The Lamu Coal Plant: Your thoughts?

Kenya has one of the most promising futures in all of Africa, but is about to make a strategic mistake similar to one that oil-rich Angola made in 2006.

That year, Angola agreed to borrow $14.5 billion from China in a resources-for-infrastructure deal, repayable in barrels of oil. But it was a disaster: The construction by Chinese companies and workers was often shoddy and unsafe, the promise of jobs for Angolans was unmet, and as many 200,000 Chinese workers and hundreds of Chinese companies ended up dominating its economy.

The worst example was in 2010 when 150 patients had to be evacuated from a Chinese-built hospital in Angola’s capital, Luanda, after its walls cracked and bricks disintegrated. By 2016, the deal had benefitted China not Angola as projects remain unfinished and payments in barrels of oil have soared as prices plummeted.

Undaunted. China has rolled out across Africa and the world its new $1-trillion “Silk Road” infrastructure initiative. Beijing bills this as a “Marshall Plan”, but the reality is that this is all about benefitting a China that is slowing down domestically.

But many African nations are signing up with China. This week in Beijing, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta inked a $2-billion deal to build a coal plant and port on the scenic island of Lamu, off Kenya’s east coast, in order to import and burn foreign coal. The deal is being legally challenged in Kenya as elections loom.

Of all the deals China pursues, this is the most nonsensical. Kenya is one of the few countries in the world capable of leapfrogging over the 19th century “smokestack” economic development model. The country has enough geothermal, solar, hydro, and wind potential to not only be self-sufficient but to become an energy exporter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kenya-should-not-sign-china-and-south-africa-coal-deal_us_5929678ce4b08861ed0cc9b3?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003

What happened?
Didn’t centum win the tender to build the coal plant?

centum hii moja ya 2RM!?

The coal plant idea does not make any sense, we are already producing excess power and have the capacity to produce alot more from wind, hydro and geothermal sources, we should not ruin our environment to reward political cronies

A

A consortium called Amu power (Centum and Gulf energy) won the tender. Here are further links
https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2017/05/amu-power-signs-sh206bn-deal-china-power-global/
https://www.amupower.co.ke/about.html

Exactly! we dont need the coal power as at now…not with the imported coal. We currently have excess capacity and we r yet to explore the clean geothermal power fully. Remember we will be injecting 300MW power from the Lake Turkana Wind Project very soon. All the turbines (approx. 300) are up and running. The completion of the 436Km 400kV transmission line connecting the wind farm to Suswa Substation is awaited.

Just saw a documentary on aljazeera on some huge white elephant projects pushed by China on sri lanka, An idle port and airport. China can be the perfect development partner if you are a serious forward thinking country but if they sense you are just there for kickbacks on big projects they are ready to play ball and when you are unable to pay the debt since you built white elephants they take their pound of flesh in resources ( Still prefer them to world bank or IMF hao nima shetani)

The Angola deal was not managed well…hawakukaa radar, so wa chinku waliwagonga. Muigai Kenyatta anakaa mtu wa kugongwa na machinku kweli?We can’t run away from coal. Coal runs economies, coal develops economies worldwide. Halafu it’s extremely low-cost, plentiful and available to be replaced.Shida ya coal ni story za CO2, but kuna concept flani inaitwa CCS(carbon capture and storage) ambayo the chinese wame develop which will take care of the CO2 emmissions problem.

That’s why over 1700 BIG coal facilities have been proposed for construction in 59 countries across the world. Coal produces over 40% of global electricity needs, na hiyo percentage inazidi kupanda.
Coal fuels economies…Nusu ya Germany’s electricity supply is from coal, in poland 85%, China 75%…na tukumbuke China wana produce nusu ya steel, na nusu ya simiti pia kwa hii dunia. South Africa, Israel, Australia and many others are coal dependent economies. In the US, coal use ime drop from kitu 49% to 37%, but ni kwa sababu wame substitute na natural gas…kwa saa hizi their coal exports to Europe and Asia are at a record high.
That coal facility at lamu will not primarily be for our energy needs, though I wish it were(hiyo mambo ya kusema ati we produce excess energy, ooh geothermal bla bla bla ni ignorance inaongea. Kila siku blackouts ndio zetu halafu…usfanye nikuchune maskio…nkt). It’s for the chinese. These guyz, in the past few decades wametoboa ku elevate several hundreds of millions of their citizens from poverty…the biggest, fastest rise in human well-being throughout history. They did that through industrialization, industrialization was fueled by?..yeah, exactly. It’s going nowhere. We are better off learning how to tap into it as an additional energy source kabla nchi zingine za East Africa hazijaamka.

Yes, we need it and nuclear power, hydro plants and more geothermal plants. Why? Because as a nation we need to industrialize to develop, grow wealth and end unemployment. Our 2400MW current output is just enough for lighting and small industries. Our power distribution networks are only catching up recently thanks to the last mile power connection projects, high voltage power lines projects, 200 power plants across the country and connections of schools for laptops program.

Solar and wind are too erratic and unrealiable to industrialize, that’s why they have never been considered as load power. Non of the current industrialized nations depend of them. On Lamu coal plant, its 1000MW is to power all Lappset projects I.e 35 berths modern new Lamu Port, Lappset SGR, Lamu special economic zone, Lamu Airport, Isiolo Tourist city and all towns in Northern Kenya from Lamu, Garissa, Garsden, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit etc. Lamu was picked since Kitui coal plant failed to take off after residents and investor, county and national government failed to agree on Kitui coal. Too much unrealistic demands made the venture not viable. Coal power works well only on site where coal is mined or at the coast such that its loaded directly from the ships to the plant. Transportation of coal on road is expensive and cheaper on rail but much better on water.

