Post by louise on Mar 27, 2011 18:30:31 GMT 1
www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/-/2560/1129580/-/bv32i5z/-/index.html
Uganda is set to start manufacturing solar-powered cookers, to be marketed across East Africa, as the country seeks to boost its energy capacity and reduce over reliance on timber and charcoal.
The $180 ultra sun cooker could be the biggest let-off yet that governments and environmentalists have been seeking to arrest the trend of diminishing forests.
US-based Ugandan businessman Ronald Mutebi has set up a manufacturing plant that will make and distribute the solar ovens across East Africa from next month.
Initial pilots in four rural districts showed that the gadget has the potential for business as well as conservation.
In a recent interview with The EastAfrican Mr Mutebi revealed that he has more than 1,000 prospective buyers for his product.
“The odds are on my side, because where we are headed, I am going to be more and more relevant. The ultra sun cooker is designed to meet up to 70 per cent of the cooking needs of a typical family, entirely using the power of the sun,” he says.
Uganda’s dependence on forest resources for the domestic energy needs of most families continues to deplete the forest cover, a problem other East African countries are also battling with.
Only about five per cent of Uganda is connected to the national power grid, but there are scanty figures of how many of these use electricity for cooking.
A Ministry of Energy report on sustainable biomas energy production and utilisation in household and industry in Uganda, however, indicates that “fuel wood, charcoal, and crop residues (biomass energy) account for more than 90 per cent of the energy used in Uganda making it the most important energy resource in the country’s economy.”
The situation in Tanzania is no better where out of its population of 42 million people only six per cent use gas and electricity for cooking, thus exerting a lot of pressure on forest resources.
And critically, there are hardly any viable solutions in sight to stem this.
These trends will soon reach untenable levels unless renewable energy options are devised, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation.
FAO’s data on depletion of forest cover in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania over the past two decades tells the story better.
FAO says 15.2 per cent (2,988,000 hectares) of the country’s total land mass of 19,710,000 hectares is forested but between 1990 and 2010 the country lost an average 88,150 hectares or 1.86 per cent per annum. In total, 1,763,000 hectares have been depleted.
Over the same period, Tanzania lost some 19.4 per cent of its forest cover — an average of 403,350 hectares per annum, totalling to 8,067,000 of its 88,580,000 hectare total land mass, while Kenya lost 241,000 hectares of forest cover—an average rate of 12,050 hectares annually of its total forested is 3.52 million hectares.
Uganda is set to start manufacturing solar-powered cookers, to be marketed across East Africa, as the country seeks to boost its energy capacity and reduce over reliance on timber and charcoal.
The $180 ultra sun cooker could be the biggest let-off yet that governments and environmentalists have been seeking to arrest the trend of diminishing forests.
US-based Ugandan businessman Ronald Mutebi has set up a manufacturing plant that will make and distribute the solar ovens across East Africa from next month.
Initial pilots in four rural districts showed that the gadget has the potential for business as well as conservation.
In a recent interview with The EastAfrican Mr Mutebi revealed that he has more than 1,000 prospective buyers for his product.
“The odds are on my side, because where we are headed, I am going to be more and more relevant. The ultra sun cooker is designed to meet up to 70 per cent of the cooking needs of a typical family, entirely using the power of the sun,” he says.
Uganda’s dependence on forest resources for the domestic energy needs of most families continues to deplete the forest cover, a problem other East African countries are also battling with.
Only about five per cent of Uganda is connected to the national power grid, but there are scanty figures of how many of these use electricity for cooking.
A Ministry of Energy report on sustainable biomas energy production and utilisation in household and industry in Uganda, however, indicates that “fuel wood, charcoal, and crop residues (biomass energy) account for more than 90 per cent of the energy used in Uganda making it the most important energy resource in the country’s economy.”
The situation in Tanzania is no better where out of its population of 42 million people only six per cent use gas and electricity for cooking, thus exerting a lot of pressure on forest resources.
And critically, there are hardly any viable solutions in sight to stem this.
These trends will soon reach untenable levels unless renewable energy options are devised, according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation.
FAO’s data on depletion of forest cover in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania over the past two decades tells the story better.
FAO says 15.2 per cent (2,988,000 hectares) of the country’s total land mass of 19,710,000 hectares is forested but between 1990 and 2010 the country lost an average 88,150 hectares or 1.86 per cent per annum. In total, 1,763,000 hectares have been depleted.
Over the same period, Tanzania lost some 19.4 per cent of its forest cover — an average of 403,350 hectares per annum, totalling to 8,067,000 of its 88,580,000 hectare total land mass, while Kenya lost 241,000 hectares of forest cover—an average rate of 12,050 hectares annually of its total forested is 3.52 million hectares.
