Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Electricity Guinea (Bissau and Conakry)

Electricity Guinea-Bissau

My electricity tour of Africa has taken me to Guinea-Bissau, referred here as Bissau. Bissau is one of the poorest environments on the earth. Lack of electricity makes travel through the capital very dangerous, especially at night, when the streets are dark and there is no lighting to speak of.
There is one thing that is plentiful in Bissau, Land mines. If you ever happened to be in Bissau, just be careful where you step.

Electricity Guinea (Conakry)

While I am talking about Guinea-Bissau referred here as Bissau, what about Guinea Conakry which I will refer to as plain Guinea.
If Ghana is rich in bauxite, Guinea is very rich. But wait a minute, it takes a large amount of electricity to melt and extract the alumina or the billet.
The world price of metals have become almost prohibitive, this include iron. Guess what, Guinea has one of the largest reserves of iron in the whole world. I hope nobody is going to talk about chemical extraction. Heaven forbid, where are we going to dump the waste from the chemical extraction, not in my back yard! So the only other alternative is electrical. But like Ghana, Guinea is suffering from the same sickness, mismanagement, vanishing receipts, not enough electricity for the masses, much less for heavy industry like smelting. Here are hippos running amuck, do I see any cheetahs in this particular game reserve? Lets sacrifice today, so those coming after us can live better tomorrow.

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