Rwanda puts hopes in methane power plant
Extracting the gas from Lake Kivu's depths is a risky venture. But officials say it can help solve two problems: drain the deadly pool and provide energy to the electricity-starved nation.
LAKE KIVU, RWANDA — With Kivu's rolling green swells and serene coastline, it's hard to imagine why this is called one of Africa's "killer lakes."
Fishermen have known for more than a century about the mysterious gas that occasionally bubbles up, killing fish and sometimes swimmers.
The source, scientists say, is a massive pool of methane and carbon dioxide that lies at the bottom of the deep-water lake on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gas levels have been steadily rising, and experts warn the gases might one day explode or burst to the surface, releasing a deadly cloud similar to one that killed more than 1,700 people at Cameroon's methane-rich Lake Nyos in 1986.
Hoping to avert a catastrophe on the shores of a lake where 2 million people live and to solve its energy woes at the same time, the Rwandan government is embarking on a risky project to extract the methane and use it to generate electricity.
Methane-power generation plants exist elsewhere, but the effort here would mark the first attempt to extract the gas from underwater and burn it to fuel an electricity plant.
"It's the first of its kind in the world," said Albert Butare, Rwanda's minister of state for infrastructure. "In the beginning, it was a myth. But now the technology is promising."
The government this month launched a $15-million pilot project that will try to power a four-megawatt generator with methane from the lake. A floating platform, installed this year, dropped a pipe more than three football fields deep to reach the methane-rich water.
An American energy investment firm, New York-based Contour Global, is close to signing a deal to build the permanent electricity plant on Lake Kivu's shore, which would eventually produce 100 megawatts of sorely needed power for Rwanda, nearly twice the country's daily production, government officials said.
Only about 5% of Rwandans are connected to the country's national grid, and prices are twice as high as those of other East African nations because of inadequate supply, mostly from diesel-fueled generators.
"This is the only major domestic resource we have," Butare said.
It's not the first time Rwanda has tried to exploit the methane. Efforts date to the 1960s, and a previous pilot program generated enough electricity to power a local brewery. A line of international contractors came and went without success, most recently a Danish outfit whose contract was terminated.
