When Malawian William Kamkwamba was 14 he built the first windmill his fellow villagers had ever seen. They all thought he was crazy, but now he has built several more and they are used to create electricity in places where previously there was no access. Kamkwamba modelled his windmill on a picture he came across in a library book and constructed it out of scrap parts he was able to find around his village – no easy feat for someone who hadn’t encountered electricity before (only 2% of Malawi is electrified).
When the western world often views renewable energy as something which needs strong government policy supporting it in order for it to thrive, Kamkwamba’s response in an interview with TreeHugger is revealing in terms of the ways renewable energy – specifically wind energy – is viewed around the world, and how this is tied to larger political and economic realities:
Q: In the US, wind is seen as a high-tech renewable energy source that can help reduce our massive carbon emissions and our dependence on coal and foreign oil. In Malawi, wind is a matter of more immediate necessity: how to get electricity to begin with…
No one in Malawi goes to their father or brother and says, “we need to go off the grid.” We don’t talk about wind like it’s helping climate change. We talk about wind and solar because it’s a simpler and cheaper way to give us electricity and irrigation. Clean water and power is our right as humans on this earth, and for too long our governments in Africa have failed to provide these things. They also failed to bring us telephone lines, so we simply put up cell towers and now millions of Africans have mobile phones. We skip the problem by creating our own solutions. And yes, if this can save the planet in the process, then I am happy for that.
Q: Given Malawi’s various challenges now, where does climate change fit in as a topic among people you know in Malawi?
Climate change is important to Malawi, but many people see alternative energy more as a means to skip the government and get electricity and power. Deforestation is a huge problem in Malawi, which only adds to the problem. People cut down trees because they have no power to run electric stoves, etc. So they use firewood. This is a problem all over Africa. The windmills don’t produce enough power to operate a stove, but with some more innovation, this could be easily solved.
I’d recommend checking out his book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, co-authored with Bryan Mealer – it has been a NYTimes best seller as well as making the Amazon and Publishers Weekly best books of the year list. In an effort to publicise his work, Kamkwamba has been on a bit of a media blitz recently, being featured in several places – from a segment on CurrentTV to an interview with TED. Kamkwamba’s story is also being turned into a documentary:
You can also see his flickr stream here and follow his progress on his latest projects on his blog.
And since I can’t wrap up every post with a clip from The Daily Show, I have to take advantage of this opportunity and leave you with Kamkwamba’s appearance with Jon Stewart:
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