The Hydrogen Energy Revolution and the Incoming Hydrogen Economy and the Interplay Between Science, Technology and Energy/Oil Politics

By

Professor Sam Ejike Okoye

samokoye@hotmail.com

We are at the dawn of a new economy, using hydrogen as the energy carrier, which will fundamentally change the nature of our financial markets, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the Industrial Age.

Peter Hoffman

The hydrogen geoeconomy (which will come in a matter of time) is a world fundamentally different from the world we know now. The clean fuel that hydrogen will deliver, through the associated fuel cell technology, could make obsolete the global, big-scale, polluting oil networks through a locally based system. The first thing to keep in mind is that with distributed generation, every family, business, neighbourhood and community is potentially consumer, producer and vendor of hydrogen and electricity. Because fuel cells are located physically at the sites where the hydrogen and electricity are going to be produced and partially consumed, with surplus hydrogen sold as fuel and surplus electricity sent back onto the energy network, the ability to aggregate large numbers of producer/users into associations is critical to energy empowerment and the advancing of the vision of democratic energy. Empowering people and democratising energy will require that public institutions and non-profit organizations—local governments, cooperatives, community development corporations, credit unions and the like—jump in at the beginning of the new energy revolution and help establish distributed generation associations in every country. Eventually, the end users’ combined generating power via the energy web will exceed the power generated by the utility companies at their own central plants. When that happens, it will constitute a revolution in the way energy is produced and distributed. Once the customer, the end user, becomes the producer and supplier of energy, power companies around the world will be forced to redefine their role if they are to survive. A few power companies are already beginning to explore a new role as bundler of energy services and coordinator of energy activity on the energy web that is forming. In the new scheme of things, power companies would become “virtual utilities,” assisting end users by connecting them with one another and helping them share their

energy surplus profitably and efficiently. Coordinating content rather than producing it becomes the mantra for power companies in the era of distributed generation. Utility companies, interestingly enough, serve to gain—at least in the short run—from distributed generation; though, until recently, many have fought the development.

Transition Strategy

The first steps toward a clean energy future will build on well-known commercial processes for producing, storing, transporting, and using hydrogen. For the long term, development and demonstration of more advanced technologies will be an important step toward a hydrogen economy.

Near Term

Today, large centralized steam methane reformers are used to produce hydrogen for chemical industries. This will continue to be the likely choice for meeting increased hydrogen demand in the near term. Electrolysers are also used to produce the high purity hydrogen needed for electronics manufacturing and other specialty uses. Today, hydrogen is stored and transported as a compressed gas or cryogenic liquid. Compressed hydrogen tanks are available today, although the low energy density of hydrogen means we need large tanks. As a liquid, hydrogen's energy density is substantially improved, but boil-off losses are a concern. Today also, hydrogen is transported by pipeline or over the road in cylinders, tube trailers, and cryogenic tankers. A small amount is shipped by rail car or barge. At present, hydrogen is primarily used as a chemical to produce

reformulated petrol and diesel, ammonia for fertilizer, and food products. Hydrogen has also long been used in the space program as a propellant for the space shuttle and in the on-board fuel cells that provide the shuttle's electric power. New combustion equipment is being designed specifically for hydrogen in turbines and engines. Vehicles with hydrogen internal combustion engines have been demonstrated, and the combustion of hydrogen/natural gas blends is being tested. Fuel cells are in various stages of development for transportation, stationary and portable appliances.

Long Term

The goal for the long term is that hydrogen will be available for every energy need. Hydrogen will be produced in industrial areas, in power parks and at fuelling stations in communities, and on-site at customers' homes and businesses. Processes will use fossil fuels, biomass, or water as feedstocks and release little or no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Electrolysers will produce hydrogen from water using electricity generated by the sun and wind. In addition, water-splitting micro organisms and biomass fermentation will become viable potential sources for renewable hydrogen. The hydrogen storage problem will be solved with lightweight, low-cost, and compact storage devices. A nationwide hydrogen supply network made up of pipelines, trucks, and trains—will be in place. Pipelines will distribute hydrogen to high-demand areas, and trucks and rail will distribute hydrogen to rural and lower demand areas. On-site hydrogen production and distribution facilities will be built where demand is high. Fuel cells will be a cost-competitive technology. Hydrogen will fuel vehicle fleets from one end of a country to the other. Hydrogen-powered devices such as combustion turbines and reciprocating engines will enjoy widespread commercial use, generating clean electricity and thermal energy for homes, offices, and factories. In addition,

fuel cells will be used to power portable devices such as laptop and palm computers, mobile phones, and other electronic equipment. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is building partnerships between national laboratories, universities, and industry to speed up the development of hydrogen technologies. Together, they hope to realize the vision of a hydrogen energy future.

