Clean coal technologies would allow South Africa to continue to take advantage of its coal endowment by creating jobs, earning over R50-billion in foreign exchange each year

During her recent State visit to South Africa, German Chancellor Angela Merkel committed to assisting this country in resolving its electricity supply crisis. After a meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa, she announced two things Germany would do concerning electricity generation. First, it would assist South Africa in expanding renewable energy and in using it in a sustainable way because it is “far less constant than other energy sources”. Second, it would help replace our aged coal-fired power stations.

Coming from an industrially advanced country, these commitments cannot be taken lightly. Germany has experience with several energy sources, including coal, which provides about 40% of its energy requirements.

It invented the original coal-to-liquid technology, which was subsequently bought and modernised by petrochemicals company Sasol, trained State-owned electricity utility Eskom’s founder, Hendrick van der Bijl, and built its sophisticated industries on the back of coal.

Now, when Germany advocates for the expansion of renewable energy in a sustainable way “because they are far less constant than other energy sources” and offers assistance to replace old, inefficient power stations, we should listen.

Germany has been working on plans to implement a just transition to renewables to eliminate coal by 2038 as part of efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Yet, Merkel understands that every country needs a far more constant energy source that can be complemented by the “far less constant” renewable-energy sources.

The Germans set a deadline to exit coal because they have options for baseload. The combination of coal, gas and nuclear provide a “far more constant” supply to German industry and households. Renewables are complementary. It is for this reason that Germany believes it can cut back on coal over the next two decades.

South Africa has neither an abundance of gas nor nuclear. Instead, we have coal. But even with its baseload options, Germany still finds it necessary to burn coal because, as things stand, it is in the country’s national interest to do so.

South Africa is nowhere near Germany and its economy is too small to experiment with a dramatic cutback on coal. We do not have the financial means.

Economically advanced as it is, Germany must contend with the costs of shutting down coal-fired power stations and coal mines. It is estimated that it could cost about R600-billion.

Germany is taking steps that are in line with its own stage of economic development in a way that it can afford without risking its economy. South Africa is far less industrialised and, in many respects, deindustrialising partly because of erratic power supply linked to Eskom’s poor management in the past.

We must reverse the trend of deindustrialisation to arrest unemployment, which stands at about 30% of the working-age population. For this, we need reliable energy – a “far more constant” energy supply.

The South African government has adopted an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), a mixed energy use policy that accommodates all energy sources and accepts the reality that coal provides our baseload. In addition, the IRP also advocates for clean coal technologies to beneficiate coal in an environment-friendly manner.

Coal is critical for South Africa because we have it in abundance and it should be supplied to Eskom at reasonable prices. The South African coal economy and associated industries employ about 500 000 people, according to the Fossil Fuel Foundation. All these developments and facts were totally ignored by Tobias Bischof-Niemz in his opinion piece, titled ‘Could coal miners be incentivised to support the transition to renewables?’, which was published in the March 20 edition of Engineering News & Mining Weekly.

Bischof-Niemz is obviously entitled to his views, but he is not entitled to his ‘facts’. He argues that coal producers who supply to Eskom should replace their coal energy equivalent with renewable-energy supply to incentivise them to stop coal mining. He further argues that, because renewable-energy sources are cheap and labour intensive, coal miners could consider it.

To support his argument, he uses formulas that are not grounded in the fundamentals of energy production and use in South Africa. For example, nowhere in his piece does he mention the word ‘baseload’.

To paraphrase Merkel, Bischof-Niemz fails to explain how the “far less constant” renewable-energy sources can serve as baseload, and neither does he say he is prepared to live in a country that is prone to Stage 10 load-shedding.

The suggestion that renewables are labour intensive is false. Renewable-power generation creates jobs when a plant is under construction or being assembled, since most of the manufacturing of windmill components and solar panels takes place in the developed countries, where the real jobs are created. Once assembled here, there is not much manpower required.

Coal, on the other hand, has a value chain that creates jobs all the way – from prospecting to mining, from railing to shipping and from power generation to use as feedstock in industrial chemical production.

Granted, it is increasingly difficult to finance coal mining because financial institutions and some of their shareholders do not want to be seen to be supportive of a mineral associated with pollution. South Africa needs a “far more constant” supply of electricity to industrialise like Germany, Japan, the US, South Korea, China and, most recently, Vietnam – all of which use coal in varying degrees.

The gap in economic advancement and job creation between these economies and us is too wide. We have a lot of catch-up to do.

In advocating for “technological change”, Bischof-Niemz criticises what he terms “incumbent inertia”, which objects to energy transition. He is clearly not following all the debates about electricity supply in South Africa.

His understanding of technological change is limited to transition from coal to renewables, not transition from old power station technology to environment-friendly clean coal technologies. Had he been balanced in his approach, he would have urged investment in clean coal technologies in addition to renewables.

Clean coal technologies would allow us to continue to take advantage of our coal endowment by creating jobs, earning over R50-billion in foreign exchange annually, paying mineral royalties to government, providing an energy supply that is “far more constant” and protecting the environment.