Small-scale Successes

Small hydroelectric plants and oil from croton nuts supply villages in India with electricity and Kenyans with biofuel. These solutions are too small to attract major foreign investments. In marketing management terms, they would be considered "dogs" with a very little share of overall electricity and fuel markets and limited growth potential.

     Yet I always have respected "dogs." They are like every small scale business, such as a bed and breakfast, barber shop, or organic farm, that provides services/goods and generates enough income to support one or more families.

     Along India's rivers in the Himalayas, Vaishnavi Consultants and other private companies subsidized by the government are building hydroelectric plants that can use small amounts of water to light 100 homes 24 hours a day in remote villages. This clean power adds no pollution in India, the world's third largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions. And the plants provide employment for the day workers who build them and about 25 local people who run them. The government commits to buying the energy for the villages, and, by law, local councils receive a small percentage from the plants' profits.

     Despite the advantages of India's small hydroelectric plants, these projects are not problem free in a country suffering from drought and clean water shortages. Even though the government's bureaucratic process to obtain the necessary permits to built a hydroelectric plant can take two to five years, a lack of oversight and exemption from the government's environmental impact act require remedies. Too many plant sites along the same stream can compromise plant performance and unregulated deforestation by developers almost always violates environmental rules.

     Like India's small hydroelectric plants, biofuel from Kenya's croton trees produces energy with fewer carbon emissions than coal, oil, or gas. Further, without deforestation or replacing agricultural land needed to grow food crops, the Nanyuki-based Eco Fuels company presses oil from the nuts of the croton trees that grow wild in the Mount Kenya and Rift Valley regions. Farmers do not need to water or fertilize the trees that they can harvest for six months out of the year. Eco Fuels pays 5,000 farmers for the nuts on delivery, unlike coffee farmers who have to wait months for payment.

    The croton oil used in generators, water pumps, and tractor engines is cheaper than diesel oil and generates 78% less carbon dioxide emissions. The protein-rich seedcake paste left from pressing croton nuts is sold as poultry feed and husks are sold as organic fertilizer.

     Don't discount India's small scale hydroelectric plants or Kenya's croton nuts. For some, these "dogs" are families' best friends.