Three African countries examine what international energy policies mean for them. After Oil looks at the other side of green energy for emerging economies.
A move to green energy is now the world standard. Every home powered and connected to the electric grid. Using electricity for cooking instead of coal and firewood is the way of progress. This is according to South Africa’s minerals and energy minister, Gwede Mantashe. Electricity poor is how he terms it. To achieve this, extensive mining and exploration efforts to beef up the country’s energy supply have been made. What this means, however, is that communities that are at the centre of this campaign are displaced for it. Communities that are “Electricity Poor”, not up to date with modern practices of using clean energy. What’s more, this means a loss of their livelihood and connections with their ancestors who had inhabited the land before them and continue to do so in their graves. On the other side of mining and energy are the people who work in the coal mines. With already dwindling income from the coal mines, there is real unemployment looming with a shift to other energy sources. On one hand, one community is boycotting mining exploration while the other faces an entire loss of livelihood with a mining closure.
Part two shifts east to Kenya, the greenest of the bunch. Kenya’s energy sources are dominated by renewable sources, mainly generated from geothermal, hydroelectric and solar power. That covers electricity that goes to the industries. A closer look, however, still points to fossil fuels as the primary source for most households, which still rely on charcoal and petroleum such as LPG. This is also the case for the transport industry, where the majority of cars rely on fossil energy to power them. To counter the effects of environmental degradation, some groups in Mathare, a slum in Kenya, have taken on the responsibility to sensitise their immediate community on the importance of environmental preservation. They have offered alternative methods to energy for cooking using farm waste to create fuel for cooking.
The last part of this documentary takes us to Northern Africa in Algeria. Here, it is not a conversation about the effects of global warming, but the characteristics of the extreme temperature are commonplace. They live in that situation. Temperatures reach highs of 48 degrees in the summer months, making it impossible to grow crops. These communities have found a way to adapt. Innovating towards this change and subsequently find a way to grow crops during the hot summer months. Across the border in Morocco, massive plans are underway to export renewable energy to adhere to the green mandates from the liberal West. This only exacerbates a facade of modernity while a widening socio-economic crisis in the country persists. Their push to expand towards modernisation requires natural resources that have led to defiance of a decades long cease fire to occupy the Western Sahara. A decision that has all the fingers pointing towards capitalist interests.
Global warming and a push for renewable energy resources have made us rethink how we create energy for our consumption. Fossil fuels, such as oil, are the standard in powering our economies. When you introduce green energy into the conversation as a s means to power economies, the chasm widens between the industrialised countries and smaller emerging economies undergoing their own industrialisation. That is the crux of this documentary. There are two conversations at hand: the need for green energy and likewise a realistic approach to how this can be adopted for the sake of the environment without penalising vulnerable communities and economies.
The format follows a chapter-based approach in its delivery of thought. Starting with South Africa, one of the continent’s larger economies seeking to increase it’s energy’s capacity to meet its growing needs. They jump from one fossil fuel to another. For them, it is not so much about energy transition but about maintaining the standards and powering their economies. For Kenya, which has achieved the green dream, it serves as an example of how the future of renewable energy resources for a developing nation ought to be. This is gospel if the focus is electric production, but such logic crumbles when it trickles down to common households, where energy is used for cooking and transportation. Carbon immediately chokes any attempts to justify a green-powered economy. Meanwhile, in Morocco, with a rush to cash in on the renewable energy race, who expose flaws in capitalist models and oppression of the most vulnerable.
Energy is a green coloured monster in After Oil, wherein filmmaker Boima Tucker delivers lessons on sustainability very relevant for the stage of development Africa is in. He emphasises very well a valid conundrum industrialising nations are faced with, brought about by the imposition of policies that favour efforts to scrub off industrialised nations’ responsibility in the current situation. Aptly put, the goal is to rethink transitions rather than impose what works for countries with energy. After all, you need energy in the first place in order to explore the options available. That said, with the use of jargon, After Oil runs the risk of losing its audience. I could see one get very quickly overwhelmed and lose interest in the subject matter. I would have appreciated a bit more focus on the human-centred stories. For example, a bit to show how the kale refuse charcoal is made, and the hydroponics processes in Algeria that utilise its harsh surroundings to sustain life in harsh conditions. This, I believe, would engage audiences better and even throw in practical examples that could be replicated. Otherwise, the film teeters dangerously in the direction of a video report.
Overall, I was hard-lined on the notion that for Africa to industrialise, the only answer is through fossil fuels. I am not yet an eco-warrior. After Oil, however, I have definitely adopted a different approach to energy, especially after seeing that my own country is doing its bit with considerable contributions towards renewable resources. While we think of environmental preservation alongside economic progress, we need to be mindful not to impose mandates that pass on responsibility to the least contributors to the crisis.
This review emanates from the Talent Press programme, an initiative of Talents Durban in collaboration with the Durban FilmMart Institute and FIPRESCI. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author (Michelle Abuti) and cannot be considered as constituting an official position of the organisers.