Nigeria ignores coal as Trump sets new emission rules to boost use

Nigeria’s vast coal resource wastes away for inefficiency as the Trump administration plans to formally overhaul climate change regulations that would allow individual states to decide how, or even whether to curb carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants, come August 21, according to three people who have seen the full proposal.

The plan would also relax pollution rules for power plants that need upgrades. That, combined with allowing states to set their own rules, creates a serious risk that emissions, which had been falling, could start to rise again, according to environmentalists.

The proposal, which President Trump is expected to highlight August 21at a rally in West Virginia, amounts to the administration’s strongest and broadest effort yet to address what the president has long described as a regulatory “war on coal.”

It would considerably weaken what is known as the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature regulation for cutting planet-warming emissions at coal-fired plants.

Back to Africa’s most populous and energy hungry nation, Nigeria’s coal industry suffered a blow in the 1950s when oil was discovered. Up until this point, the Nigerian Railway Corporation was the largest consumer of coal in the country.

However, after the discovery of oil, the Railway Corporation began to replace its coal burning trains with diesel-powered engines. An additional negative impact came when the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria began converting its power generation equipment from coal to diesel and gas as well.

The Nigerian Civil War also negatively impacted coal production; many mines were abandoned during the war. Following the war, production never completely recovered and coal production levels were erratic.

Attempts at mechanising production ended badly, as both the implementation and maintenance of imported mining equipment proved troublesome, and hurt production. After the civil war, the Nigerian coal industry was not able to return to its peak production, this is hurting industries because the cost of electricity eats away profit margins.

Against the backdrop of severe shortages in much needed supply of electricity, it is inevitable that Nigeria must move from rhetoric to concrete action in the development and addition of coal-fired electricity to the nation’s electricity supply mix.

Two of the biggest cement markers in Nigeria, Dangote Cement Plc and Lafarge Plc have been investing massively in coal as source of energy to power its plants.

“Companies are turning to coal for their energy needs. What we tend to forget is that coal as a major source of energy might not be clean and it is ultimately cheaper to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) rather than coal because of social and environmental concerns” Eddy van Den Broeke, founder of Abuja-based Greenville Oil and Gas Limited said at a gas development roundtable in Lagos.

Dangote Cement switched to using coal at its cement plants in response to disruption to gas supplies and to lower input costs. The cement producer uses 12,000 metric tonnes (MT/day) of coal. Ashaka Cement, a fully-owned subsidiary of Lafarge Africa, said coal accounted for 82 percent of its power usage over the period, while work is ongoing on its 16-megawatt lignite-fired coal power plant at its factory in Gombe State.

“Coal business is booming. I have some Chinese companies that need about a million metric tonnes (MT) of coal from me every month and I don’t meet up with the demand. Dangote Cement Plc is ready to buy up every piece of coal we excavate in Kogi state for its Obajana cement factory” Leo Nwankwo, a commodities analyst and trader told BusinessDay.

“There are jobs to be created, when we develop our coal industry. I trade in commodities and coal is just one of the many commodities I trade in. When you visit our coal excavation sites in Kogi state and see the level of unemployment and poverty, I fear for this country. Let us focus on developing our economy and not let the shouts about clean energy deter us from creating jobs for our bulging youth population” Nwankwo said.

Trump’s plan is the latest move in a string of efforts, including prodding grid operators to purchase more electricity from coal plants and asserting that coal plant retirements are threatening the reliability of the national power grid, to end what Trump has called his predecessor’s war on coal and a sure sign to the industry that the Trump administration still has its back, even as coal production continues to decline.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU