May 04, 2017
NASA astronauts Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei and their Russian crewmate Alexander Misurkinwill conduct a news conference Wednesday, May 10.
NASA astronauts Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei and their Russian crewmate Alexander Misurkin, who are part of an upcoming International Space Station crew, will conduct a news conference and be available for media interviews Wednesday, May 10, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The news conference will be broadcast on NASA Television and streamed on the agency website.
Acaba, a veteran astronaut, and Vande Hei, a first-time space flyer, as well as veteran cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, will launch to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft Sept. 13, 2017, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They will join the space station’s Expedition 53 and 54 crews, and return to Earth in March 2018.
The news conference will air live on NASA Television at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, May 10. Reporters who wish to participate by telephone must call Johnson's newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 1:45 p.m. Those following the briefing on social media can ask questions using the hashtag #askNASA.
After the news conference, interview opportunities are available in person or by phone. To request credentials to attend in person or to reserve an interview opportunity, U.S. reporters must contact Johnson's newsroom by 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 9.
During their planned five-month mission, the station crew members will take part in approximately 250 research investigations and technology demonstrations not possible on Earth in order to advance scientific knowledge of Earth, space, physical and biological sciences. Science conducted on the space station continues to yield benefits for humanity and will enable future long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space, including Mars.
This will be Acaba’s third trip to the space station and his second long-duration mission. He was selected as an astronaut in 2004, and flew aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-119 mission to deliver the final pair of power-generating solar array wings and a truss element to the space station in 2009. He returned to the station for a longer stay in 2012, as part of the station’s Expedition 31 and 32 crews. He has logged a total of 138 days in space during two missions.
Born in Inglewood, California, Acaba grew up in Anaheim, California, He earned a bachelor's degree in geology at University of California in Santa Barbara, one master’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona, and one in education, curriculum and instruction from Texas Tech University. Before coming to NASA, he spent time in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and the Peace Corps, worked as a hydrogeologist and taught high school and middle school.
Vande Hei was selected in 2009 as a member of the 20th NASA astronaut class and completed astronaut training in 2011. Prior to becoming an astronaut, the Virginia native earned a bachelor‘s degree in physics from Saint John's University and a master of science in applied physics from Stanford University. He was commissioned in the U.S. Army through the ROTC program and served as a combat engineer. In 1999, he became an assistant professor of physics at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. In 2006, Vande Hei served as a Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) in Mission Control, Houston, for Expeditions 15 through 20 and space shuttle missions STS-122, 123, 124, 126 and 127.
Find Acaba’s and Vande Hei’s full biographies at:
https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/astronauts/active
Follow Vande Hei on Twitter at:
@Astro_Sabot
Learn more about the International Space Station and its crews at:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Showing posts with label H. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 May 2017
GE to supply power generation technology for Ghana's 400 MW Bridge Power project
GE to supply power generation technology for Ghana’s 400 MW Bridge Power project
Upon completion, it will be Africa’s first LPG fired power plant and the world’s largest plant of its kind
ACCRA, Ghana, May 4, 2017/ --
400 megawatt (MW) greenfield project will be Africa’s first liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fired power plant and world’s largest plant of its kind
Project will provide enough electricity for the equivalent of up to 17 percent of Ghana’s capacity and address the long-term energy requirements of the country
Fuel-flexible plant can run on LPG, natural gas and diesel
GE (NYSE: GE) (www.GE.com) announced today that it will supply the power generation equipment for the Bridge Power plant project in Tema, Ghana. The equipment, which will be used in the first phase of the project, will collectively generate 200 MW of power. An additional 200 MW of power will be deployed in stage two of the project.
The equipment scope includes GE’s TM2500 gas turbine generator sets (http://APO.af/NLoyzW) and GE’s steam turbines in a combined cycle (CC) configuration. This will be the first time the TM2500 gas turbines will be used in a combined cycle configuration globally and marks a milestone for the technology, which was also selected this week for Angola’s ambitious electrification program (http://APO.af/n16rSu) led by PRODEL.
“The Bridge Power plant successfully brings together the need for a cost-effective fuel solution, in this case liquefied petroleum gas, with an integrated power solution driven by GE’s latest flexible technology” said Leslie Nelson, CEO, GE’s Gas Power Systems for Sub Saharan Africa.
The 400 megawatt (MW) Bridge Power and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) import, storage, and transportation infrastructure project will address Ghana’s long-term energy requirements by providing enough electricity for the equivalent of up to 17 percent of the country’s capacity. Upon completion, it will be Africa’s first LPG fired power plant and the world’s largest plant of its kind. The fuel-flexible plant will also be capable of being fueled by LPG, natural gas or diesel.
Bridge Power is being developed by the Early Power Limited (“EPL”) consortium under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Electricity Corporation of Ghana (ECG). The EPL consortium comprises of Endeavor Energy, a leading independent power development and generation company focused on Africa; Sage, a leading independent trading firm in Ghana; and GE (General Electric).
The Bridge power plant project will bring much needed electricity to Ghana and is expected to have an immediate positive impact on the reliable operation of schools, factories, offices, other local businesses, hospitals, and households. The project is another example of how GE works with the government, corporate customers and other stakeholders in Ghana. Together, GE and its customers in Ghana support economic growth through infrastructure development in the power, oil & gas and healthcare sectors. In March this year, GE opened a 5,600 square meter oil & gas facility in Takoradi, that will serve as a primary service center for deep-water offshore projects.
Distributed by APO on behalf of GE.
For more information, please contact:
Anne Ezeh
Communications Manager, GE Africa
+234 7031779857
Anne.Ezeh@GE.com
Thomas Millas
Communications Manager, GE Power
+1 910 515 7873
Thomas.Millas@GE.com
About GE:
GE (NYSE: GE) (www.GE.com) is the world's Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry.
About GE Power:
GE Power is a world leader in power generation with deep domain expertise to help customers deliver electricity from a wide spectrum of fuel sources. We are transforming the electricity industry with the digital power plant, the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine, full balance of plant, upgrade and service solutions as well as our data-leveraging software. Our innovative technologies and digital offerings help make power more affordable, reliable, accessible and sustainable.
SOURCE
GE
Upon completion, it will be Africa’s first LPG fired power plant and the world’s largest plant of its kind
ACCRA, Ghana, May 4, 2017/ --
400 megawatt (MW) greenfield project will be Africa’s first liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fired power plant and world’s largest plant of its kind
Project will provide enough electricity for the equivalent of up to 17 percent of Ghana’s capacity and address the long-term energy requirements of the country
Fuel-flexible plant can run on LPG, natural gas and diesel
GE (NYSE: GE) (www.GE.com) announced today that it will supply the power generation equipment for the Bridge Power plant project in Tema, Ghana. The equipment, which will be used in the first phase of the project, will collectively generate 200 MW of power. An additional 200 MW of power will be deployed in stage two of the project.