Fuel Cells

Depending on whom you talk to, the fuel-cell revolution is either 20 years down the road, or right around the corner. In a sense, both views are correct. Fuel cells are no longer tomorrow’s technology, the stuff of science fiction and space travel. Annual investment in the US , for example, in fuel-cell research tops $1 billion per year. Within the next two years, the first fuel-cell cars will be on the road, fuel-cell power plants large and small will become commonplace, tiny cells will begin to replace batteries in many household appliances, and a start will have been made in creating a global hydrogen-fuelling infrastructure.

Fuel cells are one of the key enabling technologies for a future hydrogen economy. They have the potential to replace the internal combustion engine in vehicles and to provide power in stationary and portable power applications because they are energy-efficient, clean, and fuel-flexible. For transportation applications, The US Department of Energy (DOE) is now focusing on direct hydrogen fuel cells, in which on-board storage of hydrogen is supplied by a hydrogen generation, delivery, and fuelling infrastructure, and on-board fuel processing, in which fuels supplied by existing infrastructure, such as gasoline, methanol, ethanol, natural gas, or other hydrocarbon fuel can be processed on-board the vehicle to supply hydrogen. For distributed generation fuel cell applications, the program focuses on near-term fuel cell systems running on natural gas or propane and recognizes the longer term potential for systems running on renewable fuels Commercial fuel cells powered by hydrogen are just now being introduced into the market for home, office and industrial use. The major automakers have spent over $2 billion developing hydrogen cars, buses and trucks, and the first mass-produced test vehicles had been on the road beginning in 2003. The hydrogen economy makes possible a vast redistribution of electricity, with far-reaching consequences for society. Today’s centralized, top-down flow of energy, controlled by global oil companies and utilities, can become obsolete. In the new era, every human being with access to renewable energy sources could become a producer as well as a consumer—using so-called distributed generation. When millions of end-users connect their fuel cells powered by renewables into local, regional and national publicly owned hydrogen energy webs (HEWs), they can begin to share energy—peer-to-peer—creating a new decentralized form of energy generation and use. In the new hydrogen fuel-cell era, even the automobile itself is a “power station on wheels” with a generating capacity of 20 kilowatts. Since the average car is parked about 96 percent of the time, it can be plugged in, during non-use hours, to the home, office or the main interactive electricity network, providing premium electricity back to the grid. As hydrogen visionary Amory Lovins explains, “Once you put a fuel cell in an ultra light car, you then have a 20- to 25-kilowatt power station on wheels. So why not lease those fuel-cell cars to people who work in buildings where you’ve installed fuel cells?” This clean fuel could make obsolete our big-scale, polluting oil network through a locally based system. The first thing to keep in mind is that with distributed generation, every family, business, neighbourhood and community is potentially consumer, producer and vendor of hydrogen and electricity. Because fuel cells are located physically at the sites where the hydrogen and electricity are going to be produced and partially consumed, with surplus hydrogen sold as fuel and surplus electricity sent back onto the energy network, the ability to aggregate large numbers of producer/users into associations is critical to energy empowerment and the advancing of the vision of democratic energy.

Nigeria and the hydrogen energy challenge.

