Finding alternatives to our favourite dirty words
- Shaun Smillie
An energy crisis built on an obsession with fossil fuels. Can alternative energy resources save the day for South Africa?
For a long time in South Africa’s energy sector, coal was king, responsible for heavy lifting the country into the industrial age with its offering of cheap, reliable and abundant energy.
But in a post-industrial world, coal has become the black sheep, as cheaper and greener energy sources are becoming available.
South Africa still has a long way to go before it is weaned off coal fully as the main source of energy, if the state has its way, but private enterprise and the forces of economics might have the final say in the way that we generate energy in the near future.
That despicable, dark “L” word
In mid-October, while the country was in the grips of a week of loadshedding, the government released its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2019). The plan mapped out what South Africa’s energy generation mix would be for 2030.
Coal will still play a major role in South Africa’s energy future, contributing 58% of South Africa’s energy needs.
The balance of 20.4 gigawatts worth of electricity will come from renewable energy sources in the form of wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, with wind contributing 18% of the country’s electricity.
The problem with coal headlining the IRP2019 plan, says Bob Scholes, Professor in Systems Ecology at the Global Change Institute at Wits, is that it is no longer cost effective.
“People keep on going on about South Africa having a world class coal resource, but it is no longer true. We have picked out the juicy bits and from here on out, our coal resource is of low quality or very difficult to extract,” he explains.
“We have a much more world-class solar resource. Actually, new coal build is coming out twice as expensive as new solar or wind. So why choose a technology that is twice as expensive?”
Scholes adds that today whole countries are being run on renewables.
“It was always thought to be impossible. But now the battery technologies and smart grid technologies are so good you can essentially run any economy in the world entirely off renewables.”
That ugly “F” word
What is not in this energy mix proposed by government is something that, a few years ago, promised to be a saviour of the country’s economy. The highly emotive debate on hydraulic fracturing of gas shales, or fracking, has since died a quiet death.
Fracking changed the energy landscape of the US. Over the last decade the US has increased its oil production, and in 2012 it overtook Russia as the leading gas producer, all thanks to fracking. In South Africa, the Karoo was speculated to contain shale gas reserves of hundreds of trillions of cubic feet. Talk of fracking in the Karoo ignited a heated debate on whether this should be allowed in this fragile environment.
Scholes co-led the strategic environmental assessment of shale gas development for the Department of Environmental Affairs. They discovered that developing the Karoo shale gas resource was not economically viable when considering today’s energy prices. The main reason for this is the geological make-up of the Karoo.
“The fundamental reason is that horizontal drilling works just fine in the shale gas beds of the United States. They are horizontal beds of great extent,” says Scholes.
“The problem in South Africa is that we can’t drill for several kilometres horizontally, because you bump into a dolerite dyke. The distance we can go horizontally is not enough to make it economically viable, given the characteristics of the gas present.”
There are more conventional gas reserves available in South Africa. Included in this is the newly discovered Brulpadda field located 175km off Mossel Bay. It holds promise, but is not the sole solution to our energy challenges, says Scholes.
“That is a resource of significant size, equivalent to two years of South African energy use. It is substantial, but not manna from heaven.”
As the government is searching for solutions to the country’s energy problems, the private sector is already taking advantage of new green technologies, as it looks for a more reliable and cheaper alternative to Eskom. Home owners, for example, are taking advantage of increasingly cheaper solar panels and are moving off the grid.
That dirty “C” word – cleaned up
But the private sector can benefit further from alternative technologies that would make them independent of large utilities such as Eskom.