The equipment scope includes GE’s TM2500 gas turbine generator sets (http://APO.af/NLoyzW) and GE’s steam turbines in a combined cycle (CC) configuration. This will be the first time the TM2500 gas turbines will be used in a combined cycle configuration globally and marks a milestone for the technology, which was also selected this week for Angola’s ambitious electrification program (http://APO.af/n16rSu) led by PRODEL.
“The Bridge Power plant successfully brings together the need for a cost-effective fuel solution, in this case liquefied petroleum gas, with an integrated power solution driven by GE’s latest flexible technology” said Leslie Nelson, CEO, GE’s Gas Power Systems for Sub Saharan Africa.
The 400 megawatt (MW) Bridge Power and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) import, storage, and transportation infrastructure project will address Ghana’s long-term energy requirements by providing enough electricity for the equivalent of up to 17 percent of the country’s capacity. Upon completion, it will be Africa’s first LPG fired power plant and the world’s largest plant of its kind. The fuel-flexible plant will also be capable of being fueled by LPG, natural gas or diesel.
Bridge Power is being developed by the Early Power Limited (“EPL”) consortium under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Electricity Corporation of Ghana (ECG). The EPL consortium comprises of Endeavor Energy, a leading independent power development and generation company focused on Africa; Sage, a leading independent trading firm in Ghana; and GE (General Electric).
The Bridge power plant project will bring much needed electricity to Ghana and is expected to have an immediate positive impact on the reliable operation of schools, factories, offices, other local businesses, hospitals, and households. The project is another example of how GE works with the government, corporate customers and other stakeholders in Ghana. Together, GE and its customers in Ghana support economic growth through infrastructure development in the power, oil & gas and healthcare sectors. In March this year, GE opened a 5,600 square meter oil & gas facility in Takoradi, that will serve as a primary service center for deep-water offshore projects.
Distributed by APO on behalf of GE.
For more information, please contact:
Anne Ezeh
Communications Manager, GE Africa
+234 7031779857
Anne.Ezeh@GE.com
Thomas Millas
Communications Manager, GE Power
+1 910 515 7873
Thomas.Millas@GE.com
About GE:
GE (NYSE: GE) (www.GE.com) is the world's Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry.
About GE Power:
GE Power is a world leader in power generation with deep domain expertise to help customers deliver electricity from a wide spectrum of fuel sources. We are transforming the electricity industry with the digital power plant, the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbine, full balance of plant, upgrade and service solutions as well as our data-leveraging software. Our innovative technologies and digital offerings help make power more affordable, reliable, accessible and sustainable.
SOURCE
GE
Sunday, 30 April 2017
MIT News: Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrification
MIT News
MIT Energy Initiative
Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrification
At MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, researchers are exploring ways to extend electricity access to rural communities in India using microgrids.
By Kathryn M. O'Neill | MIT Energy Initiative
January 21, 2016
More than 300 million people in India have no access to grid electricity, and the problem is especially acute in rural communities, which can be difficult and expensive to reach with grid power.
At MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, researchers are exploring ways to extend electricity access to such communities using microgrids — independent electricity generation and distribution systems that service one village or even just a few houses. In addition to being flexible in size, microgrids can run on whatever power sources are available, including wind, hydropower, and the source accessible at all sites: solar power.
“A large number of people, particularly in rural India, won’t be electrified for decades, and the situation is similar in other parts of southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The statistics say that 1.5 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity, but many more don’t have reliable access,” says Robert Stoner, deputy director for science and technology at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and director of the Tata Center. “We’re looking for ways to make electricity available to everyone without necessarily having to go through the costly and time-consuming process of extending the [national] electric grid. With policy support in the form of regulation and financing … it’s conceivable that microgrids could proliferate very quickly. They might not supply a level of access equivalent to that offered by a well-managed grid but would provide an affordable and significant step forward in quality of life.”
Microgrids can be powered by diesel generators or by renewable technologies, among them solar power, which is becoming more attractive as the cost of solar technology falls. “If you use solar, [the fuel is] essentially free,” says Rajeev Ram, MIT professor of electrical engineering and a Tata Center researcher. In addition, he says, “microgrids are attractive because they let you pool resources.”
Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of microgrids has been stymied by several challenges, including the high cost of setting up private generation and distribution systems and the business risk of investing in a system that’s susceptible to being undercut by an extension of the electric grid.
At the Tata Center, researchers are addressing such concerns from multiple angles — from mapping out national electrification networks, to providing planning assistance to rural entrepreneurs, to developing technology that can make it easier to build microgrids organically, from the grassroots up. Indeed, the researchers say that properly designed microgrids can be grid-compatible, reducing the risk to investors and providing an intermediate stage to grid connection where this is technically and economically viable.
“Everyone agrees we have to scale microgrids” to address the rural electrification gap, says Brian Spatocco, a Tata Fellow who worked on microgrids as a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering at MIT. The problem, he says, is that “not one size fits all.”
Reference electrification model
To address the microgrid challenge at the macro level, Tata researchers led by Stoner and Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, a visiting professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management from IIT-Comillas University in Madrid, Spain, have been developing and implementing a sophisticated computer program that can help government planners determine the best way to provide electricity to all potential consumers.
The Reference Electrification Model (REM) pulls information from a range of data sets — which in India include satellite imagery, the Census of India, and India’s National Sample Survey, which gathers statistics for planning purposes. REM then uses the data to determine where extending the grid will be most cost-effective and where other solutions, such as a microgrid or even an isolated home solar system, would be more practical.
“We are approaching the problem of rural electrification from the perspective of planners and regulators,” Stoner says.
Satellite imagery is used to map the buildings in a given location, and demand is estimated based on the types and profiles of the buildings. REM then uses pricing and technical data on such equipment as solar panels, batteries, and wiring to estimate the costs of electrification on or off the grid and to make preliminary engineering designs for the recommended systems. The model essentially produces a snapshot of a lowest-cost electrification plan as if one could be built up overnight.
“This is a technology tool that [officials] can use to inform policy decisions,” says Claudio Vergara, a MITEI postdoc working on the REM project. “We’re not trying to tell them what the plan should be, but we’re helping them compare different options. After a decision has been made and detailed information about the sites is gathered, REM can be used to produce more detailed designs to support the implementation of each of the three electrification modes.”
Currently, Tata researchers are using REM to model an electrification plan for Vaishali, a district of 3.5 million people in the state of Bihar in India. “We’re designing the system down to every house,” Stoner says.
In the project, results from REM were used to identify the best locations in Vaishali for microgrids (see Figure 1 in the slideshow above). In July 2015, the team visited two candidate sites, each with between 70 and 250 houses, and REM will now be used to produce a detailed technical design showing all the equipment and wiring needed to electrify them. Then, Vergara says, a local Tata partner will put REM to the test by actually building the microgrids. “The pilot will help us improve the model,” Vergara says. “We’re making many modeling assumptions now, so we need real-world validation.” Once the software has been perfected, Stoner says, the researchers plan to make it openly available.
