Chapter 1201 Economic System Advantages
Currently, 28% of the national electricity supply in East Africa comes from hydropower. This proportion is quite huge. After all, hydropower accounted for less than 20% in the previous Far Eastern Empire.
However, the development of hydropower resources in East Africa is not sufficient, and there is still huge room for growth. The reason why East Africa has such a large proportion of hydropower development is, in addition to its natural advantages, also closely related to East Africa's national conditions.
After all, most areas in East Africa have water storage needs, because the climate in East Africa is mainly savanna, which is divided into rainy season and dry season. This is destined to build a large number of water conservancy projects in East Africa to intercept the water in the rainy season and ensure that industry and agriculture Use water.
The construction of artificial reservoirs is naturally the top priority in water conservancy projects. Generally speaking, in order to improve utilization, most artificial reservoirs also have power generation functions, so the utilization rate of hydropower development in East Africa is relatively high.
Wang Hailong said: "Because of the existence of the Congo Basin, East Africa is equivalent to having a huge hydropower cornucopia. If it can be fully developed, it can solve most of the power supply problems in East Africa."
"However, compared with hydropower, thermal power still occupies an absolute advantage in the current power supply in East Africa, up to about 70%. And due to regional energy characteristics, different fuels are used as the basis for power generation. For example, coal is used in southern East Africa, and oil or natural gas is used in some northern areas. In addition to hydropower, the West also uses a large amount of petroleum as fuel for power plants.”
“In 1910, the electricity penetration rate in East Africa was as high as an exaggerated 62%, basically achieving universal access to electricity in all cities and towns and some rural areas. Even now, East Africa is the only country in the world with an electricity penetration rate of more than 1%. The country of fifty.”
Thanks to the first two five-year plans in East Africa, the East African power sector officially built the national East African national grid during this period. And due to technological progress, East Africa already had independent intellectual property rights for hydropower and thermal power generation, realizing A new round of breakthroughs in power production technology.
If compared with the regions and countries where East Africa was located in the previous life, this data can be said to be quite outrageous. After all, the regions and countries where East Africa was located in the previous life, that is, those small African countries, can be said to have the lowest electricity penetration rate in the world. Even in In the 21st century, many places do not have electricity.
East Africa is indeed the world's largest electricity producer and consumer in this time and space, and its electricity penetration rate firmly ranks first in the world.
Of course, the cost is also huge. East Africa has invested a lot of money, manpower and time costs. During the first two five-year plans in East Africa, the investment in infrastructure such as electricity was completely astronomical, and this also led to the third five-year plan in East Africa. An important reason for the lack of funds.
After all, East Africa was really happy when these infrastructures were built, but the massive resources invested in a short period of time cannot generate returns as quickly as light industry. The cycle can easily take ten or even twenty years.
This can be regarded as a manifestation of Yin eating Mao grain, so this is also an important reason why East Africa can't wait to promote the outbreak of World War I.
Only with the outbreak of World War I could production lines in East Africa be quickly rolled out, turning these infrastructures into catalysts for production, and relying on the international market vacated during World War I to digest the construction results of the first two five-year plans in East Africa.
After listening to Wang Hailong's narration, Director Zhang and other officials from the Far East Empire seemed a little silent. The gap was really too big.
"When I was in Dar es Salaam these days, I noticed that the street lights in Dar es Salaam are on almost all night. Even at night, the whole city looks like day."
“Every household in Dar es Salaam is connected to electricity, and many East African households have a considerable number of home appliances. Take the Oriental Hotel where we are located as an example. It has everything including lights, telephones, radios, phonographs, etc. Nowadays The development of Western countries is terrible!”
"Is this so-called electrification? We haven't even caught up with the cars of the steam era, but now we are far behind Western society."
For the Far Eastern Empire, East Africa is a member of the Western countries through and through. After all, East Africa is indeed located in the west of the Far Eastern Empire geographically.
Of course, the East African government and most East African citizens have never thought so. East Africa's positioning of its own country is actually similar to the American New World concept and is not confused with Europe.
Although Africa does not belong to the New World, this is mainly due to North Africa's long-term participation in world history. After all, neither Europe nor Arab civilization can avoid North Africa.
But south of the Sahara Desert and North Africa are like two different worlds. At least in Ernst's perception, the development of civilization in the south of the Sahara Desert is not as advanced as that of the Indians in the Americas.
So Wang Hailong said: "There is no need to worry too much. There are still some differences between East Africa and Western countries. At least from my understanding, East Africa is very different from many Western countries."
"In addition to the economic development model that is very different from Europe and the United States, there is a big gap between many industrial fields in East Africa and Europe and the United States. For example, the concept of electrification I mentioned, it seems that only one country in East Africa has a national-level grand strategy, and they have started from the seventies of the last century. The layout has already begun in the 1990s.”
"At that time, East Africa's technological level was far behind that of European and American countries, but it was precisely because of its advantages in economic systems that East Africa caught up and became a leader in some fields."
"Electricity and internal combustion engines are the two most typical cases. The development of East African electricity originated in Germany. However, although Germany is a leader in this field, it is inevitably left behind by East Africa."
In fact, East African electricity technology should be said to come from the Hexingen Group. The Hexingen Group should be regarded as one of the earliest capital groups involved in investment in the power sector and made important contributions to the early power construction in East Africa. Of course, Wang Hailong is not very familiar with this.
"The reason why East Africa can surpass Germany is obviously that the advantages of East Africa's economic system have played a huge role. According to the propaganda of the East African government, it is to concentrate on major events. Through the full support of the government and the unified coordination of resource allocation, the scale of East Africa's power industry has expanded rapidly, and finally achieved the effect of breaking through the surface with a point, driving the development of other industries in the country."
General Manager Zhang said: "What a great idea of concentrating on major events. This sentence is the real essence of East Africa's economic development. After all, East Africa has rapidly risen to become a powerful industrial country in just a few decades. There is indeed a reason for this."
In the eyes of many countries, East Africa, a powerful industrial country, actually does not recognize this title. After all, according to the East African government's positioning of its own industry, East Africa is only a semi-industrialized country.
The standard of industrialization in East Africa has always been based on some industrial indicators of the country under the influence of Ernst. The most important of these is the urbanization rate. At present, the urbanization rate of East Africa is obviously lower than the psychological expectations of the East African government. The urbanization rate of the entire East Africa is only 33.6%.
This is the statistical data of East Africa's urbanization rate in 1914. After all, it is now the end of 1915, and the East African Three-Five Plan is coming to an end, so the East African government has begun to collect some important data for its own country.
During the Three-Five Plan, East Africa's urbanization rate has increased significantly, even exceeding the growth rate of the first two five-year plans, but it is undeniable that compared with other industrial powers, East Africa's urbanization rate is still at a relatively low level, about 30%, which is higher than Russia, Spain, and Japan.
In other words, East Africa's current urbanization rate ranks in the middle among the powers, while the United Kingdom and Germany, which have the highest urbanization rates, have a much higher urbanization rate than East Africa, and even the United States and France are about ten percentage points higher than East Africa.