NIGERIA’S ENERGY CHALLENGE AND POWER DEVELOPMENT: THE WAY FORWARD

The ever increasing demand and meager supply of energy in Nigeria has been a great challenge to her development. This situation is becoming critical, with increasing population not balanced by an adequate energy development programme. The incessant power generation failure has grossly affected the economy, seriously slowing down development in rural and sub-rural settlements, with present energy policy mainly benefiting urban dwellers. Globally, energy projections stipulate that between 2002 and 2025, global energy needs may rise by over 34%, with that of developing nations doubling this percentage. A robust solution must be found to end the nation’s energy crises. This Viewpoint compares the energy potential of Nigeria with the challenges faced. Nigeria receives a huge amount of solar radiation, has abundant wind energy resources, and large deposits of fossil fuel, as well as enormous hydro-power resources from Niger and Benue Rivers. However, of these about 80% of hydro-power remains untapped, the total 5.5KW-hr/m2/day of solar radiation is not utilized and wind energy resources remain unexploited. The solution lies in creating a mixed supply of energy in which as yet untapped renewable resources are combined with abundant nonrenewable fossil fuel, including the massive quantities of gas wasted from crude oil exploitation

Firm-value effects of carbon emissions and carbon disclosures:evidence from Finland

Abstract. The discussion of the relationship between corporate performance and environmental performance has been ongoing for a very long time with a view to find a balance between what should be the objectives of the firm that guarantees both viability and sustainability. One such discussions has been the effect of carbon emission on the value of the firm. A long held position has been that the cost of reducing carbon emission tend to affect the profitability of a firm hence having a negative effect on the value of the firm however in the last two decades, and with the agreement of various governments and institutions on the need to reduce the global carbon footprint, it is beginning to appear that any effort to reduce carbon emissions by any firm is viewed favorably by the capital markets hence increasing the value of the firm However, the challenge that gave rise to this study emanated from the conflicting results across different jurisdictions as to whether the favourable perception of the reduction of carbon emission is dependent on certain characteristics of a particular jurisdiction. Studies in United States and Shanghai finds that the market impose penalties on the value of any firm with carbon emissions while Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan reward the value of the firm with carbon emissions. We therefore look to Finland — a country that has committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 whether the market rewards or penalizes firms with carbon emissions. The study was based on secondary data, specifically financial statement figures from 2019 to 2021-a period of three years-. The study also adopted an expo-facto research design to analyze 50 companies from Refinitiv database. The secondary data from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database. The research methodology adopted mixed methods research design. The panel data regression model considers robust estimates, including the pooled Ordinary Least Square (OLS) or fixed effects and random effects models. Here we show that the carbon emission and carbon disclosure have a positive but insignificant effect on the value of the firms in Finland. The study found that there exists an insignificant positive effect of carbon emission disclosure on firm value. With every thousand metric tonnes increase in carbon emission, firm value will increase by €3,833 (which appears very low), and the Pearson correlation coefficient also shows a very low positive relationship between the firm value and carbon emission. The implication of this study therefore is that policy makers need to introduce an incentive scheme that is driven by regulators and encompasses all the firms both private and public, in order to reward the firms who are actively reducing their carbon footprints as well as those who are voluntarily disclosing their carbon emissions numbers especially as the country has a carbon-neutral target to achieve by 2035. The scheme should also be effective enough in penalizing any firm that does not actively seek the reduction of carbon emissions

Computer Aided Plumbing Design

This study has been used to eliminate the rigorous activities and time consuming mathematical analysis involved in Plumbing design. The various mathematical steps employed in the design of plumbing systems has been converted into easily interpreted hand user computer program that can be used to generate automatically all the various parameters needed for full design work, when the input data such as head available, various number of fittings, actual length of pipe run and assumed pipe diameter are provided. This has been used to provide a pathway to easy plumbing desig

Theoretical Properties of the Weighted Feller-Pareto Distributions

In this paper, for the first time, a new six-parameter class of distributions called weighted Feller-Pareto (WFP) and related family of distributions is proposed. This new class of distributions contains several other Pareto-type distributions such as length-biased (LB) Pareto, weighted Pareto (WP I, II, III, and IV), and Pareto (P I, II, III, and IV) distributions as special cases. The pdf, cdf, hazard and reverse hazard functions, monotonicity properties, moments, entropy measures including Renyi, Shannon and s-entropies are derived

Influence Of Host Community On Industrial Relations Practices And Policies: A Survey Of Agbara Community And Power Holding Company Of Nigeria (PHCN)

