Was responsible for many bruises I have right now.

Today, windsurfing was fantastic, but really harsh for me. I returned home exhausted, fatigued and discovered a good number of bruises.

Anna should have docked in front of the Manesterly palace today. She is a Greenpeace sail boat, originally built in 1901, staying 3 days in Cairo to raise awareness about climate change.

Will we see the millennia old Nile valley looking like this, providing renewable and clean energy sources to help our development ?

I think that the earlier we stop relying on fossil fuel for energy the easier and less costly it will be to depend fully on clean resources. And a country like Egypt with lower energy consumption per capita compared to any developed nation* would make a sudden spring to renewable resources easier and smoother. We are more fit for it. With the reduced greenhouse emissions we can start trading emissions to energy monsters that can't adapt quickly enough. Moreover, we can fund the switch by the expected increase in natural gas and oil surplus.

Our current energy requirements are relatively low compared to many developed nations, soe today's clean technology might be adequate. We might not need development of more efficient technology. We only need to deploy enough of it. I am not sure but I think we might have a good number of open arid lands with good winds for wind farms.

Currently our industry has far lower energy requirements due to its limited size, compared to more industrialized nations. But it is expected to grow. The continuous improvement of the efficiency of renewable technologies and increase in quantity of resources can make for increased energy requirements in the future.

In the end I have no idea, this is just my view on the issue. I think the sail mast fell on my head today.

UPDATE: Anna couldn't make it to the Nile due to the usual Egyptian redtape. Although the Egyptian team managed to get a great deal of permits finished.

3 days later here we sit in the same dirty port in Alexandria. Not much toreport. Dust, stray dogs, officials, rates, flies and more dust are pretty much the order of the day here. The team here has worked so hard to get us the paperwork to go up the river Nile, but it seems that all the doors are closing around us and every time one problem is solved another one instantaneously appears.

Very classic! continue reading

An Egyptian consumes 10 times less energy than any US citizen.

Read more about Anna here, here and here