Wind Power Fans Development in Kenyan Desert
Last updated on: August 24, 2012 9:16 PM
A few years ago, a Dutchman with a dream entered a sparsely furnished government office in Nairobi. In his hand he carried an application form to lease land near Lake Turkana in Kenya’s isolated north-east.
Wind turbines similar to these in California’s Yucca Valley region are soon going to be part of Africa’s largest wind farm, in northern Kenya [Photo: AP]
Carlo van Wageningen recalled, “The commissioner of lands himself had never been there and he didn’t know what value to give to this land, and I remember him asking me, ‘Would you bring me some pictures of this area please?’ So we did; we brought him about 20 pictures of the area and when he looked at it he said [incredulously], ‘What are you going to do THERE?’”
The entrepreneur, who has lived in Kenya for the past 23 years, told the government official, “We are going to build a power plant to make electricity with the wind.”
Van Wageningen said the commissioner had stared at him as if he were crazy. “Then he said, ‘How much of this land do you want to lease?’ And I said, ‘A hundred and fifty thousand acres.’ And to that he replied, ‘Would you like 300 [thousand acres]?’”
The businessman said the story indicated the perceived “worthlessness” in Kenya of the country’s arid north, a harsh desert where temperatures often top 100 degrees F [40 degrees C]. The region is home to little more than scorpions, a few nomadic groups and their cattle and camels.
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