Strategies for harvesting large scale bulk energy from the Congo river without a conventional dam
The paper provides a summary of the investigations into the capability of the Congo river to support an evolutionary design approach based on the run of river, low head, and hydro-electric generation technology, as employed at the existing Inga 2 power station in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The evolutionary approach builds on existing infrastructure. The results show that the footprint is much smaller. The environmental impact is minimized. These collectively will contribute to lower capital costs. In summary, 10,000 cm3/sec of constant river flow will produce 5,000 MW of base power. On average, the constant recorded flow of the river is 30,000 cm3/sec and a total of 15,000 MW of base power generation is possible.
Africa—Integrated gas and electricity transmission planning in power generation and HVDC engineering in harnessing large-scale hydroelectric sites for interconnected regional power systems
This Paper discusses integrated gas and electricity transmission planning in power generation and energy development in Africa with their benefits, and developments in HVDC Engineering Technology in harnessing large-scale hydroelectric sites for interconnected regional power systems. It focuses on the present status and future prospect of electricity infrastructure from the viewpoint of generation and transmission development, policies and lessons from global deregulation, advances in global research, and development (R&D) and strategies to influence Africa’s integration into the Global transition to knowledge-based economies. It examines regional power pools as an economic development paradigm by emphasizing the systems effects that lead to improving economical, ecological and technological efficiencies by the joint operation of power systems.The paper goes on to discuss the energy crisis and development issues in Africa (strategic diagonal and convergent approach with components), the Southern African power pool development plan, and the Southern African short-term energy market. Active projects such as the Westcor project representing an initial phase of the large regional South African Power Pool are also discussed. The project showcases the new milestones in HVDC technology used to harness large hydro potential contributing to the pool. Also discussed is interconnection of the Gulf States that will facilitate reserve sharing between the systems and electricity trading between the Gulf States.
On Fascist Ideology
Fascism is a political ideology that encompassed totalitarianism, state terrorism, imperialism, racism and, in the German case, the most radical genocide of the last century: the Holocaust. Fascism, in its many forms did not hesitate to kill its own citizens as well as its colonial subjects in its search for ideological and political closure. Millions of civilians perished on a global scale during the apogee of fascist ideologies in Europe and beyond. In historical terms, fascism can be defined as a movement and a regime. Emilio Gentile – who, with Zeev Sternhell and George Mosse,2 is the most insightful historian of fascism – presents fascism as a modern revolutionary phenomenon that was nationalist and revolutionary, anti-liberal and anti-Marxist. Gentile also presents fascism as being typically organized in a militaristic party that had a totalitarian conception of state politics, an activist and antitheoretical ideology as well as a focus on virility and anti-hedonistic mythical foundations. For Gentile a defining feature of fascism was its character as a secular religion which affirms the primacy of the nation understood as an organic and ethnically homogenous community. Moreover, this nation was to be hierarchically organized in a corporativist state endowed with a war-mongering vocation that searches for a politics of national expansion, potency and conquest. Fascism, in short, was not a mere reactionary ideology. Rather, fascism aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization.3 The word fascism derives from the Italian word fascio and refers to a political group (such as the political group lead by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the time of Italian unification.) Fascism also refers visually and historically to a Roman imperial symbol of authority. Its place of birth as a modern political ideology was northern Italy, the year was 1919, and its founder was Benito Mussolini. Thus, fascism as a term as well as a political movement was born on the Italian peninsula. Its ideological origins, however, predated its name. The fact that fascism was born as a concept before its explicit birth as a movement is central to any understanding of fascism. The ideology of radical nationalism that made it possible was part of a larger intellectual reaction to the Enlightenment.4 This tradition was both European and, in the Latin American case, “non-European” as well. To be sure, the original ideology behind fascism was born as a reaction to the progressive European revolutions of the long nineteenth century (from the French revolution of 1789 to the American and Latin American revolutions of 1776 and the 1810s). Fascism represented a post-revolutionary attack against equality. The ideology of the anti-Enlightenment is the major root of the longstanding ideological tradition that created fascism. Its branches constituted a reaction against liberal politics and a rejection of democracy. And yet fascism did not oppose the market economy and put forward a corporatist organization that aimed to be functional to capitalist accumulation. Equally important, fascism is a philosophy of political action that ascribes value to absolute violence in the political realm. This ascription was boosted by one radical outcome of the