Today Nigeria may be regarded as well endowed in primary energy sources, but alas this will only be the case only within a limited time frame. The question which our policy makers must engage sooner than later is: After crude oil, how will the country cope or survive? This requires a good measure of strategic thinking and planning. Indeed, Nigeria ’s most comprehensive attempt at such an exercise was the Vision 2010 exercise in the Abacha era. Although this effort was jettisoned by the Obasanjo Administration, nothing comparable has been put in its place other than the NEEDS initiative which has been hailed in some, and severely criticised (by people like Bala Usman) in other quarters. Unfortunately, NEEDS was framed within the paradigm of a fossil energy driven global economy. It is therefore not far reaching enough to deal with a global energy revolution which could start possibly even before the end of this decade. This inevitable energy revolution, now engaged by a few advanced countries will before long, demand a timely and serious response from all countries developed and developing alike. But unlike the industrial revolution, the less developed countries (LDCs) will stand a reasonable chance of not being relegated to the peripheries of the new civilisation. This is a direct consequence of their efforts to develop generations of high level scientific and technological manpower in the last eighty to hundred years. However, although the technology and economic gaps between the advanced industrialized countries and the LDCs are still quite formidable, every thing will depend on how effectively the LDCs use both

their available human and material resources. Today, Nigeria has produced a sizeable number of high fliers in the sciences and engineering. Such technical high level manpower both in the country and in Diaspora could, if given the organisation, resources and high level political encouragement, play a very significant part in getting Nigeria admitted into the club of first generation hydrogen energy players, in much the same way that she is currently attempting to join the club of space powers. Given her vast oil and gas endowments, there is no reason why part of the income from oil and gas exports should not now be invested to secure a future in the incoming hydrogen global economy.

The way Forward.

There is really no two ways about it. Unlike the crude oil era when Nigeria had to lean quite heavily on foreign capital, technology and organisational power to help her exploit and even market her God given natural resources, this time in the 21^st century, Nigeria must grow up and learn to lift herself up technologically by her boot straps. To this end, just as she has made inroads into renewable energy research by, for example, establishing centres of excellence in solar energy research in federal universities at Nsukka and Sokoto, efforts should also now be made to establish a National Centre for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Energy Research, thus mirroring national development centres in Information Technology as well as Biotechnology which already exist. Such a centre for hydrogen and fuel cell research will in the first instance develop the required scientific and technical manpower required in this area, and subsequently, take up research and development work in such areas as hydrogen production and delivery, hydrogen storage, in terms of safety, reliability and cost effectiveness, development of reliable low cost high performance fuel cell hardware and systems , and development of user end

technologies Such a project on first sight, may well appear over ambitious, but Nigeria should be emboldened by the past political audacity of Japan (when in a similar situation as Nigeria today) in going after western technology a hundred years ago as India and South Korea had done, a number of decades later. The only caveat is that in choosing the leadership for this type of (national survival) institute, efforts should be made to resist the temptation to install mediocrity in response to ethnic or other loyalties, but instead outstanding scientists/engineers in the area or cognate disciplines should be chosen based only on their merit, competence and proven track record.

It is not clear how much modern energy policy research in terms of the interplay between economy, politics and technology is being carried out at the National Energy Commission. But it would appear that either the Federal Government or the Energy Commission itself would need to establish a full fledged centre for energy policy in view of the central and key role that energy plays in the national economy. This naturally raises also the general issue of strategic policy research. True, there is already a National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) at Kuru. However, one is not clear about what kind of strategic research is being carried out there (if any). But the persisting traditional military overtones in the institute’s leadership and students do not suggest it as part of the mainstream of academia where national strategic research should belong. The Kuru Institute at present seems to serve the needs of part of the Nigerian leadership elite rather than the overall national vision needs. Government may well need to review the mandate and mission of this institute, as Nigeria needs badly a proper centre for strategic research.

Finally, in view of the fast pace of developments in science, technology and world affairs in today’s globalised world, with spin-offs for national economic and social development, Nigeria

cannot thrive without a clear strategic vision of her future. There is therefore a need for a national leaders of thought conference (totally different from a political conference, with or without sovereignty, or the vision 2010 jamboree) in which Nigeria’s best minds can brainstorm on a future vision for a prosperous Nigeria where her vast resources, human and material, will be fully mobilised and exploited for the good and benefit of all Nigerians.

A hydrogen economy will mean a world where our pollution problems are solved and where our need for abundant and affordable energy is secure...and where concerns about dwindling resources are a thing of the past."
Spencer Abraham, US Secretary of Energy

Introduction.

