South Africa has no intention of giving up coal
One would expect South Africa, governed by a left-wing government, to be ready to make its transition from coal to green very soon. Too bad this might not be the case.
Expecting South Africa to quickly abandon coal power would be “very wrong,” South African Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told Bloomberg this week.
Instead, South Africa will continue to rely on coal and other fossil fuels, even as richer nations push the country toward greener forms of energy, because coal is less unstable than green energy, Mantashe said, and the country is already struggling with electricity shortages. Coal is a safe energy, as long as it is available, and now there is a lot of it.
“This belief that you can abandon coal and go to renewable energy: it's a technical mistake, very wrong, it will never work,” Mantashe told Bloomberg.
South Africa's coal power is not without its problems, however. The state-owned power company, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, is already struggling with electricity outages because the country's coal-fired power plants do not all operate 24 hours a day as they could. The breakdowns and prolonged, improvised maintenance have put a strain on the country's electricity production, thanks to load shedding for 12 hours a day in some cases. However, coal power will have a long life in South Africa, Mantashe promised.
The minister acknowledged the mistakes the country has made in its energy sector, citing delays in building new energy plans and a critical design flaw in current plants. “This is one of those mistakes and we are learning,” Mantashe explained.
South Africa has been reluctant to jump on the green energy transition bandwagon for some time, saying last October that the country had no plans to reduce its oil and gas activities in favor of green energy, and even announced plans to increase oil and gas exploration activity in the future, in an effort to strengthen energy security and reduce energy imports.
Coal currently represents around 80% of the country's energy mix, which is the fifth largest coal exporter in the world. Furthermore, the country has a nuclear power plant, the only one currently functioning on the African continent. The transition towards green was made by many South Africans, especially wealthy ones, who installed solar panels to cope with the continuous blackouts.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-sudafrica-non-ha-nessuna-intenzione-di-rinunciare-al-carbone/ on Wed, 27 Mar 2024 08:00:51 +0000.