21st Century Imperialism

Matla Coal-Fired Power Station, South Africa

The quickest means to African development is through the use of coal-fired power plants: [bold added]

African nations have an estimated 35 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves that could supply the continent’s current needs for more than a century.

Solar power has several drawbacks:

Unreliability: “People think of this continent as jungle and sunshine, but we have a long rainy season in the tropics, more like a monsoon, and there’s no sun for days,” [Engineer John] Owusu said. “That makes it hard to rely on something like solar. Wind turbines make more sense, but you still need batteries to store the power.”

Theft: "on a continent where a third of the population lives under the official U.N. poverty line, solar power users need to hire armed guards to prevent the coveted panels from being stolen."

Your humble blogger believes that each country gets to decide what energy path is best for itself. When rich, white societies try to keep poor black countries impoverished, that used to be called racism and imperialism.