GridForm
Another project under way at the Tata Center addresses the barriers to entry for potential microgrid entrepreneurs. Such businesses face several hurdles, including the high cost of determining the most cost-effective sites for their projects. India’s government and public utilities often provide no information about where the electric grid is likely to be extended next, and calculating the likely demand for electricity in a village typically requires costly, on-the-ground research — all of which makes it tough for any potential microgrid entrepreneur to make the case for profitability and to secure financing.
Three MIT graduate students and a postdoc are working to develop GridForm, a planning framework that rapidly identifies, digitizes, and models rural development sites, with the goal of automating some of the work required to design a microgrid for a small village.
“Doing a custom system for every village creates so much work for companies — in time and in the human resources burden — that it can’t scale,” Spatocco says. “We’re trying to expedite the planning piece so [entrepreneurs] can serve more people and reduce costs.”
Like REM, GridForm begins with satellite data, but GridForm goes on to use advanced machine learning to model individual villages with a high level of detail. “We’ll say this is a house and this is a house, hit run, and the machine learns the properties of a house, such as size and shape,” Spatocco says. The goal is to produce a hardware and cost model of a target village that is 90 percent accurate before anyone even visits the site.
GridForm also develops load estimates, based on factors such as demographics and the proximity of buildings, and provides entrepreneurs with potential microgrid designs and even lists of necessary equipment. The program incorporates data sets on solar radiance and uses an algorithm to determine the best configuration of solar panels, battery packs, and distribution wires to power the greatest number of houses at the lowest cost.
“We’re providing everything from siting to planning to implementation — the whole process,” says Kendall Nowocin, a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science working on GridForm. The other two researchers working on the project are George Chen PhD ’15, an MITx postdoctoral teaching fellow, and Ling Xu, a PhD student in health sciences and technology.
The main difference from REM, the researchers say, is that GridForm envisions electrification being built from the ground up rather than from the top down. “We think rural entrepreneurs will electrify themselves,” Spatocco says. “We want to create insights that are immediately useful to practitioners on the ground — what to buy, what it will cost, where to put it.”
Already GridForm has been used to develop detailed microgrid plans for four villages in the state of Bihar, and the team is working with Indian social enterprise SELCO Solar to do the installations, providing service to 2,000 to 3,000 people.
uLink
A third Tata Center project focuses on fostering the organic growth of microgrids by enabling residents to share extra power-generating capacity with their neighbors via an inexpensive piece of hardware, the uLink power management unit (PMU).
A “demand response” system that meters and controls the flow of electricity, uLink can adjust the demands it serves based on the supply of electricity that’s available. The system reflects an innovative approach to electrification, Ram says — one that acknowledges that the standards for electrification common in the developed world are unrealistically high for poor, remote areas. Building in the system redundancies necessary to ensure 99.9 percent availability is simply too expensive — and particularly unrealistic in India, where even the areas served by the grid are plagued by power outages.
“Here we can guarantee a basic level of service, but we don’t guarantee 99.9 percent,” Ram says. “This is a very powerful way to manage the cost of electricity infrastructure. Demand response allows you to size the system for average demand, versus peak demand.”
What that means is that when the sun is shining and batteries are fully charged, microgrid customers can run all of their appliances, but when it’s been cloudy for a few days and the system is low on power, uLink can signal users to shut off loads; as a last resort, it can even shut off loads automatically. Automating this function eases the social difficulty of sharing electricity, the researchers say. Once users have pooled their resources, there’s no need to argue over who can use which appliances; uLink allots electricity based on which loads have been predetermined as “critical” and therefore not subject to shutoff when system demand peaks. Everything else can be shut off by uLink as needs arise.
Users themselves determine which few loads are “critical,” providing an element of choice not typically seen in home solar systems, which hardwire their loads. uLink features several outlets, enabling users to plug in a variety of appliances. At maximum capacity, the initial prototype low-voltage, DC system provides about 25 watts per household, enough to run a fan, a cellphone charger, and a couple of lights.
“The hardest part is making a box with all these functions at a cost people can afford,” Ram says, noting that the uLink consumer unit is designed to cost about as much as a cellphone, making it affordable for most Indian villagers.
uLink was field-tested in June 2015 — five houses were wired together for two weeks — and the delivery, metering, and networking systems worked well. The next milestone for the developers is to test the algorithm designed to estimate how much electricity is available from the system’s batteries and solar panels and optimally shed loads. “This is definitely a work in progress,” Ram says.
Indeed, all three Tata Center projects are still being refined, but together they offer a rich portfolio of potential solutions to the problem of rural electrification, the effects of which many of the researchers have seen firsthand.
“Electricity is not just empowering. It’s an enabling force. Electricity goes right into livelihood activities,” Spatocco says, noting that just a few lights make it possible for residents to work in the evenings, for example, or to improve their efficiency with simple machinery, such as sewing machines. “People can double or triple their economic output.”
There are also benefits few in the West might imagine, as Ram discovered by interviewing residents of one non-electrified Indian village: “They conveyed how frightening it can be to have a snake in the village if no one has a light.”
This research was supported by the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design. Work on GridForm also received support from the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge. The REM program also benefited from other studies undertaken outside India supported by ENEL Foundation and Iberdrola.
This article appears in the Autumn 2015 issue of Energy Futures, the magazine of the MIT Energy Initiative.
MIT Energy Initiative
Going off grid: Tata researchers tackle rural electrification
At MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, researchers are exploring ways to extend electricity access to rural communities in India using microgrids.
By Kathryn M. O'Neill | MIT Energy Initiative
January 21, 2016
More than 300 million people in India have no access to grid electricity, and the problem is especially acute in rural communities, which can be difficult and expensive to reach with grid power.
At MIT’s Tata Center for Technology and Design, researchers are exploring ways to extend electricity access to such communities using microgrids — independent electricity generation and distribution systems that service one village or even just a few houses. In addition to being flexible in size, microgrids can run on whatever power sources are available, including wind, hydropower, and the source accessible at all sites: solar power.
“A large number of people, particularly in rural India, won’t be electrified for decades, and the situation is similar in other parts of southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The statistics say that 1.5 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity, but many more don’t have reliable access,” says Robert Stoner, deputy director for science and technology at the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and director of the Tata Center. “We’re looking for ways to make electricity available to everyone without necessarily having to go through the costly and time-consuming process of extending the [national] electric grid. With policy support in the form of regulation and financing … it’s conceivable that microgrids could proliferate very quickly. They might not supply a level of access equivalent to that offered by a well-managed grid but would provide an affordable and significant step forward in quality of life.”
Microgrids can be powered by diesel generators or by renewable technologies, among them solar power, which is becoming more attractive as the cost of solar technology falls. “If you use solar, [the fuel is] essentially free,” says Rajeev Ram, MIT professor of electrical engineering and a Tata Center researcher. In addition, he says, “microgrids are attractive because they let you pool resources.”
Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of microgrids has been stymied by several challenges, including the high cost of setting up private generation and distribution systems and the business risk of investing in a system that’s susceptible to being undercut by an extension of the electric grid.
