BY MITCHELL MAHACHI Zimbabwe has been grappling with a huge electricity deficit over the last few years and many plans have been presented to take the country out of the perennial power outages that have plagued and affected industrial output, putting a damper on the economy. The country’s power generation capacity in February 2016 was estimated at only 845MW, against a peak demand of 2 200MW and an installed capacity of approximately 1 940MW. To augment its power, the country has had to import electricity from South Africa, Mozambique, and the DRC. The Zimbabwe Power Company embarked on expansion projects for the Hwange Thermal Power Station and the Kariba Hydro Power Station in 2014. However, the Kariba Hydro Power Station was severely affected by a significant drop in water levels to around just 11% of operating volume in 2016. In order to improve the situation, a number of projects were initiated by the government including Munyati 100MW solar plant, Insukamini 100MW solar plant, Gwanda 100MW solar plant, Mutare 120MW Peaking Power Plant and these are at various stages of implementation. Given the foregoing, the government of Zimbabwe has stacked its hopes on the construction of a US$3 billion, 2 100MW coal thermal power plant in Sengwa, Gokwe district, by Rio Energy (Pvt) Ltd with financial assistance from China. This should surely solve the problems of the ailing southern African economy and set it on a path to economic recovery. However, there are a number of skeletons in this project which cast a dark shadow that makes one wonder if this really is the panacea to the nation’s problems. At a time when the whole world is clamouring to decarbonise and attain carbon neutrality by 2050, our nation is talking of investing US$3 billion in fossil fuels which are a net source of GHG emissions. The IPCC observations and scientists are clear that anthropogenic emissions have caused a warming of the climate system and even the ocean temperatures have increased to depths of at least 3 000m. Reports suggest that since 1751, the world has emitted over 1,5 trillion tonnes of CO2 with China identified as the leading emitter. As agreed at the Paris Agreement, to reach the climate goal of limiting average temperature rise to below 2°C of pre-industrial times, the world needs to urgently reduce these GHG emissions. Fossil fuels, particularly coal, have been identified as larger emitters of CO2 which has a greenhouse effect thus warming up the earth’s atmosphere. Currently, some of the warmest areas in the world are already above the 1,5°C indicated in the Paris accord. So what is holding back the Sengwa Coal Power Plant project, one might ask? After all, the project is aimed at addressing the energy deficit in the country which remains critical to the country’s economic recovery, social and economic development and transformation. The project may create jobs for those in the community and the country may export surplus electricity to neighbouring countries and that is about all the benefits from the project. The flip side, howeve