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egunjespoilagos
Joined: Mar 31, 2005
Posts: 30
From: lagos
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@Abu: Yes, unfortunately I am having to play devil's advocate but N1.87B is about $10M, not a lot of money for the purpose. There is no debate about there are competing uses for the money. What I want to see it value for money in this pursuit.
egunjespoilagos
N95
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abubakar
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 109
From: Nigeria
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@egunj: last I knew, space tourism used to cost $20 million just to go to the international space station (or was it the Mir station, I forget). What they plan to do with $10 million is beyond me. What I do know is this pursuit is akin to the tortoise weighed down with a ton of weights racing with the rabbit with a jetpack on its back. Which "wayo" will the tortoise pull off to win this one? Countries like Brazil didn’t look towards space until it had its basic utilities in check. Now they are a nuclear power, using mainly an 85/15 ethanol/petrol mix in their vehicles, totally unperturbed from fuel price swings (they get their ethanol from sugar cane at a cheaper cost than current petrol prices). |
mamba
Joined: Nov 21, 2004
Posts: 138
From: 9ja
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i have to do more research on this ethanol/petrol mix, can the mix be used in any vehicle or is it for specially made engines? |
abubakar
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 109
From: Nigeria
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@egunj: by the way, I'm glad you playing devil's advocate. There isn't really a black and white in these type of matters. thas why I like to belt out issues here.
@mamba: lots of car companies already produce the cars. Ford has one called Flex (i.e. flexible). It can use different proportions of ethanol/petrol. Funny thing is they cost the same as normal cars, just as efficient and performs the same as normal cars. The engine is a deviant of a diesel engine. Actually, diesel engines were originally designed to run on vegetable oil. I think that’s enough of my science trivia for today!! But please read up and post anything else intriguing. I actually have another conspiracy theory on how the big oil company companies have sat on such emerging energy alternatives to make their $$$$!! In Brazil, the govt just made it a law that all stations must sell the mix and that was it. If our govt started producing ethanol (sugarcane is the cheapest means but it can also be done with maize and still be cheaper than current petrol prices) we could wean ourselves of our own oil. More to export. No importing petrol or other by products. When you see another 3rd world country getting its act together I just get choked inside!!! A friend of mine was telling me that small Zimbabwe produces 12,000 MW and uses 9,000 and sells the rest to neighbours. We are still trying to hit 4000 MW. SIGH!!!!
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ambyzown
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 231
From: Lagos-Nigeria
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 SIGH!!! |
brix25
Joined: Aug 20, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Cape Town, South Africa
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@abubakar: A point of correction...Zimbabwe does not produce it's own energy, in fact they import it from South Africa...there are no refineries in Zim, they get their petrol from SA...if some evil dictator ever came to power here and decided to cut of Zim, Mugabe will be crippled.
Liar liar pants on fire/ You burning up like David Koresh- Ghostface Killah |
abubakar
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 109
From: Nigeria
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@brix: maybe my friend's info was crossed about Zim's energy production. How much do they produce? (i doubt they get 100% of thier power from SA) and the more important question, how much electricity does SA produce? more than 4000MW I presume. One thing that realy bites me is the lopsided distribution. In Borno we are getting less than 5MW. Some other states are getting 60. Lagos gets 700 (which is understandable with the population and industries) but how Gombe, Bauchi and Maiduguri are getting the same amount of power when Maiduguri's population totally eclipses the other 2 combined. and projects of power generation are not being taken up by neither federal no state govts. We have a river at New Marte with a poential of producing 30MW here which may be a drop in the ocean nationally but would improve power in the state by 600%. The project has been in budget for years now but not a thing has been done yet. Don't mind me! I'm just bugging cos I'm tired off getting a maximum of 4 hours of electricity a day (when we're lucky!!!!)
[ This Message was edited by: abubakar on 2006-05-19 09:01 ] |
egunjespoilagos
Joined: Mar 31, 2005
Posts: 30
From: lagos
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@Abu: If I understand it correctly, the goverment proposes a space program currently culminating in our sending a man to the moon in 30 years this is quite different from paying for a slot on someone else's vehicule. For former purpose, $10M is a drop in the bucket.
One does not have to develop a nuclear program to devise and pursue a space program although we have been spending money on nuclear research in the Obafemi Awolowo University among other places.
Our pursuit of a space agenda, I think, will follow broadly the way we have pursued nuclear technology-half heartedly- which is fine by me. It is important to have a program on the books than none at all.
egunjespoilagos
N95
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kam27
Joined: Mar 28, 2006
Posts: 16
From: Lagos, Nigeria
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@mamba - Pls, I need the MTN stuff. Send me a PM. Lookin forward to it. Thanks in advance.
