Namibia will be home to green hydrogen production for the first time, and Europe is investing. Whilst this may sound like good news, this investment could end up being the worst mistake in history. From dreams of economic freedom to a possible partnership betrayal, from reminiscing about the tragic history of colonization and genocide to the possible loss of rich cultural memories and sites. Today, we will be discussing events that have the potential to inspire the likes of Michael Haneke, Martin Scorsese, and Alfred Hitchcock.<\/p>\n
Namibia’s late president, President Hage Geingob, had a dream to transform the Namibian economy by using hydrogen<\/strong>, especially after years of drought that forced so many farmers to sell their farms that have been a part of their family for generations. They have felt the effects of climate change, which is why so many are excited about Namibia’s latest contribution to the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n Namibia’s first modern ironworks is the “Oshivela” project, and it manufactures “green iron” due to utilizing power produced by renewable energy. The country hopes that some 1 million tons of green ammonia will be manufactured annually, primarily for export to Europe and Asia by 2028. The port for this will be constructed at Shark Island.<\/p>\n “Namibia will be the first country in the world to produce iron industrially without CO2 emissions.” – Johannes Michels, managing director of Hylron, a company that began producing the first green hydrogen in March.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Namibia’s hydrogen industry is developing steadily thanks to German investment<\/strong>. Hylron, the first solar field that results in 25 megawatts of electricity, is mainly funded by German investors, with \u20ac13 million from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Michels is the only managing director with Namibian roots.<\/p>\n Namibia’s Shark Island is set to play a key role in manufacturing green hydrogen<\/strong>. Also known as Death Island, it used to be a concentration camp and a genocide site during German colonial rule from 1884 to 1915. In 1884, German colonizer Adolf L\u00fcderitz seized Namibia to fund colonial rule through minerals. Between 1904 and 1908, approximately 100,000 people (80 per cent of the Herero and half of the Nama population<\/a>) were killed.<\/p>\n People who weren’t killed were sent to concentration camps and forced to perform manual labour, such as working on railways and harbours. Forensic Architecture<\/em> digitally reconstructed the camps and identified evidence of burial places. They also threw the bodies of those who had died in the concentration camp into the ocean. For Shark Island, the port expansion thus “poses further imminent risk to the site.”<\/p>\n Economist Robin Sherbourne remains skeptical about Namibia’s potential benefits from the hydrogen industry<\/a>, warning that subsidies alone will not be enough<\/strong> and cautioning that the industry will not make any profits if it remains commercially inactive for years. The lack of demand for “green iron” will also not help its cause, and purchase agreements for green hydrogen in Namibia are rare.<\/p>\n “It’s not that we’re going to earn very good money with it straight away, but it’s the case that we can survive with it,” Johannes Michels, Hylron’s managing director.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With possible threats of locals also fighting against the neocolonialism to protect their historical heritage sites<\/strong>, this investment could be the worst mistake in history.<\/a><\/p>\n To remain impartial is nearly impossible when it comes to the destruction of important cultural and historical sites and remains, even the ones telling tragic stories, just because our leaders have become blinded by greed. Extracting natural resources from developing countries will forever remain an unfair practice, especially when you try to erase cultural and historical sites for financial gain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Namibia will be home to green hydrogen production for the first time, and Europe is investing. Whilst this may sound like good news, this investment could end up being the worst mistake in history. From dreams of economic freedom to a possible partnership betrayal, from reminiscing about the tragic history of colonization and genocide to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":5912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"hydrogen,europe,namibia,mine,renewable energy","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Namibia will be home to green hydrogen production for the first time, and Europe is investing. This investment could end up being the worst mistake in history.","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The tragic history of the prospective Namibian hydrogen port<\/h2>\n
Why Europe’s investment could end up being a huge mistake<\/h2>\n