Fuel is not different to coal. South Africa ought to give attention to photo voltaic, wind and inexperienced hydrogen – Uplaza

South Africa is immersed in a “just energy transition” from a fossil fuel-based vitality system to a cleaner, low-carbon vitality system. This new system might be primarily based totally on renewable vitality, akin to photo voltaic, wind and inexperienced hydrogen.

Such a transition is deeply contested. These with direct and oblique industrial pursuits within the coal trade will defend their stake. Then again, those that might achieve from a transition will goal to entrench their new pursuits within the renewable vitality sector.

Then there are those that argue that gasoline is an affordable compromise between the necessity to decarbonize and the necessity to keep vitality safety.

Lobbyists for gasoline embody the Industrial Fuel Customers Affiliation, the South African Oil and Fuel Alliance and state-owned vitality firm Eskom. Sasol is a South African vitality and chemical substances firm that has been closely concerned in lobbying for gasoline. It already operates gas-to-liquid crops. It additionally has a vested curiosity in increasing the gasoline market to help its industrial processes.

The case for gasoline hinges on it being ostensibly “cleaner” and less expensive. Fuel can be mentioned to help grid reliability when there may be peak demand for vitality. (That is at occasions when inclement climate circumstances imply solar energy can’t be generated.)

A current Cambridge College foresight paper authored by Sikho Luthango concludes that gasoline carbon emissions are decrease than coal. However gasoline isn’t as clear as different renewable vitality sources.

I head the Africa Programme on the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Management. I’ve researched regulation, politics and sustainability—and the hyperlinks among the many three disciplines—for 30 years.

I argue that pursuing large-scale gasoline growth might end in stranded property (the place buyers are unable to recoup the cash they’ve spent growing the gasoline trade). This might occur due to a world shift in the direction of renewables and inexperienced hydrogen.

South Africa has a aggressive benefit in inexperienced hydrogen and renewable vitality applied sciences resulting from its location and pure assets. (Inexperienced hydrogen is made through the use of renewable vitality to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.)

If inexperienced hydrogen have been prioritized, it might entice important international funding. South Africa might change into a market chief. Inexperienced hydrogen, mixed with lithium manufacturing, might create as much as 94,000 jobs, far surpassing potential employment within the gasoline sector.

South Africa’s gasoline provide

On 20 September 2024, Eskom and Sasol signed a memorandum of understanding to discover and analysis potential future liquefied pure gasoline necessities.

Nonetheless, South Africa’s gasoline provide is underneath query. In July 2024, French multinational vitality large TotalEnergies pulled out of drilling for gasoline within the Brulpadda-Luiperd gasoline condensate fields on the south coast of South Africa. Advanced circumstances, together with deep water and quick ocean currents, made the undertaking financially unviable for the South African market. The minister of petroleum and vitality assets, Gwede Mantashe, is raring to analyze whether or not the inland Karoo Basin has commercially viable oil and gasoline reserves.

Regardless, South Africa would probably must import gasoline from Mozambique. But, with violent extremism close to the Pande-Temane gasoline discipline in southern Mozambique, gasoline might be used as a geopolitical weapon. South Africa could be unwise to depend upon one other nation for provide.

Fuel is a fossil gas

Fuel is neither a clear vitality nor a wiser different to coal. Methane leaks alongside the complete provide chain of the gasoline trade are underplayed.

South Africa has additionally dedicated to satisfy the Paris Settlement objectives and part out all greenhouse gasoline emissions by 2050. Fuel tasks already in operation (or these in development or exploration) will nonetheless be pumping out greenhouse gases by 2050. That is inconsistent with the Paris Settlement.

Moreover, the European Union’s carbon border changes and local weather neutrality targets will punish carbon emissions. This might be felt throughout the entire provide chain of South Africa’s export industries. It’s going to have an effect on sectors from agriculture to automotive manufacturing to minerals and metals manufacturing.

South Africa additionally lacks demand for gasoline. A brand new market must be created, requiring giant infrastructure funding.

There are different dangers. With out robust governance and institutional capability, oil and gasoline tasks don’t all the time profit the folks of a gas-rich nation. Regardless of its potential gasoline revenues, price US $100 million to US $120 million as much as 2040, Mozambican poverty charges have remained the identical. Excessive poverty charges in Mozambique stood at 62% in 2023.

What must occur subsequent

South Africa’s Presidential Local weather Fee was arrange in 2020 to facilitate a “just” transition away from fossil fuels. It has advised that quickly constructing renewable vitality with giant storage techniques is one of the best ways ahead.

The Presidential Local weather Fee says gasoline might play a task within the quick to medium time period to help renewable vitality at occasions of peak demand. Nevertheless it has additionally warned that utilizing gasoline for peaking energy (electrical energy technology to satisfy peak calls for) can have important price implications.

Regardless of this, the federal government’s nationwide vitality plan, the 2023 Built-in Useful resource Plan, envisages a far greater function for gasoline in South Africa’s future vitality combine.

Nonetheless, renewable vitality applied sciences paired with storage options, like batteries, might function a more cost effective and sustainable different to gasoline for peaking energy. The identical analysis discovered that the Built-in Useful resource Plan might have underestimated the longer term prices of gasoline (together with infrastructure and unstable gas costs) and advocates for renewable vitality over gasoline resulting from these uncertainties.

South Africa should heed the Presidential Local weather Fee’s recommendation and give attention to establishing giant scale renewable vitality tasks.

If South Africa’s authorities insists on “going gas,” it ought to be part of over 100 nations which have signed the World Methane Pledge. Underneath the pledge, nations promise to cut back their methane gasoline emissions by 30% by 2030.

If the federal government does proceed to put money into gasoline infrastructure, it ought to be certain that phase-in targets are used for inexperienced hydrogen in order that the infrastructure is in-built such a approach that it can be used for inexperienced hydrogen. That approach, stranded property and wasted funding may be averted.

Lastly, South Africa ought to be part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which promotes open and accountable administration of oil, gasoline and minerals, in addition to the infrastructure transparency initiative CoST, which promotes transparency round enormous infrastructure that always results in corruption.

This might be essential in establishing a wise mixture of voluntary and binding mechanisms for transparency and accountability.

(Insights for this text have been gathered from key trade and authorities stakeholders by deliberations hosted by the Company Affairs Management Discussion board).

This text is republished from The Dialog underneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.