Adeniyi A Afonja

Nigerian Coals Adeniyi A Afonja

Three fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas supply over 80% of the global primary energy requirements and, in spite of concerns about environmental pollution, the dominance of fossil fuels in the world's energy mix is unlikely to change very much in the foreseeable future. Coal, the highest pollutant of them all fuels over 40% of the global electric power generation and, while considerable effort is being made to diversify to less anthropogenic fuels, various projections show that there will be little change for many years. Most of the increase in power generation in the next few decades will be accounted for by emerging countries and, for many, coal is the only available or affordable source of primary energy. Also, some developed countries depend on coal for up to 90% of power generation. The contribution of cleaner energies (solar, wind, biofuels, etc.), to the global primary energy mix is not likely to exceed 10% in the next two or three decades and it is now widely accepted that the only feasible option in the foreseeable future is to 'clean-up' coal.

For over fifty years Nigeria depended on coal for over 70% of primary energy requirements but, with the discovery of oil and gas in early 1960s the demand for coal began to decline. However, in view of perpetual and intractable problems with gas supply and the hydrodams, there has been renewed interest in the country's vast coal resources and many coal-fired power plants are scheduled to come on stream by 2020. It is noteworthy that all the proposed plants will adopt clean coal technologies.