To Orwell Today,
re: HARNESS LAKE KIVU POWER

Jackie,

I have been interested in the story of the methane gas in Lake Kivu for some time now. I have just read your web page, and I enjoyed reading your personal perspective. The trouble is, I have read so many conflicting reports about which company is going to extract methane for power generation. Some reports say the Swiss, some say the Danes, I have even heard that a French company had a contract. And now it is a US company. I was wondering if you could direct me to an authoratitive source as to exactly who will be tapping Lake Kivu for methane.

Points of curiosity for me are :- if there has been unsuccessful tenderers, why did they not succeed? If the current tenderer is a US company, is there some conspiracy as to how the Europeans were superceded?

Thanks for reading my email,
Pauldos!

Greetings Pauldos,

Yes, the harnessing of Lake Kivu's power is a fascinating unfolding story which I continue to follow.

The last article I posted on the web page (Feb 6, 2008) said Swiss engineers were engineering the gas-extractor pump and an article before that (Jan 18, 2008) said Rwanda would likely be giving USA the contract to do the actual gas extracting.

I don't see a conspiracy to supersede Europe (Switzerland) with USA but rather a matter of them working on different components of the project, ie engineering and implementing.

I don't know why the Danes - and more recently the Canadians - didn't fulfill their contracts to extract the methane but I hope the USA succeeds and all Rwandans reap the benefits of the very valuable resource.

All the best,
Jackie Jura