector so one
you mentioned lighting for rural lighting or for small energy uses there are now lots of technological
options you know off-grid solar is a really important and useful solution for certain kinds of energy
and at the same time if you're building a factory in Lagos you know a small solar system is just not
going to cut it yeah so you you know really if you're trying to tackle the energy needs of a country
you need to look at the full spectrum everything from basic lighting for the very poor all the way up to
large industrial uses you know Nigeria's the Nigerian population is online Nigeria is going to need
data centers you're going to need air conditioning you're going to need you know office buildings
you're going to need all of the things of a modern economy and you need the energy system to support
everything across that you know and just one analogy I often like to make is to transportation
right you also need a transportation system that can help move all the things you need in an economy
yeah and you know solar home systems are kind of like the bicycle of transportation a bicycle is very
cheap it's it's really useful for certain things it actually can be fun I ride a bicycle I love my
bicycle and but it's totally useless for hauling cargo across the country very good I so much
appreciate that analogy yeah solar being like a bicycle yeah yeah so you might need trucks or airplanes
so it's kind of pointless to say well bicycles are cheaper and cleaner than trucks it's like yes but they
they do different things the same is true in the energy sector very good I and that's a very wonderful
analogy because the the whole energy scenario do I say the mini grid system seem to be more focused
on solar systems and people think that this will be the kind of opium do I say like the big solution
for it you know but it needs to be actually looked at in a whole spectrum form which you rightly said so
I want to say that truly and to those listening that solar and renewable energy solutions are really
good but they have their limits actually so I want to also ask you in addition to that because
when considering the energy systems and how to solve the electricity problem in in Africa and Nigeria
specifically we have different options and when you look at different regions of the continent like
in South Africa they depend a lot on coal in North Africa most of them use fossil sources to meet
their energy needs and in this part of the world Nigeria specifically we we depend on hydro and
thermal plants so and these these are well established ways of generating electricity but
there's one part that has been very much lagging behind do I say not yet much given the the needed
attention although governments are like showing some level of commitment but we're not seeing
the the drive to be as very drastic enough as some governments have done and that's the nuclear
aspect so you've been so much involved in energy in general and also electricity specifically
because I believe three-quarter of the of energy use is is is electricity so I want to focus more
on the electricity aspect in my discussion with you so we've been talking about nuclear technology
and how it affects the African continent so I wonder like given your organization and its dealings
I believe they have a section that deals with nuclear I wonder like what are the the the things you
think that need to be considered when countries in Africa are going nuclear or considering going
nuclear and do you think it has a place in the African energy scope both in the present and in
the long term because I want to like make an illustration take for example if we are told that
by in the next century that everybody should relocate to Africa Africa does not have the energy
to cater for everyone so I wonder like what do you think is the position of nuclear technology
considering the development and the future of this continent yeah so I think that traditional
large-scale nuclear power probably does not have a future in Africa I think the potential for
small modular reactors and some of the micro reactors and some of the other new technologies
that are coming to market I think that those have much much more likely application in in Africa
and I think we should be modest and say that you know first of all it's these these are technologies
that are still evolving quite quite rapidly and that we're if we're thinking on a long you know
on a on the next five to 25 years timeline that that there's we should be open to the idea of
nuclear we absolutely should not write it off which some people are ready to do but I think we
should remain open to it and we should see how the market evolves and how the technology evolves
in Africa we actually did a project with the the energy for growth hub did a project with a group
in Washington DC called third way where we mapped every country of the world including in Africa
progress they're making to prepare for nuclear power and today just you know Egypt and South Africa
have have operating you know either have an operating power plant or Egypt has an operation
and Egypt is constructing yeah right exactly yeah but we did find seven other countries
that have taken really significant concrete steps where they could hypothetically be ready by 2030
which is not very far away that does include Nigeria these are countries that have already had
experience with at least a you know a research reactor they have kind of gone far down the line
with the IAEA process and maybe they've actually they're actually in very active discussions with foreign
with a foreign supplier and in a way that we think and we've got a methodology that you can see on
the website where we think it's plausible they could be ready by 2030 and then we found another 17
countries in Africa that have taken some preliminary steps we don't think they'll be ready
by 2030 but they could be ready by 2050 so I so I think the takeaway is really that Africa it seems to be some African countries seem to be quite serious about it and they're not just talking about it they're actually doing some of the steps to get ready so we should also be open to that to that possibility
wow that's really interesting I really hope that this happens in my lifetime I'm sorry if that sounds too much to me
but like I'm considering the 2035 I think I should still be alive at that time why not yeah look I think you I think we will see we will we will see you know more nuclear reactors deployed in Africa but again going back to my earlier comment it's not like you know we want to get away from this like this is the solution to Africa's energy problems
in the same way that solar has a very important niche it's possible but it's not everything it's possible that nuclear could also have a very important niche but again it's it's obviously not going to be everything so I
