Will Dirty Energy Continue To Fuel Africa`s Economic Powerhouse?
blurb:isstoday:130808energy
13 August 2008: Will Dirty Energy Continue To Fuel Africa’s Economic Powerhouse?
Progressive, ambitious and far-reaching: these are the words used by South Africa’s Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk to describe South Africa’s new government plan to mitigate climate change. The approach speaks of a scenario in which action taken now would see greenhouse gas emissions peaking by 2020-25; reach a plateau for a decade, and finally declining by 2050 with the aim of limiting temperature increase below 2 degrees. This is reportedly the result of two years’ work by his department. International commitments are implicit, with negotiators hammering out a deal for the second commitment phase of carbon emission reductions from 2012 - 2050. The move is seen as setting the pace for those in the developed world, especially those most reluctant to get on board like non-Kyoto signatories the US and Japan. It is expected to garner widespread recognition of goodwill and progress in negotiations.
Yet beyond the rhetoric and international grandstanding one needs to consider how the country aims to practically achieve these ambitious targets? More pertinently, does the government plan to make a radical shift from producing cheap, dirty energy (from coal) that has made South Africa one of the world’s top twenty worst polluters. For starters, the national Energy Security Master Plan 2007-2025makes it quite clear that the status quo will not be changing in the near future:
“South Africa is… the lowest cost producer of electricity in the world, a position we would like to retain for strategic reasons. A number of challenges have arisen in the past few months, related to the security of electricity supply, and it is in that context that it has become imperative to conclude the Master Plan that will address those challenges. Though the impact of electricity on the economy, in the case where we experienced total blackout, has not been investigated and cannot be quantified in monetary terms at this stage, the impact will be severe to the economy of the country… The supply interruption…is something that is not desirable.”
This document was released before the country experienced dramatic nationwide rolling power cuts - dubbed the ‘energy crisis’ - earlier this year. Since then, and in the scramble to fix the mess, three new coal-fired power stations were approved and old ones brought back into commission. The current capital expenditure build plan is pegged at US$44.6 billion (R343 billion) over the next five years and is set to increase by more than US$ US$0.17 trillion (R1.3trilion) in the long term. This is thus still very much in the order of business-as-usual with massive increase in capacity of fossil fuel plants (coal-fired power). But Van Schalkwyk argues that in the new plan there will be no new coal-fired power stations. Of course, in theory he is spot on, but only because we already have energy needs met with the various aforementioned stations already approved.
Let us review another coal proposal. The government states that if new coal-fired power stations are to be approved now, the initiators of proposals will need to show willingness to employ the technology, albeit still in development, of carbon capture and storage, which aims to clean up the dirty manufacture by capturing emissions emitted from the process and storing them under the earth’s surface to prevent air pollution. The potential saving to the atmosphere will be calculated in carbon credits that have a monetary value and sold to countries under the system of carbon trading between countries, already in place under the auspices of the Kyoto Protocol. Once again, the Energy Security Master Plan 2007 – 2025 provides some insight into the issues:
“Eskom (South Africa’s only supplier of electricity in the country) is in a relatively unique situation because the energy generation mix is heavily biased toward coal; therefore the baseline is dominated by coal. Few other economically viable options are available and because of this, it is critical to take the climate change issues into account and take advantage of carbon credits that translate into direct financial benefits. Carbon credits will be included in the decision making in all future investment decisions.”
There are two issues to consider here. Firstly, carbon trading is controversial because it creates a flexible, market mechanism that has received little to no gains thus far. Furthermore, the offset schemes implemented in the global South have caused significant problems for local communities exacerbating precarious socio-economic issues and needs not fully integrated into planning processes. Secondly, if we are really serious about achieving targets set we should certainly not be extracting coal from the ground as part of future planning. As a non-renewable resource, the extraction of coal will only disrupt the carbon cycle even further and cause more damage to an already beleaguered climate. Perhaps we may conclude here that the lure of investments through continued provision of cheap electricity and carbon trading has corralled our thinking in a way that may make it impossible to realize our ambitions.
Nuclear energy is also seen as a vital component of South Africa's energy planning. “As government we strongly believe in the potential of nuclear (energy) to be part of the solution", Van Schalkwyk argues. Nuclear energy is considered in the renewable energy range of options. In line with this thinking, cabinet approved a controversial nuclear energy policy in June causing a furore because of the lack of consultation in the process. Vast amounts of money is being spent on the nuclear technology, including most controversially, the Pebble Bed Molecular Reactor (PBMR), which government admits is 10 years late; whose design is still not finalized; is 800% over budget and that has no acceptable solution for nuclear waste disposal. Spending on the nuclear option is almost half of the projected spending to achieve universal access to electricity, which is a major challenge to South Africa and the region. In addition, there is limited prospect of returns with the country having to spend US$3.25billion (R25billion) on the PBMR before it becomes economically viable. Worldwide electricity demand is predicted to grow by 85% by 2030 and it is argued that nuclear power would have to almost double its capacity just to maintain its current share of the energy mix.
Anti-nuclear campaigners have long since protested against the nuclear option because of its damage to the environment from radiation emissions and because it is a human health hazard. Uranium mining contaminates the air, water and earth with radioactive chemicals and heavy metals that can never be properly cleaned up. Commentators have argued that mining is also associated with poisonous process chemicals, heavy metals and the use of large quantities of water. In the short term, they say, uranium mine sites wreck the ecology of the local region; in the long term, they pose a risk to a much broader area. Job creation is also limited to small group of highly skilled people and thus does not favour the needs of developing nations with high unemployment rates.
Meanwhile, more reasonable renewable energy options, including eco-friendly wind energy and solar power, are still being “explored”, according to Eskom. Mere lip service has been paid to the White Paper on Renewable Energy even though it has been in place since 2003. If we seek a major transition from an energy-intensive to a low-carbon economy, renewable energy would need to completely replace fossil fuels by 2050, and we would have to dramatically alter modern consumption patterns and lifestyles to be more climate-friendly. Contrary to official verbiage, existing policy would not meet promises to curb climate change. Vigilant, sustained monitoring by all sectors now needs to take place, regulation tightened, and policies changed.We must be able to locally determine the cost of various options and the true impact of coal and nuclear to human health, environment and the development implications in terms of jobs and livelihoods. This is the only way that we can speak with conviction to the rest of Africa and the world.
Trusha Reddy, Researcher, Corruption and Governance Programme, ISS Cape Town