According to Dr Hans Ziock of the US National Los Alamos Research Laboratory, New Mexico , 85% of the energy used worldwide is currently obtained through the combustion of fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas). Emitted into the atmosphere, the resultant carbon dioxide will eventually cause a very large increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, with catastrophic consequences. For example, the increase of the atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by widespread combustion of fossil fuels may intensify the so-called greenhouse effect in which the sun’s radiation striking the earth’s surface is radiated back into space but prevented from escaping by carbon dioxide in the air. The greenhouse effect causes the earth’s surface and lower atmosphere to warm more than they normally do, a phenomenon known as global warming. Indeed the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is estimated to have risen by 25 % since the Industrial Revolution and 10 % since 1950. The rate of increase is now estimated to be 0.5 % per year . In 2001, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that by the year 2100, the global average surface temperatures in the world would increase by 2.5 to 10.° F(1.4 to 5.8 ° C) depending on a range of scenarios for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Many scientists predict that such an increase would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly thereby significantly raising the levels of coastal waters world wide and at the same time producing new patterns and extremes of drought and

rainfall, which in turn would seriously disrupt food production in certain regions of the world. However, some scientists argue, even if unconvincingly, that such predictions may be over stated. But as will be argued in this article, there is a nexus between world energy consumption, atmospheric

pollution, global warming and developmental strategies of all countries, developed and developing alike.

The looming world energy crisis.

There is no doubt that energy is the main crankshaft in the engine of the global economy. No national economy can thrive without an assured supply of energy, whether in its primary or developed form. This informs some of the present geopolitical tensions, such as the Iraq war. Since fossil fuels remain for now the main source of industrial, municipal and transportation energy requirements, its position in the strategic calculations of polities remain assured. From this perspective, the reality of today, is that world population and per capita economic output are both increasing in response to the demands of social and economic development. However, because energy use and economic output are tightly linked, world energy use and carbon dioxide emissions are increasing as national economies grow with time. Although the climatic consequences of this situation cannot now be estimated precisely, yet it is apparent that if an increasing rate of carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere remains unabated for a number of decades, this is bound to impact seriously not only on global climate and ecosystems, but on man’s social and economic well being as well.

To prevent a harmful accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide without curbing world economic growth, which is what the 2001 UN Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change is all about, one or more of the following conditions must be met: (a) Economic output per unit of energy consumed must increase

faster than the total economic output. (b) Fossil fuels must largely be replaced by alternative energy sources. (c) Carbon dioxide produced in the combustion of fossil fuels must be sequestered from the atmosphere. It is now widely accepted that the global economy could not depend on fossil fuels indefinitely as a source of energy, even if supplies were to be infinite, since their use will before long be severely constrained by the requirement of keeping atmospheric pollution to a minimum within a very tight limit. Indeed, because of the imperatives of human survival, the use of fossil fuels may before too long be abandoned altogether in favour of alternative non-fossil energy sources such as biomass (wood and agricultural waste), nuclear, hydropower, solar, wind, ocean, hydrogen and geothermal -- the so-called renewable energy sources. This reality has some interesting consequences for developing countries particularly oil producing Nigeria , which will be discussed briefly later.

Although, according to the US National Energy Development Group (see www.whitehouse.gov/energy) , the economic output per unit of energy consumed in the world shows a long term upward trend. However, the improvements currently fail to match the increase in total economic output. There is thus wide scale interest and significant investment in the development of non-fossil energy sources The advanced industrialized countries are now vigorously investing heavily in research and development into these renewable energy sources. Limited successes have already been registered with some of these renewable energy sources such as nuclear, hydropower, solar and wind. Although nuclear fission energy initially seemed like the answer to cheap abundant energy supply, the problem of the disposal of the very dangerous nuclear wastes had cast a very dark shadow on this source. At the end of the day, it all boils down to simple economics as none of the non-renewable energy sources is as cheap as crude oil, for now. However. efforts continue in the USA , Europe and Japan to free their national economies from the bondage of crude oil. Their success in this

quest is only a matter of time , and considering how much information technology and super computers are facilitating and speeding up progress in frontline applied research and development, it will be very surprising if these countries will wait until crude oil supplies run out or become unacceptably expensive, in a matter of decades. Therein lies the dilemma of the oil producing developing countries. But now we must look at how fossil fuels may be replaced by cleaner alternative sources of energy.

