I guess because his ‘renewable energy’ plans went so well over here, now he wants to spread them around?
The act commits the US government to supporting President Obama’s Power Africa initiative. Although headlined as a $50bn (£36bn) scheme, the US authorities will contribute just $7bn.
Other governments, development agencies and private sector companies are expected to provide the remainder in public-private partnerships.
This will be difficult to achieve during a global economic downturn.
Even if it succeeds in its aim of bringing electricity to 50 million Africans by 2020, more than 10 times that number will still be without power.
I’ve read that whole generations of Africans and Asians missed landline telephony altogether and went straight to cell phones. Maybe it would be efficacious for off-grid Africans to avoid building an expensive and vulnerable grid entirely and go straight to small-scale, non-centralized power generation.
Not that we’ll ever know, because when governments and NGOs get involved in Africa it’s invariably money poured down wrongheaded projects, always seeming to vanish forever into well-connected pockets. Obama has already proven his ability to do that very thing with power projects, in very large ways, leaving everybody poorer – and with less power.
Indeed… and he’s never going to spend a single minute without all the power he wants, probably paid for by someone else. Wyoming is heading straight to the bottom of the economy since the war on coal started, and an awful lot of people are moving away for good. Not that we’re going to miss all of them, of course, but I can see life getting very difficult and expensive here in the long run.
Would love to lock him in a small log cabin up in the mountains here, with just enough wood to keep from freezing his ass off… and the dear family. But I doubt he’d learn anything….
I’d leave him with a decent axe and bow saw and let him do his own wood.
Thus he might — might — learn the concept of “work”.
😉
Actually wishing for this would bring Men in Black to your door – because you know he’d freeze his useless ass solid before he’d ever soil his hands with – ew – tools.
Majority of that money will be lining the pockets of many legal crooks from the top of the power chain all the way down to the hut dweller that gets a AA flashlight for electrification.
Folks, I’m telling you Obama is running for a U.N. Post for his next job. Many of his stances (green energy, taking in refugees, private citizen gun control, etc.) are evidence that he is padding his resume for taking such a job.
You’d have to show me evidence that the American public are of any concern to him – its all politics.
Our own power grid is in crisis, and we desperately need distributed power of all kinds and a plan for it. Our power grid could make good use of that money. There are and for years have been many groups, foundations and organizations bringing efficient solar power to Africans who are willing to work for it – to install the systems, learn how to maintain and upgrade them. There hasn’t been any African (or other) government support for this work, but it gets done, one village at a time, and money is spent on the power system.
Well Obama apparently signed that act, and I don’t doubt that he was all for it, but don’t forget that it couldn’t have happened without the complicity of the House and Senate.
See https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2152/all-info
(Sec. 4) The President shall: (1) establish a multiyear strategy to assist countries in sub-Saharan Africa implement national power strategies and develop an appropriate mix of power solutions to provide access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable power…
Africans can’t build infrastructure. That’s a western civilization thing. Sewers, water treatment, paved roads, and electric lines are symbols of European oppression. Cooking your food over elephant poop fires is FREEDOM!.