Amu power picked a site in rural Lamu away from Lamu town which is a UNESCO site. However its at the creek where it plans to build a small dock for a few ships to deliver the coal. Amu power picked a new revolutionary clean coal technology plant designed by usa/China that recycles the pollutants to neutral gas therefore minimises pollution to less than diesel plants. Your car engines will pollute the air more than this coal plant. Because of this standards the Chinese firm building it has agreed to put up a $50 million quality guarantee bond that it will cashed by GoK if the plants doesn’t meet the environmental requirements set by Nema. For that reason they are sending 1000 Chinese inspectors to supervise the 10000 local workers and every detail of the construction. Any leaks will be liable to them and the repairs needed.

Other load based power plants have different timelines from conception to going live. Geothermal wells needs a year for exploration to find successful wells, 2 years well test to get sufficient data on whether its productive or not. 1 year to secure finances to build on successful wells, 3 years to build if contractor is fast. Seven years. Hydro takes roughly 5-7 years, nuclear 10 years. Coal 3-4 years. We need all of them to industrialize. Right now we have excess power of 240MW and our electric distribution across the country is at 68%. That’s a huge success of Jubilee government considering in 2013 it stood at 30%. When we reach 90% we will not be having any excess power but praying other power plants have been commissioned. Right now we are at advanced stage of getting cheap power $6-8 cents 1000 MW Ethiopian power. Solar power is good during the day but costs between $10-15 cents, wind at $12-14 but erratic. Nuclear is the cheapest followed by Hydro the geothermal and finally coal.

Lastly our current needs are sorted but as a nation 2400MW is too little. CS Trade Adan pushed through the Special Economic Zones act in parliament for 3 yeard. Its now law. SEZ authority board has been formed and staff being recruited. Its envisions SEZ in all our 47 counties as manufacturing and industrial hubs. They will need roads, rail, ports, loads of POWER, workforce and auxiliary services. Right now SEZ Eldoret by PPP was signed in China recently, Dongo Kungu is due once the bypass is complete. Naivasha SEZ is due once SGR reaches there. 30,000 acres is been acquired by NLC.

@Lipsy our resident power expert. Feel free to point out corrections on my post.

Are we going to process our coal in Mui Basin and then sell the energy or we are setting up a plant targeting the neighboring countries to bring their coal.

We set up the SGR with plans it will go upto Rwanda, burudi, Sudan tanzania and Uganda. Even before the 1st phase is operational the guys are jumping boat.

At the moment, we still believe the SGR was a cash cow for the rightly connected in government. Even before we forget. They are planning another cashcow.

This is getting romantic now.

Lamu coal plant is private investment and no government funds is used to build it.

Mui Kitui coal project stalled and then collapsed all together. The Chinese investors pulled out after the demands from locals and county politicians become too much for the project to be viable. If in the future they agree another plant will be built there. Transporting coal from Kitui to Lamu will just make its cost of power to be expensive. Let’s say it needs 50,000 tonnes a month. Each truck by law can carry only 30 tonnes. That’s 1666 trips to deliver it per month. Transport costs will be 200 million a month if its begged at 4000 a tonne. Now add the cost of coal. Even with rail its still expensive. That 50,000 tonnes can be cheaply transported by ships at one go.

Really???

why coal? that is the big Question. But Blackout just means a disruption of supply mostly due to poor transmission infrastructure not related to generation of the said power. there is no clear justifications for this Coal Plant in Lamu or any other part of the country, it is true we have an abundance of renewable energy sources why not utilize it? and yes we actually produce more power that the current demand, about 9000Gwh to a demand of 7200Gwh

I do not think that is accurate, this is Public Private Partnership therefore not exclusively a Private investment as you put it.

Lamu coal power plant is a PPP project. The winning bidder is Amu power. Its co owned by Centum investment ltd and Gulf Energy ltd.

Government only provides the land.

South Africa produces 20,000MW to industrialize including one mini-nuclear plant. We only produce 2400MW. The first thing any heavy industry investor wants certain is power. Consistent, reliable, cheap power. Solar and wind are out of the equation. Tell them about nuclear, hydro, coal or geothermal and whether it will be ready in less than 5 years as he builds his plant.

There are no shortcuts to reaching developed nation status. You must industrialize, build factories and end unemployment. To attain that status we need lots of load power I.e 20,000MW. We need a matrix of nuclear, hydro, coal and geothermal power plants. Solar and wind can complement secondary needs as they are expensive and not reliable.
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Coal is cheap, to begin with…and that should count for alot in a 3rd world economy. Beyond that, look at it this way…we would want to become an industrialised nation in due time. Well, that’s never going to happen for as long as we are dependent on renewable energy sources. The developed world presents us with numerous case studies in support of this fact, I outlined afew: Germany, China, Poland, Israel et cetera.

I agree with you on the need of power to industrialize…there is no shortcut on this.
On this coal power thing, GoK must invest. The plant is PPP, what about the required high voltage transmission to evacuate the power? will this be PPP? i doubt.

Yes the high Voltage lines are already complete. Mombasa to Lamu is done thanks to Ketraco.
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my point of departure is the idea that fossil fuel is our only way towards guaranteeing energy source for industrialization, as it is, we are curently producing more that what we actually consumed and are paying for idle capacity in our energy bills, secondly we have not explored the full potential or our renewable energy sources so why augment that with coal power production? we have a lot of wind in the northern frontier yet to be utilized, and solar energy that we are yet to explore, if that is not enough we have an abundance of Geothermal energy… why do coal production? and what projection have been made in our energy needs assessment projecting into the future to say that we do not have enough power to be able to industrialize? and exactly what kind of heavy industries are we talking about? China has banned construction of new coal plants within its borders, Israel and Germany are moving towards renewable energy and are prospecting to shut down some of its coal plants in the near future, what is the rationale of us retrogressing?