The hydrogen economy.

We heat our homes and businesses, run our factories, power our transportation and light our cities with fossil fuels. We communicate over distances with electricity derived from fossil fuels, grow our food with the help of fossil fuels and produce our clothes and home appliances with petrochemicals. Indeed, virtually every aspect of modern existence is made from, powered with, or affected by fossil fuels. But experts have been saying that we have another 40 or so years of cheap recoverable crude oil left. Now, however, some of the world’s leading petroleum geologists are suggesting that global oil production could peak and begin a steep decline much sooner, indeed as early as the end of this decade, sending oil prices through the roof. Non-OPEC oil-producing countries are already nearing their peak production, leaving most of the remaining reserves in the politically unstable Middle East . Increasing tensions between Islam and the West are likely to further threaten the access of the advanced industrialized countries to cheap crude oil. Rising oil prices will assuredly plunge developing countries even further into debt, locking much of the Third World in the throes of extreme poverty for years to come. In desperation, the U.S. and other industrialised nations could turn to dirtier fossil fuels—coal, tar-sand and heavy oil—which will only worsen

global warming and imperil the Earth’s already beleaguered ecosystems. Thus, while the fossil-fuel era is entering its sunset

years, a new energy regime is being born that has the potential to remake civilization along radical new lines. Hydrogen is the most basic and ubiquitous element in the universe. It is the stuff of which the sun and stars are made , and when properly harnessed and made from renewable sources, it is the “forever fuel,” notes author and alternative energy proponent Peter Hoffman. It produces no harmful carbon dioxide emissions when burned; the only by-products are heat and pure water. We are at the dawn of a new economy, using hydrogen as the energy carrier, which will fundamentally change the nature of our financial markets, political and social institutions, just as coal and steam power did at the beginning of the Industrial Age. As Hoffman writes in his book, Tomorrow’s Energy: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and the Prospects for a Cleaner Planet (MIT Press), hydrogen can “propel airplanes, cars, trains and ships, run plants, and heat homes, offices, hospitals and schools….. As a gas, hydrogen can transport energy over long distances, in pipelines, as cheaply as electricity (perhaps even more efficiently, under some circumstances), driving fuel cells or other power-generating machinery at the consumer end to make electricity and water. As a chemical fuel, hydrogen can be used in a much wider range of energy applications than electricity.” Chemically bound hydrogen is found everywhere on Earth: in water, fossil fuels and all living things. Yet, it rarely exists free floating in nature. Instead, it has to be extracted from water or from hydrocarbons. Today, nearly half the hydrogen produced in the world is derived from natural gas via a steam reforming process. The natural gas reacts with steam in a catalytic converter. The process strips away the hydrogen atoms, leaving carbon dioxide as the by product (and, unfortunately, releasing it to the atmosphere as a global warming gas). Coal can also be reformed through gasification to produce hydrogen, but this is more expensive than using natural gas and also releases carbon dioxide, which scientists hope to keep earthbound through a

process called “carbon sequestration.” Hydrogen can also be processed from petrol or methanol (a type of alcohol), though again carbon dioxide is an unwanted by product. Although using steam to reform natural gas has proven thus far to be the cheapest way to produce commercial hydrogen, global production of natural gas is likely to peak sometime between 2020 and 2030, creating a second energy crisis on the heels of the oil crisis. There is, however, another way to produce hydrogen without using fossil fuels in the process. Renewable sources of energy can be harnessed to produce electricity. The electricity, in turn, can be used, in a process called electrolysis, to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored and later used in a fuel cell ( a kind of electric battery) to generate electricity, with heat as a useful by product that could be harnessed to heat homes in cold climates, among other uses. Fuel cells run only on hydrogen, but the gas can be derived from many hydrogen-rich sources, including just about any fossil fuel, but only through the use of renewable resources is the whole process emission-free. People often ask: Why generate electricity twice, first to produce electricity for the process of electrolytic hydrogen and then again to produce electricity and heat in a fuel cell? The reason is that electricity can be stored only in batteries, which are cumbersome to transport and slow to recharge, while hydrogen can be stored at much lower cost. Internal-combustion engines capture only 15 to 20 percent of the energy in petrol/diesel, and the conventional electric power grid is only 33 percent efficient. But as Amory Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) points out, “Fuel cells

