2y ago

A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries

techxplore.com A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries

A team of economists and engineers from China, Turkey and Nigeria has published a proposal based on simulations to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group outlines which countries would be involved, factors...

A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries::A team of economists and engineers from China, Turkey and Nigeria has published a proposal based on simulations to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries. In their paper published in the journal Scientific ...

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2y ago

A proposal to build a sub-Saharan Africa electrical grid across 12 countries

techxplore.com /news/2023-07-sub-saharan-africa-electrical-grid-countries.html

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21 comments

China once again investing in african infrastructure.
- Out of the goodness of their heart, with no ulterior motives to worry about!

Naive question: How is the political situation between all these African countries? Are they "good enough friends" to make this work on from a political point of view?
- For the most part I would say yes. I live in Canada but can tell you first hand there is a comradery among those expats from African countries that I feel is decidedly unique.
  The analogy is if I was on vacation backpacking in Europe and ran into a fellow Canadian.
  
  Mate, a good third of the countries on that list are currently suffering such brutal ethnic violence that it might be considered genocide. Close to half are riddled by islamic terrorism, usually directed towards ethnic minorites. At least two of them are in the middle of civil wars.
  
  A lot of those expats left those countries for a reason. Source: am african expat.

I have no idea if this is actually possible, but if it ends loadshedding in South Africa I'm all for it!!!
- They'd have to figure out how to stop people stealing all the power lines for the copper, first.
- Ignoring part of the problem is cupcake and his government fucking shit up lol
  Seriously though the loadshedding is redonkulous

Sounds good. If they actually manage to build it, it might even become possible for Africa to start selling solar energy to Europe.
- The distance is still a killer for that, it would either require to build an AC line from Morocco to Spain, a highly politically charged region or a high voltage dc line from Tunisia to Italy, which is quite the distance to cover.
  
  There is a project "Xlinks" to build an HVDC cable from Morrocco to the UK for this purpose. Who knows if it will succeed but it does have real backing.
  
  Indeed, there are huge issues with that idea, but at least now there’s a plan to take a step in that direction. Who knows if we ever get there though.
- Transmitting and storing the electricity is going to be tough
  Why not use the elec in Africa to create hydrogen from salt water?
  Store it if needed Ship it in pipes (easier than electricity in powerlines) Ship it in cylinders
  
  That sounds like a pretty good option too. Transporting hydrogen is pretty exciting, so I wonder if there would better form instead. Maybe some chemist out there could point out some obvious way to use the electricity to make a chemical compound more suited to this purpose. Hydrogen is really nice once you start converting it back to energy, but while in transit it has some highly concerning properties.
- That would be ideal