|
A WASTE OF ENERGY
The startling thing about Egypt, a desert country
that relies on the Nile River for 99 percent of its water needs,
is how little regard people have for water. Their most precious
resource is used carelessly and trivially. Water is sprayed on dirt
roads to keep the dust down, dribbles out of broken pipes to flood
streets, evaporates from uncovered canals and reservoirs, and is
used to create green corridors from cities to remote communities.
Water, and Egypt’s other energy resources, are routinely squandered.
It’s not for lack of resourcefulness – hoses carrying
air conditioner leakage to plants and the garbage recycling programs
of Cairo’s 60,000 zabbaleen (traditional garbage collectors)
suggest Egyptians are resourceful. Rather, energy subsidies and
deep-rooted short-term thinking has made Egyptian energy consumers
apathetic about conservation.
Rising world energy prices and shrinking resources are making wasteful
energy practices increasingly harder on the pocketbook, but have
not yet translated into an ethos of conservation and efficiency.
Forget the Kyoto Protocol, this is a country where homes swelter
in summer and freeze in winter because triple-glazed windows and
fiber insulation are disregarded in favor of power gulping air conditioners
and electric heaters.
And despite Egypt’s perennially sunny climate, there has been
almost no effort to harness the power of the Sun. The high cost
of conversion is often cited as a reason, but hardly a justifiable
one. In other developing countries, such as Turkey, Mexico and even
rural Bangladesh, photovoltaic solar panels line the roofs of factories
and houses. Here it’s clusters of satellite dishes, and the
odd pigeon house.
Egypt’s oil reserves are waning, but new discoveries of natural
gas put the country among the world’s leading producers. While
energy companies are converting to this abundant, cheap fuel, consumers
are not. Downstream gas activities are relatively low given Egypt’s
supply. Gasoline is still king at the pump.
A USAID-sponsored project launched in the 1990s has helped convert
vehicles to run on compressed natural gas (CNG). So far, over 63,000
vehicles, mostly taxis, have undergone the £E 5,000 conversion
to burn CNG. The hope now is that buses, smoke-spewing microbuses,
corporate fleets and private vehicles will switch to the clean-burning
fuel.
But until the government lowers the costs associated with CNG conversion
and slashes the fuel subsidies that keep gasoline at unrealistically
low prices, people will continue to cruise around in their gas guzzlers,
be they dilapidated oil-burning Ladas or late-model SUVs. Energy
efficiency, it seems, is a waste of time.
CAM MCGRATH
Submit
your comment
Top
|