At the Tata Center, researchers are addressing such concerns from multiple angles — from mapping out national electrification networks, to providing planning assistance to rural entrepreneurs, to developing technology that can make it easier to build microgrids organically, from the grassroots up. Indeed, the researchers say that properly designed microgrids can be grid-compatible, reducing the risk to investors and providing an intermediate stage to grid connection where this is technically and economically viable.
“Everyone agrees we have to scale microgrids” to address the rural electrification gap, says Brian Spatocco, a Tata Fellow who worked on microgrids as a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering at MIT. The problem, he says, is that “not one size fits all.”
Reference electrification model
To address the microgrid challenge at the macro level, Tata researchers led by Stoner and Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, a visiting professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management from IIT-Comillas University in Madrid, Spain, have been developing and implementing a sophisticated computer program that can help government planners determine the best way to provide electricity to all potential consumers.
The Reference Electrification Model (REM) pulls information from a range of data sets — which in India include satellite imagery, the Census of India, and India’s National Sample Survey, which gathers statistics for planning purposes. REM then uses the data to determine where extending the grid will be most cost-effective and where other solutions, such as a microgrid or even an isolated home solar system, would be more practical.
“We are approaching the problem of rural electrification from the perspective of planners and regulators,” Stoner says.
Satellite imagery is used to map the buildings in a given location, and demand is estimated based on the types and profiles of the buildings. REM then uses pricing and technical data on such equipment as solar panels, batteries, and wiring to estimate the costs of electrification on or off the grid and to make preliminary engineering designs for the recommended systems. The model essentially produces a snapshot of a lowest-cost electrification plan as if one could be built up overnight.
“This is a technology tool that [officials] can use to inform policy decisions,” says Claudio Vergara, a MITEI postdoc working on the REM project. “We’re not trying to tell them what the plan should be, but we’re helping them compare different options. After a decision has been made and detailed information about the sites is gathered, REM can be used to produce more detailed designs to support the implementation of each of the three electrification modes.”
Currently, Tata researchers are using REM to model an electrification plan for Vaishali, a district of 3.5 million people in the state of Bihar in India. “We’re designing the system down to every house,” Stoner says.
In the project, results from REM were used to identify the best locations in Vaishali for microgrids (see Figure 1 in the slideshow above). In July 2015, the team visited two candidate sites, each with between 70 and 250 houses, and REM will now be used to produce a detailed technical design showing all the equipment and wiring needed to electrify them. Then, Vergara says, a local Tata partner will put REM to the test by actually building the microgrids. “The pilot will help us improve the model,” Vergara says. “We’re making many modeling assumptions now, so we need real-world validation.” Once the software has been perfected, Stoner says, the researchers plan to make it openly available.
GridForm
Another project under way at the Tata Center addresses the barriers to entry for potential microgrid entrepreneurs. Such businesses face several hurdles, including the high cost of determining the most cost-effective sites for their projects. India’s government and public utilities often provide no information about where the electric grid is likely to be extended next, and calculating the likely demand for electricity in a village typically requires costly, on-the-ground research — all of which makes it tough for any potential microgrid entrepreneur to make the case for profitability and to secure financing.
Three MIT graduate students and a postdoc are working to develop GridForm, a planning framework that rapidly identifies, digitizes, and models rural development sites, with the goal of automating some of the work required to design a microgrid for a small village.
“Doing a custom system for every village creates so much work for companies — in time and in the human resources burden — that it can’t scale,” Spatocco says. “We’re trying to expedite the planning piece so [entrepreneurs] can serve more people and reduce costs.”
Like REM, GridForm begins with satellite data, but GridForm goes on to use advanced machine learning to model individual villages with a high level of detail. “We’ll say this is a house and this is a house, hit run, and the machine learns the properties of a house, such as size and shape,” Spatocco says. The goal is to produce a hardware and cost model of a target village that is 90 percent accurate before anyone even visits the site.
GridForm also develops load estimates, based on factors such as demographics and the proximity of buildings, and provides entrepreneurs with potential microgrid designs and even lists of necessary equipment. The program incorporates data sets on solar radiance and uses an algorithm to determine the best configuration of solar panels, battery packs, and distribution wires to power the greatest number of houses at the lowest cost.
“We’re providing everything from siting to planning to implementation — the whole process,” says Kendall Nowocin, a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science working on GridForm. The other two researchers working on the project are George Chen PhD ’15, an MITx postdoctoral teaching fellow, and Ling Xu, a PhD student in health sciences and technology.
The main difference from REM, the researchers say, is that GridForm envisions electrification being built from the ground up rather than from the top down. “We think rural entrepreneurs will electrify themselves,” Spatocco says. “We want to create insights that are immediately useful to practitioners on the ground — what to buy, what it will cost, where to put it.”
Already GridForm has been used to develop detailed microgrid plans for four villages in the state of Bihar, and the team is working with Indian social enterprise SELCO Solar to do the installations, providing service to 2,000 to 3,000 people.
uLink
A third Tata Center project focuses on fostering the organic growth of microgrids by enabling residents to share extra power-generating capacity with their neighbors via an inexpensive piece of hardware, the uLink power management unit (PMU).
A “demand response” system that meters and controls the flow of electricity, uLink can adjust the demands it serves based on the supply of electricity that’s available. The system reflects an innovative approach to electrification, Ram says — one that acknowledges that the standards for electrification common in the developed world are unrealistically high for poor, remote areas. Building in the system redundancies necessary to ensure 99.9 percent availability is simply too expensive — and particularly unrealistic in India, where even the areas served by the grid are plagued by power outages.
“Here we can guarantee a basic level of service, but we don’t guarantee 99.9 percent,” Ram says. “This is a very powerful way to manage the cost of electricity infrastructure. Demand response allows you to size the system for average demand, versus peak demand.”
What that means is that when the sun is shining and batteries are fully charged, microgrid customers can run all of their appliances, but when it’s been cloudy for a few days and the system is low on power, uLink can signal users to shut off loads; as a last resort, it can even shut off loads automatically. Automating this function eases the social difficulty of sharing electricity, the researchers say. Once users have pooled their resources, there’s no need to argue over who can use which appliances; uLink allots electricity based on which loads have been predetermined as “critical” and therefore not subject to shutoff when system demand peaks. Everything else can be shut off by uLink as needs arise.
Users themselves determine which few loads are “critical,” providing an element of choice not typically seen in home solar systems, which hardwire their loads. uLink features several outlets, enabling users to plug in a variety of appliances. At maximum capacity, the initial prototype low-voltage, DC system provides about 25 watts per household, enough to run a fan, a cellphone charger, and a couple of lights.
“The hardest part is making a box with all these functions at a cost people can afford,” Ram says, noting that the uLink consumer unit is designed to cost about as much as a cellphone, making it affordable for most Indian villagers.
uLink was field-tested in June 2015 — five houses were wired together for two weeks — and the delivery, metering, and networking systems worked well. The next milestone for the developers is to test the algorithm designed to estimate how much electricity is available from the system’s batteries and solar panels and optimally shed loads. “This is definitely a work in progress,” Ram says.
Indeed, all three Tata Center projects are still being refined, but together they offer a rich portfolio of potential solutions to the problem of rural electrification, the effects of which many of the researchers have seen firsthand.
