Gas isn’t a good alternative to coal. South Africa should focus on solar, wind and green hydrogen

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, comparable to photo voltaic, wind and inexperienced hydrogen.

Such a transition is deeply contested. These with direct and oblique business pursuits within the coal business will defend their stake. However, those who could gain from a transition will purpose to entrench their new pursuits within the renewable vitality sector.

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

Lobbyists for gasoline embody the Industrial Gas Users Associationthe South African Oil and Gas Alliance and state-owned energy company 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. Gasoline can also be mentioned to help grid reliability when there’s 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 There is a fence concludes that gasoline carbon emissions are decrease than coal. However gasoline shouldn’t be as clear as different renewable vitality sources.

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

I argue that pursuing large-scale gasoline growth might lead to stranded property (the place traders are unable to recoup the cash they’ve spent creating the gasoline business). This might occur due to a worldwide shift in the direction of renewables and inexperienced hydrogen.

South Africa has a aggressive benefit in inexperienced hydrogen and renewable vitality applied sciences attributable to 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 had been prioritized, it might entice vital world funding. South Africa might turn into a market chief. Inexperienced hydrogen, mixed with lithium manufacturing, could create up to 94,000 jobsfar 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.

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

Regardless, South Africa would possible must import gasoline from Mozambique. But, with violent extremism close to the Pande-Temane gas field in southern Mozambique, gasoline might be used as a geopolitical weapon. South Africa can be unwise to rely on one other nation for provide.

Gasoline is a fossil gasoline

Gasoline is neither a clean energy nor a smarter different to coal. Methane leaks alongside the total provide chain of the gasoline business are underplayed.

South Africa has additionally dedicated to fulfill the Paris Agreement targets and section out all greenhouse gasoline emissions by 2050. Gasoline initiatives already in operation (or these in building or exploration) will nonetheless be pumping out greenhouse gases by 2050. That is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement.

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

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

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

What must occur subsequent

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

The Presidential Local weather Fee says gasoline could play a task within the quick to medium time period to help renewable vitality at occasions of peak demand. But it surely has additionally warned that utilizing gasoline for peaking energy (electrical energy technology to fulfill peak calls for) could have vital value implications.

Regardless of this, the federal government’s nationwide vitality plan, the 2023 Integrated Resource Planenvisages a far larger function for gasoline in South Africa’s future vitality combine.

Nevertheless, renewable energy technologies paired with storage options, like batteries, might function a more cost-effective and sustainable alternative to gasoline for peaking energy. The identical analysis discovered that the Built-in Useful resource Plan may have underestimated the long run prices of gasoline (together with infrastructure and risky gasoline costs) and advocates for renewable vitality over gasoline attributable to these uncertainties.

South Africa should heed the Presidential Local weather Fee’s recommendation and deal with organising giant scale renewable energy initiatives.

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

If the federal government does proceed to spend money on 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 manner that it will also be used for inexperienced hydrogen. That manner, stranded property and wasted funding could be averted.

Lastly, South Africa ought to be a part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiativewhich promotes open and accountable administration of oil, gasoline and minerals, in addition to the infrastructure transparency initiative CoSTwhich promotes transparency round enormous infrastructure that often leads to corruption.

This might be necessary in organising a sensible mixture of voluntary and binding mechanisms for transparency and accountability.

(Insights for this text had been gathered from key business and authorities stakeholders by deliberations hosted by the Corporate Affairs Leadership Forum).

This text is republished from The Conversation beneath a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.