African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1231 Water and Electricity Proportion
After discussing the water conservancy construction issues in the Great Lakes region, Siweit turned the topic to national hydropower construction.

Siwei Te said: "When the fourth and fifth phases are completed, my country will save a lot of coal that was originally used for power generation, thereby reducing the development of local coal resources and further alleviating my country's energy shortage problem."

At the beginning of 1916, the growth rate of hydropower construction in East Africa accelerated significantly, except for the construction of hydropower stations in the Great Lakes region and the Ethiopian highlands.

A "hydropower construction" boom has swept across East Africa. As a major electricity producer in the world, East Africa is quite interested in hydropower energy.

"According to the Fourth Five-Year Plan, by 1920, the power structure of East Africa will be completely changed, and hydropower will be increased to at least % of the country's total power generation, which is a quarter of East Africa's national power generation. This proportion is quite large and will save East Africa a lot of fossil energy such as coal, natural gas and oil."

The main focus of replacement is coal resources. Compared with other continents, Africa's coal resources are only above South America. Of course, Antarctica is definitely not included. After all, a place where there are no people does not have much practical significance.

However, when compared with Africa, it is hard to say which one will win when it comes to Antarctica's coal resources. After all, Antarctica is covered by ice sheets, making exploration difficult. Moreover, Antarctica has not always been in that location. Ancient Antarctica also had large forests, vegetation and organisms, which means that the Antarctic region has the basic conditions for the development of coal resources.

Therefore, it is unfortunate that East Africa is located in the African continent where coal is relatively scarce. However, the good news is that most of the coal resources on the African continent are in East Africa, which is also the basic condition for East Africa to start industrialization.

However, East Africa's coal reserves did not reassure Ernst, so Ernst attached great importance to hydropower, a rapidly renewable resource.

Why did East Africa wait until the 1945th Five-Year Plan to start vigorously developing hydropower resources? This is actually closely related to the immaturity of technology in the past, whether it is construction engineering technology or hydropower technology.

After the start of the 1945 hydropower project, East Africa has accumulated technology and experience over a long period of time, which has made the basic conditions for hydropower development in East Africa officially mature.

"There are more than 100 large-scale hydropower projects currently under construction, including the Xingguo Hydropower Station, the Lebo Hydropower Station, the Sailam Hydropower Station, etc. The construction of these hydropower stations will greatly improve the problem of my country's power energy supply."

Ernst was quite satisfied with the result. He concluded: "Today, our country's annual power generation has reached more than 60 billion kilowatt-hours, which is almost equivalent to the total power generation of other countries in the world."

"However, such a large amount of power generation cannot fully cope with the rapid growth of national production and life in our country."

Ever since East Africa ascended to the throne of the world's largest electricity producer, it has never come down from this position.

Especially since the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa's power generation has been like a wild horse that has run away from its reins, completely widening the gap with European and American countries.

However, this cannot meet East Africa's growing demand for electricity. After all, East Africa has gone further on the road of electrification, and the demand for electricity in factories, railways, communications, ships, military, residents' lives and other fields is increasing.

During the same period, the United States' electricity generation was less than half of East Africa's. However, the United States' electricity generation alone was enough to compare with all European countries, leading by a cliff.

At present, East Africa's industry has undoubtedly reached the top of the world in terms of electrification and mechanization. Combined with other industrial data in East Africa, it has firmly established itself as the world's first industrial country and is ahead of other countries in a short period of time.

Of course, this data is only an estimate for East Africa. After all, in a war environment, the actual industrial data of various countries is not easy to obtain.

However, what is certain is that the industries of European countries have completely shifted to military industry and heavy industry, which can be seen from the foreign trade data of the past year.

East Africa has snatched a large number of industrial orders originally from European countries in the Third World. Especially with the support of the East African World Expo, trade with South America, the Middle East, Central Asia and other regions has soared. Ernst: "In recent years, my country's imports of overseas coal resources have increased year by year, which is closely related to electric energy."

"Although there are market exchange considerations, the cost-effectiveness of imported coal is obviously not high. Using hydropower instead of coal can further free our industry from the shackles of coal energy."

Market exchange is one of the current forms of trade in East Africa. In more common terms, it is barter. After all, when East Africa trades with third world countries, they do not have much real gold and silver.

Therefore, exchanging industrial products for minerals and other products has become one of the main forms of foreign trade in East Africa today.

In this process, the international currency status of the East African Rhine Guilder has been further strengthened. After all, as long as there is a stable long-term trade relationship, currency issues will eventually be involved.

"And these saved coal resources will be invested in steel, metallurgy, chemical industry and other fields that need coal more, reducing my country's industrial production costs and maximizing resource utilization."

Compared with the consumption of fossil energy such as coal, hydropower is simply a bargain for East Africa. After all, what East Africa lacks the least is water resources.

This can be seen from the rivers in East Africa. Whether it is the Congo River, the Zambezi River or the Nile River, other large rivers, basically there is abundant hydropower potential waiting to be developed in East Africa.

Although only the downstream areas near the estuary and the upstream areas of the mainstream of the Congo River have huge hydropower potential, the tributaries of the Congo River, many of which flow from the plateaus and mountains of East Africa to the Congo Basin, have huge hydropower potential.

It must be mentioned here that the main stream of the Congo River, especially the middle section, has very limited potential for hydropower resources because it flows through the Congo Basin. After all, the terrain of the basin is relatively flat. This makes the main stream of the Congo River from Kissan to Kinshasa downstream not suitable for building hydropower stations, but suitable for developing shipping.

This is also one of the main reasons why the two East African cities of Kinshasa and Kissan can become cities in the tropical rainforest area. Ships can pass freely in the middle section of the Congo River between the two cities. Of course, after Kinshasa is the lower reaches of the Congo River waterfalls, while Kissan is the upper reaches of the waterfalls.

This geographical situation makes Kissan and Kinshasa necessary transportation hubs and cargo distribution centers.

Of course, if Ernst had a choice, he would prefer that shipping on the main stream of the Congo River could go directly to the Atlantic Ocean. After all, East Africa does not lack the "little" hydropower potential of the waterfalls in the lower reaches of the Congo River.

In addition to several large rivers in East Africa, the exploitable hydropower resources of other small and medium-sized rivers are also considerable and are not limited to a certain area in East Africa. This geographical condition is widely distributed throughout East Africa.

This is also true for the relatively dry climates in the northwest and northeast regions. However, these two regions do not need so much electricity and water for the time being because they have small populations, few industries, and small agricultural scales.

This is mainly because East Africa is an immigrant country, so the population distribution is relatively in line with the development of the times, mainly moving towards the coastal livable zone and the central region. Of course, the Great Lakes region is an exception. The Great Lakes region has a strong ability to nurture a population, so East Africa initially migrated a little more to the Great Lakes region.

Before the industry in East Africa developed, the population growth in the Great Lakes region, as an agricultural country, was astonishing, which made the Great Lakes region an obstacle to the current industrialization in East Africa.

After all, it is extremely difficult to industrialize the agricultural region of the Great Lakes region, a densely populated area in East Africa. Of course, if the industrialization of the Great Lakes region is completed, it basically means that most of the industrialization of East Africa has been completed. After solving the problems in some remote areas, East Africa can basically reach the level of industrialization of the United Kingdom and Germany.

(End of this chapter)