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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Obama Plans to Power Africa--With Soccer Balls |
| 2013-07-02 |
| Yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, President Obama talked about bringing energy and power to the continent of Africa. Today, President Obama is expected to reveal that part of his Africa energy plan involves a soccer ball that carries an electric generator inside. From the White House transcript of Obama's speech from yesterday: I am proud to announce a new initiative. We've been dealing with agriculture, we've been dealing with health. Now we're going to talk about power -- Power Africa -- a new initiative that will double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa. Double it. (Applause.) We're going to start by investing $7 billion in U.S. government resources. We're going to partner with the private sector, who themselves have committed more than $9 billion in investment. And in partnership with African nations, we're going to develop new sources of energy. We'll reach more households not just in cities, but in villages and on farms. We'll expand access for those who live currently off the power grid. And we'll support clean energy to protect our planet and combat climate change. (Applause.) So, a light where currently there is darkness; the energy needed to lift people out of poverty -- that's what opportunity looks like. And then today, White House aide Mike Froman explained the soccer ball idea to the press aboard Air Force One, as the pool report details: Mr. Froman also talked about POTUS's efforts to help bring reliable power to Africa, which will be the subject of an event in Tanzania on Tuesday morning. He noted as one example an invention designed to bring electricity to many of the small villages that are not connected to the grid. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 mossromo says:. The consumer is largely ignored. Not really. The consumer is he who pays the piper. The Grant providers and NGOs are the consumers of these items but they're not the end users. The end users have no say much like the patients in our insurance driven healthcare payment system. The consumer is the insurance company. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2013-07-02 20:32 |
| #5 Crematoriums......can they produce electrical power ? Might as well just burn money. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-07-02 19:18 |
| #4 I respect the idea. But here is the thing. The consumer is disconnected from the manufacturer. The marketing of this items is not to poor families in the third world, but to the do-gooders who all bought and wore TOMS shoes before realizing they were made in a sweatshop in China. Another Aid-Dev fail were Playpumps, a NGO fad a few years ago. If you asked the poor family in need if they'd prefer an old fashioned hand pump & some rice to a gadgety soccket ball, they prefer the hand pump. This plays back to the whole Playpumps fail. The communities needed hand pumps and not gadgety playground equipment. But gadgety "green" technologies chase and get the grant dollars. It took awhile, but eventually the blowback from the involved communities caused the NGOs and 501C to scrape the initiative. And that's my point. The consumer is largely ignored. These are more happy ribbons for the Left. Cost benefit analysis be damned. It's the idea. |
| Posted by: mossomo 2013-07-02 17:53 |
| #3 Doug Powers notes “The people in Froman’s hypothetical example are living in a remote, off-the-grid village with no electricity but apparently there’s a cell phone tower just up the road.” |
| Posted by: tipper 2013-07-02 14:19 |
| #2 Wut, no Monorail? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2013-07-02 12:20 |
| #1 Crematoriums......can they produce electrical power ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-02 10:32 |