Energy baseload options: Barricading oneself behind ‘the engineers’ is a worn-out line of defence

Avuyile Xabadiya’s Opinionista article “A drastic shift from coal baseload supply is not an option for South Africa” (Daily Maverick, 1 December 2021) is pretty staggering stuff from our Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (even if he does write “in his personal capacity”). The swipe at NGOs, sociologists and other non-engineers is an intolerant digression from the issue of energy baseload itself, and is crowned by his call for “suppression of the voice of non-engineers”… which Soviet did you grow up in, sir?

I have about 40 years of experience from many countries – and in particular from leading international university courses at postgraduate level, in Norway – on the topic of energy planning and sustainable development. I am not in favour of nuclear, not least due to the risks of corruption and mismanagement, but above all it is simply very expensive and far from the cheapest alternative now. Mr Xabadiya’s article contains much complaining and accusing, but no discussion at all of actual baseload options. He waves the “engineering” flag, using it more like a whip, but fails to mention engineering alternatives. A few brief points:

• Forget clean coal. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is still hugely expensive and can only function for major point sources of emissions, in suitable geological regions – hence could in any case only provide under 10% of the “carbon solution” (World Bank figure);


• We have coal and not gas, but if the world wishes to help move us off coal then gas might play a limited role, since gas is generally far less damaging than coal, as an intermediate step in the process towards low or zero net carbon;


• Wind and solar are quite well matched seasonally in South Africa – most wind in winter when demand is highest, but also sunny winters in some areas, making Gauteng, for example, ideal for passive solar buildings; hence on an annual cycle these too can to some degree help to reduce baseload;


• With both wind and solar it may in time be economical to produce hydrogen, which can be stored and hence be part of baseload;


• Mr Xabadiya’s energy views seem to contain not a word about energy efficiency and energy conservation (those two are not at all the same thing). Reduction of the energy demand is often cheaper than building new power capacity – and also creates far more jobs. For sure, energy efficiency programmes are being implemented, but seen in the global perspective, demand-side reductions are still hugely underfocused and underfunded. Including in our ministry;


• Not least, there is a huge potential in the field of bioenergy. In many regions, energy crops can be grown on a very large scale that do NOT compete with food production (as ethanol-to-gasoline often does in the USA). There is also marine biomass potential. The point here being that bioenergy is – like firewood – storable and hence can form part of a baseload. Many bioenergy solutions are combined heat and power (CHP). Hence, in some countries, bioenergy in its many forms could stand for a large part of future baseload. This is one of the only ways to phase out storable fossil fuels completely. But curiously, the government’s bioeconomy publications make almost no mention of bioenergy;


• Bioeconomy is one of today’s global buzzwords, but this does not seem to have penetrated our energy ministry. The bioeconomy includes energy, but equally, new industrial products such as biopolymers. These are already replacing plastics in everything from mobile phones to building materials to motor car parts. This does require a policy where the industrial products and the energy are produced in an integrated way; and


• The bioeconomy offers a potential for creating thousands of green jobs – something Cyril Ramaphosa is perhaps more focused on than Gwede Mantashe. Nuclear doesn’t. Nor does fracking, nor does coal mining as it becomes increasingly automated. What can we offer our coal miners for the future? An interesting point about bioeconomy jobs, for South Africa, is that they are regionally spread out and many do not require high levels of skills.