“Oil in the veins of sub-Saharan Africa” is an article that just have been published in the Magazine New Rouotes by my PhD student Kristofer Jakobsson and myself.
Abstract:
Soaring world oil prices strike hard on everyday life in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and further hamper the well-needed economic growth that could be a way out of poverty and underdevelopment. Nowhere else in the world does oil have a more dominant role as a commercial energy form. In order to promote economic growth, oil seems to be the most useful means for energy supply as of today.
Read the article in New Routes, 2010, Issue 2, Pages 21-24
In the magazine you also can find other interesting articles about diamonds, minerals and oil in Africa.
Read al the articles in New Routes, 2010, Issue 2
tahoevalleylines
July 3, 2010
Japan offers an interesting case of development to a high degree of mobility and standard of living not so dependent on oil as our generation thinks necessary. 1920 era Japan used a network of Interurban Electric Railways, most linked to hydropower, for satisfactory commercial and private transportation. Many USA railcar manufacturing companies had equipment seen in Japan even after the Second World War. This is a durable mode of transport.
The Japanese were merely copying the USA transport model of the 1900-1920 era, when America was not quite into the automobile dependence which fostered search for ever greater volumes of liquid motor fuel. Somehow, we must encourage LOCAL entrepreneurial forces to realize/understand the short-term gains of betting on oil for sustained growth are now at the point of diminishing returns.
Moreover, requisite component for peaceful passage through the Oil Interregnum must see North American leadership in the return to transportation habits giving early release from the oil monster. Modern railway examples in many places undercut the general feeling in the American body politic that railway is “old hat”. Can oil economies with capital to invest give some thought to investment in American railway capacity expansion & reach?
Website “Suntrain Transportation Corporation” shows some methodologies applicable to developing nations and regions needing a beginning not ensnared with the Oil Tarbaby. Of course, the technology of renewable energy generation must be linked to new railway expansion, just as hydropower was a natural partner to local railway service in early 20th century America & Japan. Many European examples of pioneering railway electrification were based on hydropower as well!