“Electricity is not just empowering. It’s an enabling force. Electricity goes right into livelihood activities,” Spatocco says, noting that just a few lights make it possible for residents to work in the evenings, for example, or to improve their efficiency with simple machinery, such as sewing machines. “People can double or triple their economic output.”
There are also benefits few in the West might imagine, as Ram discovered by interviewing residents of one non-electrified Indian village: “They conveyed how frightening it can be to have a snake in the village if no one has a light.”
This research was supported by the MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design. Work on GridForm also received support from the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge. The REM program also benefited from other studies undertaken outside India supported by ENEL Foundation and Iberdrola.
This article appears in the Autumn 2015 issue of Energy Futures, the magazine of the MIT Energy Initiative.
Saturday, 29 April 2017
Will A More Tolerant Society Not Serve Ghana Better?
The polarisation of Ghanaian society resulting from the divisive nature of our nation's politics is one of the greatest drawbacks to the transformation of our country,
It is preventing our nation from moving forward at a much faster pace.
Tolerance of opposing views is a vital ingredient in any society that commits to upholding and protecting its democratic system of government.
Younger generation Ghanaians need to understand that democracy is not only just about institutions of state, constitutions, elections etc., etc.
Above all, democracy is a way of life based on tolerance. We need to be more tolerant of each other's viewpoints and foibles as a people - and to undrstand that tolerance ensures peace coexistence.
For the sake of this blog's many younger generation Ghanaian readers, we have culled and posted an inspiring article by a University of California at Berkley student, Pranav Jandhyala, who founded BridgeUSA to bring together fellow-minded open-minded students on the Berkley campus.
One hopes that members of the two affiliates of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the main opposition party the National Democratic Congress (NDC), on university campuses across Ghana, the Tertiary Students Confederacy of the NPP (TESCON), and the NDC'sTertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), will read Pranav Jandhyala's very interesting article - and learn from it. Ditto Ghana's current crop of active young politicians..
Please read on:
"The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
PostEverything Perspective
I invited Ann Coulter to speak at UC Berkeley. Here’s why.
My group doesn't agree with her, but we believe in free speech.
By Pranav Jandhyala April 27
Pranav Jandhyala is a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the founder and co-president of BridgeUSA at Berkeley.
"Here's why a UC Berkeley freshman invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus
Play Video2:56 president of BridgeUSA, the nonpartisan organization that invited conservative commentator Ann Coulter to campus. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
I am the founder of BridgeUSA at Berkeley, the nonpartisan organization that worked with College Republicans to invite Ann Coulter to the University of California at Berkeley’s campus. Our organization hopes to create a future in which our campus and our country are venues for free and fair political discussion and debate from all sides. We stand for the preservation of spaces where political ideas can be shared and challenged without fear of violence.
To that end, we decided to help bring Coulter to Berkeley today to speak to a body of mainly liberal students on immigration. Unfortunately, threatened attacks from extremist groups forced the cancellation of this event. Let’s be clear: Blame for the cancellation of Coulter’s speech does not rest solely on the shoulders of any individual. The administration, student groups including ours, external resistance groups and the media all made mistakes that need to be corrected. Fundamentally, though, the system of political dialogue and debate is broken, not just on this campus, but across the nation.
We formed our organization earlier this year after the infamous Milo Yiannopoulos event here, where an incendiary speaker, violent rioters and a divided nation combined to create the perfect storm of political controversy. The university canceled a speech in February by Yiannopoulos, a prominent conservative writer, after intense protests that led to a campuswide “shelter in place” order. That day, instigation and violence replaced mediation and conversation — and we wanted to repair this breakdown in communication. Our goal since then has been to facilitate dialogue between political opposites, allowing everyone to engage with and understand opposing viewpoints. We have so far been successful in hosting forum sessions and debates on a series of different issues. We’ve hosted five events in about two months. Many students were immediately interested in our mission, and our membership has expanded rapidly — we have 40 officers and about 150 to 200 members.
Coulter was the choice of conservative groups on campus to represent their perspective in a larger campus debate about illegal immigration we were hosting. Liberal groups on campus had chosen Maria Echaveste, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. She spoke on April 17 and answered questions from conservative students in the audience.
Coulter’s ideas have an audience, and though most members of our group don’t agree with her, we recognize the following she draws. We also understand that many see her as an inflammatory figure with destructive beliefs that disqualify her from appearing at an institution of higher learning. But we believe the only productive way to fight views one sees as bad or dangerous is with better views. So we chose to get involved and include Coulter in our speaker series on immigration so students could hear, and actively challenge, her views. We planned for the event to be a debate-style Q&A with rebuttals to allow for a back-and-forth dialogue. Coulter would have fielded tough questions about her views from students in the audience, and we would have done our part to ensure that she would answer those questions in their entirety and give students the opportunity to respond. Rather than repeating the failures of Yiannopoulos’s event, we wanted to create a national example for what free discourse and the questioning of ideas should look like here at Berkeley, the home of the free speech movement 50 years ago.
Free speech isn’t about provocation, violence, publicity stunts, selling books or testing limits. At their best, universities start and nurture conversations that advance dialogue and understanding further. Regrettably, the developments surrounding this event led it to fall out of line with our beliefs as an organization.
ZwBridgeUSA at Berkeley’s role and our plan for the event, instead reporting that the incident was a repeat of the Yiannopoulos fracas — exactly what set out to avoid. And as the tensions between student safety and free speech entered the justice system, Yiannopoulos himself announced that he would be organizing a “free speech week” on Sproul Plaza where he and his supporters would attack a new perceived “enemy of free speech” every day. It pains me to see our campus being used as a pulpit for bad actors, people whose goal is to elevate themselves by inciting violence, without a thought for the safety of students who live and attend school here.
Sproul Plaza is becoming a battleground, and the ones who are left to pick up the bill of consequences is the Berkeley student body, which is vilified every day in the press for destruction that outside groups are responsible for. Antifa and other “black-bloc” groups that are able to organize do so far beyond the perimeters of our campus, and they receive an insignificant amount of support from Berkeley students, if any. But in national news, all that’s seen is violence and destruction being used to censor speech.
What’s disheartening to me is seeing the words “free speech” being used as a tool to garner headlines and publicity. The whole purpose behind the idea of free speech has been lost. What’s happening on our campus is no longer about advancing discourse anymore. It’s no longer an attempt to reach a larger truth and understanding about policy issues so that better decisions can be made. It’s just a furious chase to get in front of the news cameras and be trending on Twitter and Facebook.
Conservative groups, in their attempt to frame this complex series of events as a “free speech battle” by suing Berkeley’s administration, have used the label of free speech as a tool for publicity. Our organization prides itself on the values of free inquiry and discourse, yet we understand the impossible trade-off that the university faces: the administration is caught between upholding its commitment to free speech and its responsibility for student safety.
