Lagos Set To Generate Power From Waste

One thing Nigeria’s megacity of Lagos,
one of the world’s largest, generates in
abundance is trash. Now it plans to turn
that rubbish into electricity which the
city desperately lacks. The equation is simple. In one day
Africa’s sprawling metropolis of up to 21
million people, according to official
estimates, produces more than 10,000
metric tons (11,023 tons) of waste. In
the same day it will get barely a few hours of power, forcing many
inhabitants to rely on diesel generators. Yet the methane from all that rotting
waste is latent power. “Energy is in demand, waste is a
headache. If Lagos is able to convert its
headache to feed that demand, then it’s
becoming a smart city,” Ola Oresanya,
managing director of the Lagos Waste
Management Authority (LAWMA) told Reuters at the notoriously pungent
Olusosun dump site. Oresanya aims to complete the project
in around five years, by which time it will
have a 25 megawatt (mw) capacity, he
said. That is only 1 percent of the 2,000
– 3,000 mw that he estimates Lagosians
demand, but it is a start. Despite being Africa’s top oil and gas
producer, Nigeria’s power output is a
tenth of South Africa’s for a population
triple the size, a major brake on
economic growth. A pilot project to get power using
methane extracted from rotten fruit has
helped clean up a local plantain market
and enables traders to switch off their
generators when it is on, manager Tolu
Adeyo said, demonstrating its power by lighting up the gas coming out of a hose
connected to the project tank. The scheme, modeled on similar ones in
Norway and Sweden, is part of broader
efforts to clean up a city that had
become known as the ‘garbage capital of
the world.’ Governor Babatunde Fashola has won
plaudits for sprucing up bits of Lagos
that used to look like the set for a post-
apocalyptic movie, clearing out rusting
scrap metal and planting trees and
hedges in its place. The Olusosun dump site, spread over
100 acres, rising up to 25 meters high,
and, in some places, extending 35
meters under the ground, has created its
own geography of jagged hills and
gorges formed of plastic bags, old clothes and boxes. Hundreds of scavengers sift through the
site in search of recyclables – old tires,
plastics, electronic goods. On one
mound, an old woman shaded from the
sun by a parasol issued instructions to a
group of four workers collecting stuff for her. White herons feasted on
unwanted food waste. “There was a time when Lagos was
sinking under its waste. We moved the
waste, but it is still just being buried.
Now waste is an asset,” Oresanya said,
before narrowly avoiding plunging his
immaculately polished brown shoes into a puddle of filth. He declined to put a price tag on it, but
said the project is solely funded by the
Lagos state government. There are other benefits too: methane is
a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent
than the carbon dioxide emitted by
burning it. The site is going to be buried in dirt and
a green park with grass and trees built
over it, Oresanya said. Pipes in the
ground will harness the methane
bubbling underneath for the power
plant. “By the time we’re done, you won’t see a
single scavenger, because there won’t be
anything to scavenge,” he said, walking
along a graded road covering a 25 meter
depth of trash. [Reuters]