Energy Woes

While I've been in Uganda, I've been trying to chisel my way through Tom Friedman's latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. I've always been following his concepts, but even more interestingly, I see a lot of what he's talking about here in Uganda.

One of his main ideas is that world population is rising, and so is the world's middle class. Along with the rising middle class is a rising demand for electricity - that fossil fuels just can't provide. He calls it energy poverty, or energy haves and have-nots. Here in Uganda, one of the main challenges in doing business is lack of energy infrastructure. In my town of Jinja, the main electricity generator for the country is the Owen Falls Dam, but even here we experience blackouts. Yesterday, we had a rolling blackout that lasted from 10 in the morning until late at night, and the electricity is still out at my work!

There is even electricity rationing due to high levels of demand. While something like this would be unthinkable in the United States, this the norm here. When Laura and I arrived in Entebbe Airport our first day here, we sat down in a cafe area to wait for our site team to pick us up. As we were sitting, the lights flickered and the power went out twice - in the national airport.