The administration attempted to work with us, to propose alternative dates this semester and next semester where a defensible venue would be available. In balancing the concerns of protecting students and allowing peaceful protest, they never backed down from their commitment to help us bring Coulter to campus. It is easy and expedient to blame the university in this situation, but that avoids the actual problem. The true issue here is not the way that the university handled this situation; rather, it is the fact that this trade-off between student safety and free speech even exists in the first place.
It’s a scary situation when the university cannot perfectly perform its duty, when it cannot guarantee the safety of all speakers at all times in all places. Those who would threaten student safety and destroy our campus to silence speech they disagree with are culpable for the existence of this new trade-off. And violence and threats which restrict the free exchange of ideas constitute fascism under the banner of anti-fascism.
We challenge the Berkeley administration, the Berkeley College Republicans and Coulter to work collaboratively and address the cancellation of the event and the current political climate. These respective parties continue to affirm their commitment to free speech, but they have demonstrated minimal effort in speaking freely with one another. Civil discussions are necessary to progress our democracy and address pressing points of contention.
We can alleviate polarization if we come to the table to talk, but until then, there is no constructive way forward. Threatening violence does not change minds, and instigating controversy for publicity does not fix a broken system. We, as a community, have to recognize that there is a world outside of Berkeley: How can we promote what we believe if we are associated with images of violence? We need to act with the knowledge that everyone is watching.
We refuse to meet speech with violence and oppression. We refuse to invoke the right to free speech to inflame, attack and generate publicity. We refuse to accept the current status quo surrounding speech on university campuses across the country. Instead, we will continue to pursue our mission of creating environments in which students can engage with their peers as free thinkers, express their opinions without fear and have their beliefs, suppositions and prejudices challenged rather than dismissed. Only through these means can we begin to bridge the gap brought on by polarization and allow for a free exchange of political ideas."
Written with additional contributions by Sean Vernon, editor of BridgeUSA at Berkeley’s publication
Pranav Jahndyala is a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the founder and co-president of BridgeUSA at Berkeley.
© The Washington Post. All rights reserved.
It is preventing our nation from moving forward at a much faster pace.
Tolerance of opposing views is a vital ingredient in any society that commits to upholding and protecting its democratic system of government.
Younger generation Ghanaians need to understand that democracy is not only just about institutions of state, constitutions, elections etc., etc.
Above all, democracy is a way of life based on tolerance. We need to be more tolerant of each other's viewpoints and foibles as a people - and to undrstand that tolerance ensures peace coexistence.
For the sake of this blog's many younger generation Ghanaian readers, we have culled and posted an inspiring article by a University of California at Berkley student, Pranav Jandhyala, who founded BridgeUSA to bring together fellow-minded open-minded students on the Berkley campus.
One hopes that members of the two affiliates of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the main opposition party the National Democratic Congress (NDC), on university campuses across Ghana, the Tertiary Students Confederacy of the NPP (TESCON), and the NDC'sTertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN), will read Pranav Jandhyala's very interesting article - and learn from it. Ditto Ghana's current crop of active young politicians..
Please read on:
"The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
PostEverything Perspective
I invited Ann Coulter to speak at UC Berkeley. Here’s why.
My group doesn't agree with her, but we believe in free speech.
By Pranav Jandhyala April 27
Pranav Jandhyala is a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the founder and co-president of BridgeUSA at Berkeley.
"Here's why a UC Berkeley freshman invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus
Play Video2:56 president of BridgeUSA, the nonpartisan organization that invited conservative commentator Ann Coulter to campus. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
I am the founder of BridgeUSA at Berkeley, the nonpartisan organization that worked with College Republicans to invite Ann Coulter to the University of California at Berkeley’s campus. Our organization hopes to create a future in which our campus and our country are venues for free and fair political discussion and debate from all sides. We stand for the preservation of spaces where political ideas can be shared and challenged without fear of violence.
To that end, we decided to help bring Coulter to Berkeley today to speak to a body of mainly liberal students on immigration. Unfortunately, threatened attacks from extremist groups forced the cancellation of this event. Let’s be clear: Blame for the cancellation of Coulter’s speech does not rest solely on the shoulders of any individual. The administration, student groups including ours, external resistance groups and the media all made mistakes that need to be corrected. Fundamentally, though, the system of political dialogue and debate is broken, not just on this campus, but across the nation.
We formed our organization earlier this year after the infamous Milo Yiannopoulos event here, where an incendiary speaker, violent rioters and a divided nation combined to create the perfect storm of political controversy. The university canceled a speech in February by Yiannopoulos, a prominent conservative writer, after intense protests that led to a campuswide “shelter in place” order. That day, instigation and violence replaced mediation and conversation — and we wanted to repair this breakdown in communication. Our goal since then has been to facilitate dialogue between political opposites, allowing everyone to engage with and understand opposing viewpoints. We have so far been successful in hosting forum sessions and debates on a series of different issues. We’ve hosted five events in about two months. Many students were immediately interested in our mission, and our membership has expanded rapidly — we have 40 officers and about 150 to 200 members.
Coulter was the choice of conservative groups on campus to represent their perspective in a larger campus debate about illegal immigration we were hosting. Liberal groups on campus had chosen Maria Echaveste, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. She spoke on April 17 and answered questions from conservative students in the audience.
Coulter’s ideas have an audience, and though most members of our group don’t agree with her, we recognize the following she draws. We also understand that many see her as an inflammatory figure with destructive beliefs that disqualify her from appearing at an institution of higher learning. But we believe the only productive way to fight views one sees as bad or dangerous is with better views. So we chose to get involved and include Coulter in our speaker series on immigration so students could hear, and actively challenge, her views. We planned for the event to be a debate-style Q&A with rebuttals to allow for a back-and-forth dialogue. Coulter would have fielded tough questions about her views from students in the audience, and we would have done our part to ensure that she would answer those questions in their entirety and give students the opportunity to respond. Rather than repeating the failures of Yiannopoulos’s event, we wanted to create a national example for what free discourse and the questioning of ideas should look like here at Berkeley, the home of the free speech movement 50 years ago.
Free speech isn’t about provocation, violence, publicity stunts, selling books or testing limits. At their best, universities start and nurture conversations that advance dialogue and understanding further. Regrettably, the developments surrounding this event led it to fall out of line with our beliefs as an organization.
ZwBridgeUSA at Berkeley’s role and our plan for the event, instead reporting that the incident was a repeat of the Yiannopoulos fracas — exactly what set out to avoid. And as the tensions between student safety and free speech entered the justice system, Yiannopoulos himself announced that he would be organizing a “free speech week” on Sproul Plaza where he and his supporters would attack a new perceived “enemy of free speech” every day. It pains me to see our campus being used as a pulpit for bad actors, people whose goal is to elevate themselves by inciting violence, without a thought for the safety of students who live and attend school here.
Sproul Plaza is becoming a battleground, and the ones who are left to pick up the bill of consequences is the Berkeley student body, which is vilified every day in the press for destruction that outside groups are responsible for. Antifa and other “black-bloc” groups that are able to organize do so far beyond the perimeters of our campus, and they receive an insignificant amount of support from Berkeley students, if any. But in national news, all that’s seen is violence and destruction being used to censor speech.