This study investigated the influence of host community on industrial relations practices and policies using Agbara community and Power Holding Company of Nigeria PLC as a case. The study adopted both the qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 120 samples were drawn from the population using the simple random sampling technique in which case every member of the population was given an equal and independent chance of being chosen. However, 75 questionnaires were returned upon which the data analysis was based. This was supplemented with the interwiew method. The response rate is 62.5%. With respect to the reliability of the instrument, the coefficient alpha or Cronbachs alpha is 0.73, which implies that the instrument is 73% reliable. The data analysis was carried out with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The Chi-square statistical technique was used to test the hypotheses at 5% level of significance. In testing the first hypothesis that PHCN industrial relations policies and practices are independent of its host community, the following variables were subjected to Chi-square test: 1) PHCN industrial relations policies are influenced by public opinion through the use of suggestion schemes (?2= 33.07 with 4 df; p < .05) and 2) customs/traditions of host community influence PHCN industrial relations policies (?2 = 60.93 with 4 df; p < .05). In testing the second hypothesis, the result of the chi-square test shows that an inclusive stakeholders approach is often used in resolving matters of mutual interest involving host community and PHCN (?2 = 54.23 with 3 df; p < .05). These results are statistically significant. Therefore, there is evidence to reject the null hypotheses and to conclude that PHCN industrial relations policies and practices are dependent or contingent on its host community. PHCN industrial relations policies and practices are influenced by its host community. The authors therefore recommend the inclusion of the host community as one of the actors in industrial relations. This was relegated to the background by Dunlop (1958) in his categorization of actors in industrial relations

Managing Human Capital Development In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises For Sustainable National Development In Nigeria

This study investigated the challenges confronting human capital development in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. The authors adopted the survey research design. An instrument was designed using the 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). The instrument has two sections. Section A has nine items which sought the views and opinions of respondents on the challenges of human capital development in SMEs and Section B has eight items which elicited the demographic profiles of respondents. A total of 165 questionnaires were distributed to the target population using the purposeful (judgmental) sampling technique. Out of the 165 questionnaires administered, 140 were returned upon which the analysis was based. This represents an 85% response rate. Data analysis was carried out with the aid of SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). It was found that human capital development in Nigerian SMEs leaves much to be desired. Based on the analysis of data, it was found that 79% of respondents agreed and strongly agreed that many SMEs have negative training philosophy and pay lip service to human resource development. Seventy percent of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed that many SMEs do not have laid-down policies governing training and development programmes, while 52% of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed that SMEs engage in human capital development haphazardly, without embarking on need analysis. The authors recommended the need to address the issues of human capital development in SMEs and for SMEs to embrace the investor in people criteria if the desired corporate and national goals are to be realized

Dynamic Modeling and Analysis of Inverted Pendulum using Lagrangian-Differential Transform Method

There has been an increase in application of pendulum in robotics which is applicable in Medicine, Agriculture, Military, Industries Explorations and Entertainment. Many Researchers have shown interest in inverted pendulum stability and control in recent years. This study is concerned with the development of equation of motion of inverted pendulum and its analysis by adopting the Lagrangian and Differential Transform Method (DTM) respectively. The resulting equations were solved analytically. Results obtained are consistent with the ones in the literatur

Investigation of the lightning arrester operation in electric power distribution network

Lightning phenomenon has resulted into several losses to both supply-side and load-side of the electricity infrastructure. Quite a handful of research has investigated strategies for its mitigation. This work is an application of the Fernandez-Diaz arrester model to the section of Eko Distribution network. The procedure involves simulation of the network in respect of the influence of the surges and surge arresters using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The study reveals that whenever lightning strikes, the resulting overvoltage causes distortion to the voltage waveform, as well as the current waveform. This indicates the presence of harmonics. Meanwhile, with the installation of the arresters, the overvoltage reduces by 86% at the nearest node of installation. However, at the other nodes within the same branch, the installed arrester attenuated the surge overvoltage by approximately 60%. This suggests that more arresters need to be installed at other nodes along the branch in order to eliminate the occurrence of overvoltage. Moreover, the study reveals that a surge arrester installed at one of the two branches of the network has negligible effect in attenuating voltage surge at the other branch of the same network.Keywords: Lightning arrester, substation, overvoltage, attenuation, harmonic

Spectrum of hysterosalpingographic findings among women presenting with infertility in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital

 Background: Hysterosalpingography HSG provides the outline of the endometrial canal and fallopian tubes and is an invaluable imaging modality in the investigative management of infertility especially in resource challenged environments. The objective of the study was to review the hysterosalpingographic (HSG) findings in women investigated for infertility in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.Methods: This is a descriptive review of retrospective radiologic reports of 219 patients who underwent HSG as part of infertility investigation over a three-year period (2013-2015) in University of Abuja teaching Hospital.Results: A total of 219 reports were reviewed with age range of 20-53years (mean 33.9 ±5.7 2SD) years. Majority were between the ages of 26-37 years (n=102, 33.6%). Secondary infertility was the indication in 172 (78.5%) and primary infertility in 47 (21.5%). Majority of the women (n=149, 68%) had hysterosalpingographic abnormalities with Tuboperitoneal pathology as the prevalent finding in 112 (75.2%) of the cases either as a single pathology or coexisting with intrauterine abnormality. The most common endometrial cavity abnormality was uterine Fibroid seen in 53, (35.6%) women.Conclusions: Hysterosalpingography remains very important in the investigation of infertility in our center with tuboperitoneal pathology as the major contributor to female infertility