we can I can be right to say that nuclear is part of the solution if I may say I think that's fair all right so now we I want to look at it in a very broad from we have the geothermal we have the wind we have solar we have hydro we have gas and
in Nigeria for example this year has been declared a year of gas and the global climate change and climate action is calling for a move away from fossil fuels and I wonder because I think this is a very logical progression to meeting once energy need I think gas is a logical progression in my own thinking I wonder what you think in that regard but
the global call is like looking at a more drastic move away from using for seals I wonder how this resonates with you and how when you come to practical terms of actually what does work and what should be done is workable given the kind of prevailing conditions in which we are like building a gas plant that's that's that's we turn the turbine and generate electricity might be more easy to do
city might be more easily achievable than having a nuclear power plant which has not been proven like the SMRs have not been proven anywhere and has not been built anywhere though test places have been established in the US but I think might be easily
achievable to get gas I mean plans to generate electricity because they already working already in some parts of the country or continent than having a new whole new technology except a very drastic measure is taken by the government and yet that takes me to the question of what do you think is the right logical step because I you said that solar is like the bicycle what should we what should be the like the bike like the automobile and then what should be the
maybe Lamborghini and maybe it was the the post on which one will be the Tesla truck like what's progression do you think in this given this energy sources yeah yeah so so look I think that all countries you know need to do two things one is they need to use the resources that they have and that's going to be very different in different places they will each follow their own path and the other is that
nobody should be waiting for development for a new technology to develop so you know I obviously I'm optimistic about SMRs but I don't think any country should be putting industrialization or their energy plans on hold while they wait for for any technology whether it's SMRs or battery storage or whatever else it is so I do think that you know I do think that
you know again you know if you're talking about Ethiopia Ethiopia is obviously going to be mostly about hydro and they're going to have to fill in around that there'll be a combination of probably some off grid solar with with large scale hydro you know if you're lucky to have geothermal like Kenya you can build largely around geothermal which Kenya is doing
they're also adding wind and solar and they'll also need a little bit of fill in you know right now it's with that with heavy oil plants hopefully they can convert that to gas and then maybe one day use either store you know storage or an SMR or something like that
in Nigeria's case Nigeria like a lot of the it's West African neighbors such as Senegal or Ghana or Cote d'Ivoire they have a lot of gas and they are going to use it in the near term the interesting question is what happens when the gas starts to run out and when other technological options become become available
and also how does gas pair especially with solar and in place like Nigeria actually gas and solar go and here I'm talking about utility scale solar not small off grid solar but utility scale solar and gas gas fired power actually pair very well together for two reasons one gas can ramp up and down quite quickly
so when the sun is shining you can turn off your gas plant and when it's not shining you can turn it back on I breathe technically it can do that but it's also that the finances of gas and solar are the opposite so solar is high upfront fixed costs and very low operating costs and gas is the opposite almost your entire gas cost not entirely but most of your gas cost is in the gas itself
so financially that means that you're not going to bankrupt the power of the gas plant when it's turned off because of because the solar is running that's actually a barrier for nuclear once you turn the nuclear and financial reasons
so actually nuclear a drawback of nuclear is that it doesn't pair that well with solar because of the financial and technical aspects gas actually does so that's going to be a real challenge for for Nigeria is to eventually transition off of gas onto cleaner sources
that's great so I since you talked about nuclear and solar I was about asking you about the LCOE because the light cost of electricity is I will say it's a little bit contextualized when you bring about you talk about LCOE in solar and wind and other renewable sources
and you want to compare it with the that of some more baseload sources you might want to consider some other niche areas or niche technologies or considerations so talking about the costs I will it might be more expensive to build a nuclear power plant than having a solar plant running because of some other myriads of consideration that's maybe brought to the table
I want to also kind of bring you to talk a bit about this climate that climate action that is being on the front burner these days you know if you are some other people listening to me if you listen to the introduction of this podcast as the first episode I talked about
Africa not being should not be considered to worry about climate change because we should be worrying about other more existential challenges like we don't have energy let alone talking about the carbonizing our energy sources so I wonder like
what do you think should be the position of Africa in terms of generating its electricity although we have it's like a happenstance that we have we are we are in the time when we are talking about climate change so we should not just pay death yes to it but
I wonder like what's your position in terms of generating our energy sources and the climate action what do you think should be the position because considering gas you know it's a fossil source and the climate guys will not say we not it will go down with them what do you think should be the most the best approach in this regard
yeah so so good questions first on your lco lco e cost comparison yeah it's really you really don't you really can't compare lco e across different technologies and you especially can't compare lco e of a dispatchable versus a non dispatchable source
so you know solar is almost certainly going to be the cheapest on an lco e basis in certain in certain places yeah and on that basis nuclear is going to have a really hard time competing but that's because you know nuclear nuclear runs all the time
and solar does not so there's a value in that reliability and in that dispatch ability that you would want to capture again this is in thinking instead of thinking about one solution it's thinking about how all of the different technologies fit together to provide the energy services you need for your