What’s disheartening to me is seeing the words “free speech” being used as a tool to garner headlines and publicity. The whole purpose behind the idea of free speech has been lost. What’s happening on our campus is no longer about advancing discourse anymore. It’s no longer an attempt to reach a larger truth and understanding about policy issues so that better decisions can be made. It’s just a furious chase to get in front of the news cameras and be trending on Twitter and Facebook.
Conservative groups, in their attempt to frame this complex series of events as a “free speech battle” by suing Berkeley’s administration, have used the label of free speech as a tool for publicity. Our organization prides itself on the values of free inquiry and discourse, yet we understand the impossible trade-off that the university faces: the administration is caught between upholding its commitment to free speech and its responsibility for student safety.
The administration attempted to work with us, to propose alternative dates this semester and next semester where a defensible venue would be available. In balancing the concerns of protecting students and allowing peaceful protest, they never backed down from their commitment to help us bring Coulter to campus. It is easy and expedient to blame the university in this situation, but that avoids the actual problem. The true issue here is not the way that the university handled this situation; rather, it is the fact that this trade-off between student safety and free speech even exists in the first place.
It’s a scary situation when the university cannot perfectly perform its duty, when it cannot guarantee the safety of all speakers at all times in all places. Those who would threaten student safety and destroy our campus to silence speech they disagree with are culpable for the existence of this new trade-off. And violence and threats which restrict the free exchange of ideas constitute fascism under the banner of anti-fascism.
We challenge the Berkeley administration, the Berkeley College Republicans and Coulter to work collaboratively and address the cancellation of the event and the current political climate. These respective parties continue to affirm their commitment to free speech, but they have demonstrated minimal effort in speaking freely with one another. Civil discussions are necessary to progress our democracy and address pressing points of contention.
We can alleviate polarization if we come to the table to talk, but until then, there is no constructive way forward. Threatening violence does not change minds, and instigating controversy for publicity does not fix a broken system. We, as a community, have to recognize that there is a world outside of Berkeley: How can we promote what we believe if we are associated with images of violence? We need to act with the knowledge that everyone is watching.
We refuse to meet speech with violence and oppression. We refuse to invoke the right to free speech to inflame, attack and generate publicity. We refuse to accept the current status quo surrounding speech on university campuses across the country. Instead, we will continue to pursue our mission of creating environments in which students can engage with their peers as free thinkers, express their opinions without fear and have their beliefs, suppositions and prejudices challenged rather than dismissed. Only through these means can we begin to bridge the gap brought on by polarization and allow for a free exchange of political ideas."
Written with additional contributions by Sean Vernon, editor of BridgeUSA at Berkeley’s publication
Pranav Jahndyala is a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the founder and co-president of BridgeUSA at Berkeley.
© The Washington Post. All rights reserved.
Monday, 24 October 2016
Why Is The PPP Looking The EC's Gift Horse In The Mouth?
"Any one who has gumption knows what it is, and any one who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it."
- Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942).
Sometimes one finds it incredibly hard to understand some Ghanaian politicians.
Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom has been given a golden opportunity by the Electoral Commission (EC), to help clean up our nation's politics.
Yet, it would appear that his party, the Progressive People's Party (PPP), does not recognise what is a godsend opportunity, for what it actually is.
They ought to be demanding that all political parties in Ghana should publicly publish the sources of their funding. Ditto tell Ghanaians that the PPP 's role in Ghanaian politics is to help Nduom bring the best Ghanaians to work together to make Ghana prosperous - irrespective of their political backgrounds.
The point needs to made, that unlike all the other parties, the PPP is not a political party seeking to rule Ghana exclusively.
So, in effect, trying to stop Nduom from running for president, is tantamount to denying Ghanaians the opportunity to unite and work together, under a transparent leader heading a political party funded in transparent fashion, to transform their nation - which is why the party's members will not allow him to be denied the opportunity to run for president: as patriotic Ghanaians who love their nation.
And Nduom himself, should make that clear to the nation, at every campaign rally he attends - in his usual measured and calm way of making points in debates.
Will that not contrast sharply with the strange silence - on that all-important issue of making public, the sources of their parties' candidates' filing fees and their election campaign funds - by both President Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo: who dare not discuss such things publicly, ever?
Would that not show Ghanaians the difference between the transparently funded PPP, and the other opaque parties that prefer to hide where their funds come from - because doing so will reveal the vested interests they are beholden to: which fund them on a quid pro quo basis so they can all "Chop Ghana small" together?
The question is: Is the opacity in the funding of political parties not a major reason why high-level corruption still persists in Ghana?
Ghanaians now have an opportunity, through well-mannered advocacy by the PPP, to force the EC to get the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to tell Ghanaians precisely where and how they obtained their candidates' filing fees.
The question there is: On what basis is the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) demanding to know the source of the PPP's filing fees for the party's presidential and parliamentary candidates?
Did the EC ask the EOCO to investigate the sources of the PPP's candidates' filing fees? If it did, then why did it not, and why does it not, do same, for all the candidates standing in December's presidential and parliamentary elections? The courts must force the EC to use that same yardstick for all the presidential candidates - or drop that criterion and reinstate Nduom and Hassan Ayariga.
The PPP ought to demand, on behalf of the good people of Ghana, that the EC must apply the same yardstick to every political party fielding candidates in the December elections. They must all tell Ghanaians where their candidates' filing fees came from. Period.
The PPP should also demand that the EC insists that a forensic audit ought to be conducted into the submitted accounts, of all the political parties participating in this year's elections.
That way, we can all be sure that there has not been any creative Kweku-Ananse-accounting, in the audited accounts that political parties have submitted to the EC.
Finally, the PPP should follow U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's advice: "Speak softly but carry a big stick."
They must be cool, calm and collected: No one in the Ghana of today can destroy Nduom's business empire. That can never happen. The EOCO must tread cautiously - and be loyal to Mother Ghana in this instance: not to those now in power.
Ordinary Ghanaians will not allow Nduom's business empire to be destroyed, under any circumstances. His talent for creating wealth, and his extraordinary ability to create jobs in difficult economic conditions, have made him a folk hero, throughout our homeland Ghana.
Most Ghanaians instinctively know that Nduom is the only political leader in Ghana, today, with the nous and gumption to actually transform their country into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.
So, instead of endless rowdy demonstrations, which might put some people off their party, let the PPP rather tie the EC up in the law courts, till it applies the same standards it applied in Nduom's case, to all the presidential candidates' of the other parties - especially those of the corruption-riddled NDC/NPP duopoly.
Above all, with respect, no matter how brilliant they might be as lawyers, it simply does not make sense to let lawyers who are staunch NPP members, to represent Nduom in this matter. Is it not Nduom's committment to investigating all the regimes that have governed Ghana since the 4th Republic came into being, which has led to the conspiracy by the system to eliminate him from the presidential election, I ask?
