power for many, but life-threatening for residents: From the Lake Kivu methane, in the heart of Africa is encouraged - even a test basis, sometimes industrial. Scientists warn of an inferno.
appeared in
TAZ: 09/07/2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Pokemon Sony Ericsson W380
an explosive such as Champagne
Gisenyi
taz But even more precious treasure.
taz But even more precious treasure.
Kivu is considered the most dangerous lake in the world. Because in the 70 meter deep water layers of the 485-meter-deep waters gases dissolved under pressure, as in a Soda bottle: 54 cubic kilometers of methane and 250 cubic km of carbon dioxide. What the lake so dangerous is the so-called champagne effect. The upper layers of water act like a cork. They provide the necessary pressure to which the gas is dissolved in the water. But when an earthquake, lava flows from nearby volcanoes or high waves stir up the upper layers, then the pressure decreases, and the gas escapes. dangerous gas
Such a gas cloud had spat 1986 Lake Nyos in Cameroon. Because the gas is heavier than air, an avalanche rolled out 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide to the shore. 1746 people and more than 2,000 animals suffocated within minutes. From time to bubble in the Kivu bubbles to the surface, rob swimmers breathing, because methane is heavier than oxygen. Even dead fish float to the surface sometimes. killer lakes are called the gas-containing water. But the Kivu is unique among them, only it contains the dangerous and highly flammable greenhouse gas methane. Scientists warn that an inferno threatens - in one of the most densely populated regions of the world. Therefore, the governments of Rwanda and the DR Congo have decided: the gas must go.
Alexis Kabuto shows the soldiers at the roadblock, his security pass and then roars with his SUV along the coastal road. weld in a bay Engineers on a platform around: "This station is being overhauled," he explains and then shows beyond the finger at the lake.
As an oil rig there rises a 20-meter-high tower from the waters of the lake. There is a pumping station at which the dissolved gases are extracted from the deep waters controlled. A hose pushes on the surface. Through him, the methane from the 1.8 kilometers from platform in the lake is pumped to the huge machines that make noise in a corrugated iron hall on the shore.
Kabuto parks his car outside the hall, gets out and opens the door, rattling behind the machines: "These are three German generators which produce electricity from methane gas," he says proudly. The big man in a fine suit is the manager of the company Kibuye Power, the state company, which operates the methane gas plant. 1.2 megawatts (MW) each of the three generators. The total of 3.6 MW Kibuye Power feeds into the national power grid. But the amount is not enough to even every household in the town of Gisenyi to illuminate a single light bulb. Almost every other night falls at the beach bars on the banks of the stream.
The methane gas platform Rwanda's showpiece. $ 20,000,000 were invested by government in the unique system, and managers Kabuto they will conduct you. Rwanda is looking for investors, the current pilot stations in Lake Kivu for mass production upgrade. A total of 700 MW could produce the methane in Kivu in the long term, the results optimistic studies. The countries bordering Rwanda and DR Congo to share this potential: 250 MW, each country for itself. And together, the two neighbors to take a project in attack in which 200 MW electricity will be produced. But still, the Congolese government in Kinshasa is not ready to enter at all into the actual planning phase. In Rwanda, however, says
Kabuto already an industrial production. It rises on the shore next to the machine in a dinghy that brings three engineers to shift changes to the platform. Engineering Kabuto tells of his studies in Germany. In his enthusiasm for German engineering, he makes the modern operating room at the station no secret of methane. He points to the computer screen on which the platform is shown in bright colors. In the middle is a pink-colored diving bell to see: "Here's to the gas mixture: 49 percent methane, mixed with carbon dioxide," he shouted loudly to the rattle of the pumping station to drown. Then he points to a box next to it: "This is where the carbon dioxide is separated from methane and washed out."
electricity to neighboring countries
Kibuye Power has a license to produce a total of 50 megawatts. "In two or three years we can achieve this," says the Kabuto. But this requires that the platform will be expanded. Investment of 200 million dollars are needed over the Rwandan Government has not alone. But this small country is in urgent need of cheap electricity. A study from September 2009 means that only 10 percent of households have electricity connection - most of them in the capital Kigali. The main part of the energy is produced from hydropower. But while reducing the dry season the water levels of lakes and rivers, power plants do not supply enough power. In these times, then rattle around in Rwanda, the diesel generators to keep office buildings and industrial plants running.
But the transport of diesel to the remote port was not expensive at Kenya's coastal and environmentally friendly, says Coletha Ruhamya, Rwanda's state minister for water and energy. The young woman sits in her office at the Ministry of Infrastructure in Kigali. Just before the Ministry, the road is paved fresh. Near the Ministry now Africa's largest conference center, five-star hotel and shopping center will be included. To shed light on all these new buildings need to be able to, it's much more current than Rwanda currently produces Ruhamya nods: "We recognized that we can not develop economically if we do not generate enough cheap electricity."
why you think about it in the Infrastructure Ministry, Project Systems build for the production of biogas, thermal or solar energy. Of all these resources, the methane gas seems most promising. 2020, the Minister said, would be 35 percent of households are connected to the electricity grid. Even power lines to neighboring countries Uganda and DR Congo are currently being laid. Because you expect, "soon also export electricity to neighboring countries to" once every four currently planned methane projects in the Kivu fully functional.
Ivan Twagirashema is confident that zusammenzubekommen around $ 150 million to build a 50 MW platform. Twagirashema methane is responsible for the second project, currently being overhauled at the shore: the platform The Rwanda Energy Company, a subsidiary of the Rwanda Investment Group, a company of Rwandan oligarchs. "We do currently negotiating with international investors, are part of this exciting and unique project," he says. Once negotiations are completed, Twagirashema, "we can in three to four years produce 50 MW."
In June, the plant produced 2.4 MW. But for now it needs to be overhauled in order to generate the targeted 3.6 MW. Currently, the engineers are waiting for replacement parts from overseas. Nevertheless Twagirashema convinced to have the greatest challenges already behind him: "We started with a project idea, the only theory existed on paper, "he recalls. But he was convinced that, after many tests, the system works," he says, pointing to three high-gloss photos on his desk. Torches blaze out from a tower on the shores of Lake Kivu. "This methane flares are the proof that we extract gas from the lake that burns: methane." All this enthusiasm is
in Rwanda, the German geophysicist Klaus Tietze skeptical. "Papa Kivu" Tietze is also called. By 1974, the then PhD student had a rusty barge from German, built in 1903, dipped specially developed measuring instruments in the lake. His conclusion: The lake is not a complex system of interacting factors, and are all explored. No one could predict how the lake responds. "If one weakens the stable layers, then the risk of an outbreak rises by natural events over the current state," he warns. 
Tietze know from personal experience: Many investors act in a profit-oriented and first save in the research.
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