African Entrepreneurship Record

September 1894.

West Great Lake Province, East Africa.

”What’s the purpose of these long steel pipes? They seem about an armful thick?” This is a question on many people’s minds.

”I heard it’s for a natural gas pipeline, transporting the kind of gas used for gas lamps.”

The conversation was about East Africa’s first industrial-scale long-distance natural gas pipeline, a project currently being prioritized by the East African Government or Ernst.

The conventional energy mineral triad, coal, oil, and natural gas—East Africa is not short on coal, but oil reserves are relatively scarce, so Ernst naturally turned his focus to natural gas.

On one hand, East Africa’s natural gas resources are quite abundant; in previous generations, regions within the current East African territory like Tanzania and Mozambique had large reserves of natural gas.

On the other hand, the technology for utilizing natural gas is already mature, so East Africa urgently needs to popularize the use of natural gas, replacing some industrial and domestic fuel applications.

Humankind’s history of using natural gas is fairly long, but its widespread modern application started in the United Kingdom.

In 1732, Calisher Spading of the United Kingdom proposed using methane emitted from coal mines to provide lighting for Whitehaven streets.

By 1813, the United Kingdom’s London and Westminster Gas Lighting and Coke Company secured the first-ever municipal gas lighting contract.

The development was followed by the United States, where the natural gas lighting industry began in 1816 with Baltimore, Maryland using natural gas for street lamps. By 1886, the United States had already established the world’s first industrial-scale long-distance gas transmission pipeline.

Thus, East Africa’s development and utilization of natural gas began relatively late, and despite significant investment, catching up technologically required extra time. Nonetheless, the results were remarkable; for instance, this East African pipeline was completed only nine years after the United States.

What limited the construction of the East African natural gas pipeline was not technical incapability—relevant technologies had matured years earlier—but the experimental phase of East Africa’s natural gas power generation technology.

The primary purpose of this transmission pipeline was to supply energy to East Africa’s first natural gas power plant, with then high-voltage electricity being transported to cities like Bujumbura and Mbeya.

As for promoting the use of natural gas among the public, knowledge about safety first needed to be disseminated. Natural gas is flammable and explosive, and leaks can lead to asphyxiation and death. Thus, considering public safety, only a small-scale experimental trial was possible initially, similar to how electricity was introduced accompanied by extensive safety education in East Africa.

Nevertheless, aside from the lack of knowledge about usage, other aspects were already complete. For residents to use natural gas, the main concern was utilizing gas cylinders and specialized stoves, which posed no significant breakthrough challenge to East African researchers.

In fact, as early as 1760, the British had invented the gas cylinder, which later went on to power gas lamps, making the gas cylinder’s development over a century old and its safety quite reliable. So all hardware conditions for using natural gas as residential fuel were already matured.

Currently, the primary residential fuel in East Africa remains firewood and coal, with firewood being predominant in rural areas. Additionally, special fuels are made by mixing dried dung with coal, similar to Northern pastures, while coal is primarily supplied to cities.

The promotion of natural gas will greatly transform residents’ lifestyles in East Africa, considering that even in the 21st century, natural gas remains an energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, and economically viable fuel for daily use.

”Please do not gather around here; this is a natural gas pipeline. Natural gas is flammable, explosive, and ’toxic’. We are about to start testing this project so it’s best not to get too close,” patrol officers dispersed the residents watching the pipeline installation.

The populace naturally trusted the government personnel’s warnings. Given the rapid changes of this era, new things constantly emerged, particularly in East Africa over the past thirty years, making everyone well-adapted to accepting changes.

”Isn’t natural gas just the gas used for gas lamps? That stuff indeed poses certain dangers, although ordinary people rarely come into contact with it. Initially, I thought gas would be phased out with the advent of electricity!” someone muttered.

Gas’s early use was primarily as a fuel for lighting fixtures, but the introduction of electric lamps significantly reduced its demand in this area.

Of course, like the United States, East Africa started promoting natural gas as a residential fuel nearly simultaneously.

In the United States, the gas promotion was primarily led by private companies, whereas East Africa excelled at using administrative forces. Consequently, once the capacity was ensured, East Africa could rapidly implement nationwide promotion on a large scale, unlike the United States’ private, fragmented efforts.

Therefore, although East Africa started late in this area, surpassing other countries later would be relatively easy, considering no nation has emphasized natural gas resources more than East Africa.

”Ror, why is the natural gas pipeline built directly on the ground rather than buried underground like a sewer? Isn’t this too dangerous?” a patrol officer asked the technician overseeing the pipeline welding.

Ror explained, ”Many people in East Africa have never seen natural gas, so they don’t understand its properties. The pipeline is built above ground because natural gas is lighter than air and only ignites when its concentration is between five and fifteen percent. The advantage of an above-ground setup is that in case of a leak, the gas will rise and disperse, preventing the formation of a combustible mix. If it were underground, a leak would cause accumulation in trenches, resulting in an explosion at the slightest spark. That’s why we are constructing this pipeline on the surface.”

”Additionally, this setup also facilitates future maintenance and inspection. This pipeline ultimately leads to the power plant, and once the connection is completed, we can conduct inspections along the pipeline to prevent any leakage.”

As someone who has received compulsory education, the patrol officer could roughly understand the explanation, given that differences in gas density are a basic educational topic.

Only East Africa’s textbooks lack detailed descriptions of natural gas, considering that its large-scale utilization is barely a century old. In previous generations of East Africa, it was practically nonexistent.

However, concerns about pipeline safety were unwarranted. Although the first gas pipeline construction worldwide came later, the world’s first oil pipeline was built much earlier.

Thus the technology is quite mature, and as long as factories producing pipelines do not cut corners on materials, there should be no major issues.

”Mr. Ror, do you know how this gas generates electricity?”

Ror replied, ”It’s actually the same principle as coal-fired power generation; you boil water, and then use steam to drive it.”

In a previous generation, in 1940, a Swiss power station developed the world’s first electricity-generating turbine powered by natural gas, marking the birth of natural gas power generation technology.

East Africa advanced this timeline by forty years, whereas in the previous generation, it took until the 1920s for the United States and Germany to become pioneers in natural gas chemical research, using it to separate and produce products like formaldehyde, acetic acid, and synthetic rubber.

East Africa’s foresight in the natural gas sector positively impacts the nation’s development; the benefits outweigh any drawbacks. In the previous generation, the United States leveraged its early development in this field to establish a lasting technological advantage, thus dominating the international natural gas market. It’s important to note that natural gas, unlike oil, has uneven distribution, yet the United States managed to monopolize the market, proving the significance of technological accumulation.

Hence, research in the natural gas field is bound to become a key focus within East Africa’s energy sector, alongside coal and oil.