Listen to the following utterances and fill in the gaps
Utterance 1
Just a few years ago people of Mbuiru 1) were like the 2) of Kenyans. They had no 3) to electricity. Without it their 4) of opening businesses 5) .
Utterance 2
6) is where you generate power up to 100 kilowatts. And they are using water in the small 7) to generate electricity by 8) . Then the turbine now 9) power of water – that is 10) energy – into electrical energy.
Utterance 3
All the 11) and a bit of skilled labor came from the community. What Practical Action did was to 12) support in terms of designing the system and also 13) , and also supplying a turbine and a generator.
Utterance 4
Water is 14) from the stream through a canal into a 15) . Water 16) from the tank goes down a 17) into a powerhouse. There energy from the water turns the turbine, which then drives the generator to produce electricity.
Utterance 5
The project at Mbuiru doesn’t directly electrify 18) houses, rather, says Kapolon, it 19) the business centre. There, the electricity 20) batteries, similar to those used in 21) . Each individual household 22) one of these batteries.
Utterance 5
Power has also brought computers to Mbuiru. Farmers now 23) to determine what crops 24) .
After-listening questions
1. What did the people of Mbuiru have according to John Kapolon?
2. What enabled to establish micro-hydro power project at Mbuiru?
3. What did local people provide for the project? What did NGO provide?
4. How does micro-hydro power project work?
5. What is the cost difference between conventional power station and micro-hydro power station?
6. What is the system of electrification at Mbuiru?
7. How did the new power station influence the number of university and high school graduates at Mbuiru?
8. How beneficial is the project for farmers?
9. What facilities for making and storing food appeared at Mbuiru?
10. What industry did the people of Mbuiru enter? What small business enterprises appear there?
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READING
Power from Small Stream Transforms Kenyan Village (VOA, aud+)
Darren Taylor
August 24, 2012
Little more than a decade ago Mbuiru village in Tungu Kabiri district in central Kenya was a “typical African backwater,” said John Kapolon, of the UK-based Practical Action NGO.
The inhabitants of Mbuiru struggled to survive as subsistence farmers. Some of the villagers had skills such as welding and hairdressing they’d learned in the capital, Nairobi, 115 miles to the south. Many of them dreamed of owning their own businesses.
But their desire to develop themselves remained unattainable. Mbuiru’s inhabitants were among the estimated 85 percent of Kenya’s population of 43 million who to this day do not have access to electricity, according to the United Nations.
“I remember visiting the area and people really had a lot of problems. While communications technology was common in the cities, the people of Mbuiru had to walk long distances to find electricity just to charge their cellphones,” Kapolon recalled, adding, “Really, the people at Mbuiru had nothing….”
But they did have a stream that wound its way down the slopes of Mount Kenya past their settlement. It proved to be perfect for a unique project that has transformed Mbuiru into an example of achievement in an otherwise impoverished, neglected district.
Ideal site
Clean power experts from Practical Action visited Mbuiru for the first time in 1999. “We immediately saw that it had a strong stream that could be used to generate electricity,” said Kapolon, a renewable energy project officer for the NGO.
To be sure that a power generation scheme was sustainable at the village, the NGO employed experts to analyze the River Tungu’s flow records going back 40 years. The data showed that even during times of drought the stream at Mbuiru had never stopped running as it is constantly fed by ice melts and precipitation from nearby Mount Kenya. It was ideal for a micro-hydropower project, said Kapolon.
The Tungu Kabiri project harnesses energy from falling water. A weir collects the water, which is then diverted through a concrete canal into a large tank. Water released from the tank goes down a pipeline into a powerhouse containing a turbine and a generator. Energy from the water turns the turbine, which then drives the generator to produce electricity.
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The community helped build the project. “All the manual labor and a bit of skilled labor, it all came from the community. What Practical Action did was to provide technical support in terms of designing the system and also supervising the construction, and also supplying a turbine and a generator,” said Kapolon. The NGO taught locals to maintain the micro-hydropower system.
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