can convert 40 to 65 percent of hydrogen’s energy into electricity.” The real question, then, is one of costs. Wind, hydropower and biomass (generating power by burning plant material such as wood waste and agricultural residue) are already cost competitive in many parts of the world and can be used to generate electricity for the electrolysis process. Wind power, for instance, is now the fastest growing new source of

energy; it averages six to eight US cents per kilowatt-hour at the wind generator, down from 40 cents in the early 1980s, though collection and transmission costs must be added. Solar (photovoltaic) and geothermal costs, however, are still high and will need to come down considerably to make the process competitive with the natural gas steam reforming process now used most often in the production of electricity.

Fuel cells are one of the key enabling technologies for a future hydrogen economy. They have the potential to replace the internal combustion engine in vehicles and to provide power in stationary and portable power applications because they are energy-efficient, clean, and fuel-flexible. For transportation applications, the US Department of Energy (DOE) is now focusing on direct hydrogen fuel cells, in which on-board storage of hydrogen is supplied by a hydrogen generation, delivery, and fuelling infrastructure, and on-board fuel processing, in which fuels supplied by existing infrastructure, such as gasoline, methanol, ethanol, natural gas, or other hydrocarbon fuel can be processed on-board the vehicle to supply hydrogen. For distributed generation fuel cell applications, the program focuses on near-term fuel cell systems running on natural gas or propane and recognizes the longer term potential for systems running on renewable fuels

Challenges facing Nigeria

If the claim that the world will be done with recoverable crude oil in the next forty years or so is to be believed ; and if, the prediction of the world’s leading petroleum geologists, that global oil production could peak and begin a steep decline much sooner, and indeed as early as the end of this decade. Then those mono economies that rely mainly on crude oil exports have every reason to be very apprehensive of their future. Of course, they could go into denial and hope that oil energy will continue

its present dominance indefinitely. However, they need to be reminded that the same POLITICAL WILL that led to the development of space technology that landed man on the Moon ( technically, an extremely difficult exercise indeed) back in 1969 could again be called upon, if western civilisation is threatened when crude oil finally runs out, to motivate scientists and engineers to come up with non-fossil energy alternatives, much sooner than later. Thus President George Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address spelt out his vision of hydrogen energy future in the following words: “ A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water , not exhaust fumes. … With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to the showroom so that the first car (the freedom car) driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and pollution free”. To put his money where his mouth is, President Bush, last October approved a new $1.2 billion funding for the “freedom car” project. Also Romano Prodi, lately president of the European Union (EU), early this year unveiled the EU’s $2 billion commitment to renewable hydrogen based energy economy. The private sector in the advanced economies have also mounted their own initiatives and major fuel cell players include Motorola, Samsung, NEC, Toshiba, Daimler-Benz and General Motors.

There is thus an urgent need for Nigeria to reappraise its energy, (particularly crude oil) policy. For a start, it is important to note that the extent of Nigeria ’s proven oil reserves may in the end not be that meaningful unless they are utilized before the price of crude oil becomes uncompetitive vis-à-vis renewable energy, or is displaced as a major energy source for the global economy. In this regard, the issue of whether Nigeria ’s continued membership of OPEC is in the overall strategic national interest needs to be re-examined. We must therefore explore carefully whether the export constraints of OPEC would

enable Nigeria to balance effectively a number of competing factors, such as world demand and stability of oil prices, against our urgent need to finance our development programs such as NEEDS. What ever is the case, it is clear that while the gravy train of petrodollars is still in motion, Nigeria must not only maximise and manage prudently income from its oil reserves but must more importantly use its oil income to diversify its economy. It is hoped that the Presidency, the Energy Commission, the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Assembly and the NNPC will all rise up to this imminent challenge.

Sam Okoye , a life fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science and former Science Attaché, Nigeria High Commission, London, writes from London .