[ This Message was edited by: kam27 on 2006-05-19 17:37 ]
[ This Message was edited by: kam27 on 2006-05-19 17:40 ] |
ambyzown
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 231
From: Lagos-Nigeria
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@Egunje: I share Abu's view on Nigeria's space development ambitions, there are more important areas that deserve priority attention than space exploration. Power generation and distribution for one. That sector has become a major albatross for consecutive governments, I just dont understand how these people think. We have been unable to solve simple power problems within the country, yet we want to send men to the moon, to do what?
Lets get real, there's no way Nigeria can develop proprietary technology, in space travel, so why bother? what benefits are accruable to you and I from our country's investments in space development programs?
A power outage in the middle of a shuttle launch is not a far fetched idea in this country.
@Abu: Take heart, one day "insha Allah" we shall enjoy a stable power regime in this country, but not until we have a no nonsense president who will not mind whose ox is gored in the process of revamping the power sector like Soludo did in the banking sector.
Imagine how much Otedola will lose should power become stable in Nigeria.......So tell me, won't he want to do whatever it takes to stay in business? I'm not even talking of the various generator dealers nationwide.
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mamba
Joined: Nov 21, 2004
Posts: 138
From: 9ja
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i agree with u micky, power problem should be solved before anyother thing cos it's a major source of high cost of goods & services here in Nija. Any reasonable leader should have been able to solve that within 4 years.. |
abubakar
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 109
From: Nigeria
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@egunj: Point of correction. They said they want an astronaut. They didn’t say anything about going to the moon (which even if we already had the technology, it would cost us hundreds of millions of dollars to pull off, why do you think it costed $20M to take one person to high orbit and back?). Anyone that goes into extreme high altitude where gravity is negligible is officially an astronaut. Chances are that is what we will end up doing, send a guy to go to space via someone else’s rocket, come back and say WE’VE BEEN THERE!!! With this “drop in the bucket” $10M, what do you think they will actually achieve with it? Build a rocket from scratch?!? Do you know how much wad a “real” space program would take? The team that won the X prize for making a rocket that could to high orbit and back got $10M as their prize though they spent much more than that in research and development (they had major private funding). They were doing it for future space tourism (Richard Branson backed it for his Virgin Galactic dream). My point really is if we are going to have a project at all, cant it be one that benefits us all? Not anything radical like flying cars but something simple like that ethanol/petrol mix thing that I mentioned earlier. It has direct gains to our economy, our environment (reduced CO emissions) and our standards of life. (Is any future Presidential candidate reading this? Lol!) If we should have projects for having sake that wont achieve much and would put us on the map, we should spend it on teaching monkeys and fish to drill for off-shore oil. At least it would yield more than this space programme. And I think the $10M is for this year alone.
@ambyz: thanks o! this NEPA frustration is a killer. I have 3 gen sets at home, all rotating between my house and the gen repairers shop. Im sure there is a serious lobby group in Abuja representing the fuel importers, gen & gen spare parts importers (and the gen repairers!!!!!) that keep NEPA in the state they are in!!!!!!! Just like there is a lobby representing the tire importers, car spare part importers, bus transport owners and once again the feul importers that keep our railways down!!!!! lol
God save us!!!!!!!
@Mikk & Mamba: I think it was wednesday's Guardian that had an article about NEPA increasing the wattage to 10,000MW by 2007 (and in a 25 year plan to hit 150,000 MW, if you can beleive it!!!!). If they can import the gas and hydro turbines and install them in a 8 to 10 month period, what have they been doing all this while? the 4 or 7 years you are giving them is too much. its not like we have to invent the equipement from scratch. we just need to identify the places it is most viable to use them and place the equpement there.
PS Mikky, face your programme well! PNF will be there once Microsoft picks you up!!!!!!! |
ambyzown
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 231
From: Lagos-Nigeria
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Quote:
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On 2006-05-20 09:39:52, abubakar wrote:
....It has direct gains to our economy, our environment (reduced CO emissions) and our standards of life. (Is any future Presidential candidate reading this? Lol!) ....
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Yes I am  |
mamba
Joined: Nov 21, 2004
Posts: 138
From: 9ja
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 @Amby, at least we all on PNF will become ministers & PA's We'll join u to chop up.. |
abubakar
Joined: Sep 15, 2005
Posts: 109
From: Nigeria
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AMBYZOWN 2011 (ABI 2015?)
i'm not lookin for a position that has obvious money like oil or finance or steel. foreign affairs is enough for me. thank you sir. lol! |
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Posted: 2006-05-18 11:31