for your economy so again I wouldn't just say well solar is cheaper than nuclear well if you need a 24 7 factory running you know or a mine it might turn out that actually nuclear is cheaper because you need it all the time you can't just turn it off
exactly the climate question is a really good one I actually think that Africa does need to worry about climate but it's mostly what Africa needs to worry about is adaptation rather than mitigation
so adaptation is what's the energy what are the energy needs that Africa is going to need in order to survive and thrive in the face of extreme weather rising temperatures and drought
and if you think about Africa is going to need resilient infrastructure which is built with cement and largely with cement and steel both energy intensive is going to need air conditioning and cold storage again very very energy intensive
and it's going to need a lot of pumped pumped water and probably desalination which again is one of the most energy intensive technologies so the climate adaptation agenda in Africa is very energy intensive and is going to require a lot more energy
and on the mitigation side which is preventing emissions as of right now Africa really other than South Africa which is a coal based economy and is pretty high emission and relatively wealthy other than South Africa the rest of Africa is actually very low emissions
right so so there's not that much CO2 to squeeze out of the economies and the question is what's the best path forward for Africa to build the energy systems it needs and there you know the average Nigerian
you know the average American where I'm sitting in the United States I'm producing the 33 times as much CO2 as the average Nigerian of course so it would be very very rich for me to you know rich and hypocritical for me to tell Nigerians that they should cut their emissions
well I'm at 33 times their levels so I think the issue is really around what are the what are the smartest most cost effective energy systems that Africa should be building both to tackle poverty to promote industrialization to make the country to make the region more prosperous
so that it can both eliminate poverty it can create jobs and it can adapt to the climate challenges that that that the continent faces and and just one last point I'll make is that we did a back of the envelope calculation just to show how how this would matter and you know Africa has a ton of options as you mentioned a lot of geothermal
a lot of wind solar hydro resources all of that but if Africa only used gas and there's no there's no scenario where that would happen but if it only use gas and we tripled everyone's electricity consumption and we can snap our fingers and do it tomorrow that would add less than 1% of global carbon to global carbon
wow so the more reason to worry less more reason to worry less very well put Jerry yeah so I am sorry I think our time is already but I want to ask you about this something that is very recent that we're reading about your work in energy for growth up and that's the modern energy minimum can you tell us a bit about this
sure sure I'll try to do this quickly so we you know we the UN and all countries have agreed to the sustainable development goals sustainable development goal number seven is to provide modern reliable sustainable and affordable energy to everyone by 2030
yeah it's a wonderful goal and with the metric that we're using to measure it is whether somebody has a household household electricity or not yeah and the measurement the consumption minimum for that is 50 kilowatt hours which you know me as an American I'll use that about two days but that's supposed to last in African a whole year yeah so we thought okay that's the first step on the energy ladder you know 50 kilowatt hours everyone should have
enough electricity for lights at home yeah and the we brought together a group to think okay what is the next step on the energy ladder if we got to get everybody a 50 what's next and so we propose something we call the modern energy minimum and it's instead of 50 it's a thousand kilowatt hours and it also covers both electricity use at home and in the wider
economy so you know the metric is only at home and it's only 50 but the majority of electricity is not used at home it's actually used in industry commerce out in the rest of the economy so we've moved that up to a thousand we're now starting to talk to the UN and others about integrating this into a future iteration of SDG number
wow it's great thank you so much for this expose and I sincerely appreciate I'm just one more last one just one month I know this past because I've been wondering like you spending so much time in Africa and still interested in being in Africa after this covid crisis I wonder like what has been your motivation and like what has been your like what has been like energizing you to stay on in in the continent
I mean like what's keeping you going on here you know many young people in Africa especially Nigeria want to want to take the next available flight out of the continent or the country so but I mean yeah see here keeping it going so like can you
look like it's kind of that's sort of a hard you know hard hard question to answer I think that I have been motivated you know to stay working on Africa by two things one is is just that I feel like the misunderstandings that the west you know I've lived in the UK and worked in the UK and in the in the US feel like the western understanding of Africa is still so wrong and
interesting that I want to contribute toward you know treating you know creating positive relationships between between my country and places like Ghana and Kenya as more as a more normal international relationship not this we're going to help you and you should be grateful but look we're sovereign nations
we're different countries we can achieve a lot if we cooperate and we treat each other with mutual respect as interesting and I feel that you know I can contribute toward normalizing those relationships and doing it in a in a way that's far more productive and more respectful
that's the kind of high minded one yeah the the the personal one is look when you you know when you work with other cultures you develop personal relationships and I just have so many you know absolutely wonderful friends who who are African live and work in the continent and I just really enjoy working with with so many wonderful people and that's the real reason I stick with it is the people
that's very great very great thank you so much I sincerely appreciate that okay thank you Jerry yeah so thank you for the time I sincerely appreciate I hope we'll have more time because it's like very very short time with you so I appreciate the time together yeah