EPQ Example: The Importance of Electricity
The following is an unedited example of an introductory context section of an EPQ into alternative energy sources.
Graphic showing the proportion of a country with access to electricity as the size of each territory.
In countries such as the UK access to electricity is often taken for granted. Very few people live without access to grid electricity and even then they will have other means of generating electrical power. Yet in many African countries electricity is a luxury or a privilege afforded only to the rich, which vastly limits productivity, trade and cultural development. Without power work can only be done during daylight, with sunset occurring early in a Mozambican winter, this leaves hours of wasted time and limited ‘output’.
Current solutions often involve using kerosene lamps which are unsafe, toxic and expensive. The cost of the lamp may be ‘small’ but an average cost for fuel is $2 a week, which in many countries (for example Tanzania) can be as much as 15% of a family’s income. People would often like to have greater access to lighting but simply can’t afford the fuel so they spend much of their evening in the dark.
Fuel cost is by no means the only issue with kerosene; accidents in the home were estimated to cost Sri Lanka, a country of 18 million people, over $1million dollars a year, which is a significant proportion of the country’s spending on healthcare. While accurate estimates aren’t available in sub-Saharan African countries with a greater population and a greater reliance on kerosene the financial cost of kerosene accidents is expected to be much greater.
The actual landmass of each area.
Further to this, the healthcare provision in many sub-Saharan African countries is weak; burns which would be survivable in many places worldwide may be fatal; and should a person survive their injuries a lifetime of untreated pain lays ahead. Kerosene is also volatile and the fumes have been linked with a number of cancers as well as flash-fires. This is often compounded by social issues in the country.
For example, one woman who was fortunately found by Mercy Ships International[3] (in the Ivory Coast) had lived with burns she sustained as a toddler for over 20 years. Because her family had been too poor to travel to seek medical assistance the burns had gone untreated meaning the skin under her chin and neck had fused to her chest and caused her lower jaw bone to deform as she grew. This had left her with a severely altered appearance and meant she had to live out her life in private, for fear of misunderstandings and accusations of witchcraft from the deeply religious community. Because of her burns she had never received an education, and was unable to gain employment to feed her children when her husband died. Fortunately, she was found and treated by Mercy Ships, but many other people wouldn’t be so lucky. The vast personal cost of an accident (which, with access to electricity, needn’t have happened) becomes all too apparent.
To conclude, the issues with kerosene are many, and the use of kerosene also compounds socio-economic issues in developing countries; a cheap, clean, renewable way of generating electricity is clearly needed and is not something that we can neglect as engineers in a world capable of so much more.
