The energy potential of the Democratic Republic of Congo: a contributing element to the resurgence of electrical industry in Africa and to the fight against global warming

Human activities, especially those related to the exploitation, commercialisation and primary energy consumption are the underlying reason for the impoverishment of biodiversity. This impoverishment leads to the pollution and degradation (including desertification) of the soil and water, to atmospheric pollution, to the decrease of the necessary aquiferous resources in ecosystems that really need them like the urban systems, and to the impoverishment of the ozone. The summits in Rio (1992), in Kyoto (1997) and in Johannesburg (2002) tried to elaborate rules that would reverse this tendency which is dangerous for the environment, for us, for our economy and for our descendants. Energy consumption in Africa is unfortunately predominated by traditional combustibles (especially wood), which in some countries represent 95%. These combustibles entail a serious waste of the beautiful and often limited local wood resources, besides generating considerable amounts of contaminating emissions that seriously affect the health of those using them. Nevertheless, in this article we demonstrate how the continent does have, through the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), several hydraulic resources capable of contributing to the revival of healthy African electric industry, with no environmental impacts. At present, the electric power that the DRC can produce must cover the energy necessities of the continent, it can contribute to the nascent industrialisation of the continent and it can finally keep Africa from using energy coming from wood