The PPP ought to understand that it is neither in the interest of the NPP, nor that of the NDC, that Nduom gets the courts to force the EC to apply the same standards it demanded from him, to both those opaque political parties'presidential candidates - as their flagbearers would also then be disqualified from standing in the December presidential election.
The PPP must not look the EC's gift horse in the mouth. Let them rather use the opportunity it represents to force the NDC and NPP to publicly publish the sources of their election campaign funds - by demanding that of the EC and the two major parties on behalf of ordinary people.
- Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942).
Sometimes one finds it incredibly hard to understand some Ghanaian politicians.
Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom has been given a golden opportunity by the Electoral Commission (EC), to help clean up our nation's politics.
Yet, it would appear that his party, the Progressive People's Party (PPP), does not recognise what is a godsend opportunity, for what it actually is.
They ought to be demanding that all political parties in Ghana should publicly publish the sources of their funding. Ditto tell Ghanaians that the PPP 's role in Ghanaian politics is to help Nduom bring the best Ghanaians to work together to make Ghana prosperous - irrespective of their political backgrounds.
The point needs to made, that unlike all the other parties, the PPP is not a political party seeking to rule Ghana exclusively.
So, in effect, trying to stop Nduom from running for president, is tantamount to denying Ghanaians the opportunity to unite and work together, under a transparent leader heading a political party funded in transparent fashion, to transform their nation - which is why the party's members will not allow him to be denied the opportunity to run for president: as patriotic Ghanaians who love their nation.
And Nduom himself, should make that clear to the nation, at every campaign rally he attends - in his usual measured and calm way of making points in debates.
Will that not contrast sharply with the strange silence - on that all-important issue of making public, the sources of their parties' candidates' filing fees and their election campaign funds - by both President Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo: who dare not discuss such things publicly, ever?
Would that not show Ghanaians the difference between the transparently funded PPP, and the other opaque parties that prefer to hide where their funds come from - because doing so will reveal the vested interests they are beholden to: which fund them on a quid pro quo basis so they can all "Chop Ghana small" together?
The question is: Is the opacity in the funding of political parties not a major reason why high-level corruption still persists in Ghana?
Ghanaians now have an opportunity, through well-mannered advocacy by the PPP, to force the EC to get the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to tell Ghanaians precisely where and how they obtained their candidates' filing fees.
The question there is: On what basis is the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) demanding to know the source of the PPP's filing fees for the party's presidential and parliamentary candidates?
Did the EC ask the EOCO to investigate the sources of the PPP's candidates' filing fees? If it did, then why did it not, and why does it not, do same, for all the candidates standing in December's presidential and parliamentary elections? The courts must force the EC to use that same yardstick for all the presidential candidates - or drop that criterion and reinstate Nduom and Hassan Ayariga.
The PPP ought to demand, on behalf of the good people of Ghana, that the EC must apply the same yardstick to every political party fielding candidates in the December elections. They must all tell Ghanaians where their candidates' filing fees came from. Period.
The PPP should also demand that the EC insists that a forensic audit ought to be conducted into the submitted accounts, of all the political parties participating in this year's elections.
That way, we can all be sure that there has not been any creative Kweku-Ananse-accounting, in the audited accounts that political parties have submitted to the EC.
Finally, the PPP should follow U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's advice: "Speak softly but carry a big stick."
They must be cool, calm and collected: No one in the Ghana of today can destroy Nduom's business empire. That can never happen. The EOCO must tread cautiously - and be loyal to Mother Ghana in this instance: not to those now in power.
Ordinary Ghanaians will not allow Nduom's business empire to be destroyed, under any circumstances. His talent for creating wealth, and his extraordinary ability to create jobs in difficult economic conditions, have made him a folk hero, throughout our homeland Ghana.
Most Ghanaians instinctively know that Nduom is the only political leader in Ghana, today, with the nous and gumption to actually transform their country into an African equivalent of the egalitarian societies of Scandinavia.
So, instead of endless rowdy demonstrations, which might put some people off their party, let the PPP rather tie the EC up in the law courts, till it applies the same standards it applied in Nduom's case, to all the presidential candidates' of the other parties - especially those of the corruption-riddled NDC/NPP duopoly.
Above all, with respect, no matter how brilliant they might be as lawyers, it simply does not make sense to let lawyers who are staunch NPP members, to represent Nduom in this matter. Is it not Nduom's committment to investigating all the regimes that have governed Ghana since the 4th Republic came into being, which has led to the conspiracy by the system to eliminate him from the presidential election, I ask?
The PPP ought to understand that it is neither in the interest of the NPP, nor that of the NDC, that Nduom gets the courts to force the EC to apply the same standards it demanded from him, to both those opaque political parties'presidential candidates - as their flagbearers would also then be disqualified from standing in the December presidential election.
The PPP must not look the EC's gift horse in the mouth. Let them rather use the opportunity it represents to force the NDC and NPP to publicly publish the sources of their election campaign funds - by demanding that of the EC and the two major parties on behalf of ordinary people.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Re: “Ghana's Built Environment Stakeholders Speak on STX Deal”
In response to this www.ghanaweb.com business news web-page story of Thursday, 24 June 2010 (apparently sourced from a Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko?), with the above title; why do our political leaders simply not pass a new law, which will ring-fence the revenues from the Department of National Lotteries (DNL) – and devote it to the construction of affordable housing nationwide, henceforth?
If a clause is included in such a law, for example, which states that buyers of lottery tickets will automatically be entered into a special lottery for the selection of individuals to be allocated the affordable houses (and that that is the only way for Ghanaians to acquire such houses!); surely, that will avoid the usual practice of politically well-connected individuals scheming to buy up almost all the units in such housing projects: for themselves; the members of their family clans; and their cronies – and bring fairness into the allocation of such houses?
Well, one certainly hopes that Mr. Alban Bagbin, who heads the ministry for water resources, works and housing, will discuss this idea of funding the 200,000 houses from local sources, with the so-called “Joint Committee of the Ghana Institute of Architects, Ghana Institute of Planners, Ghana Institution of Engineers and Ghana Institution of Surveyors” mentioned in the said www.ghanaweb.com business news web-page story of Thursday, 24 June 2010. A word to the wise...
Tel(powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.
If a clause is included in such a law, for example, which states that buyers of lottery tickets will automatically be entered into a special lottery for the selection of individuals to be allocated the affordable houses (and that that is the only way for Ghanaians to acquire such houses!); surely, that will avoid the usual practice of politically well-connected individuals scheming to buy up almost all the units in such housing projects: for themselves; the members of their family clans; and their cronies – and bring fairness into the allocation of such houses?
Well, one certainly hopes that Mr. Alban Bagbin, who heads the ministry for water resources, works and housing, will discuss this idea of funding the 200,000 houses from local sources, with the so-called “Joint Committee of the Ghana Institute of Architects, Ghana Institute of Planners, Ghana Institution of Engineers and Ghana Institution of Surveyors” mentioned in the said www.ghanaweb.com business news web-page story of Thursday, 24 June 2010. A word to the wise...
Tel(powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109 & the not-so-hot and clueless Vodafone wireless smartfone: + 233 (0) 30 2976238.
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