Climate be damned, we need energy
The prophets of doom have a long history. Job was prominent among those who suffered but remained confident even when his supposed friends told him the end was nigh.
So David le Page (Get out of dirty fossil fuel) is part of a tradition of those who have advised abandoning all hope when facing difficulties. Fortunately, history has a message for him and his kind: the human spirit can rise to almost every challenge.
Le Page’s thesis is that, if mankind consumes much more fossil fuel, the additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause the average global temperature to increase more than 2°C above what it was in the preindustrial era before 1800.
It is difficult to substantiate this, if only because we do not know exactly what the average temperature was in the early part of the 19th century. We only started to have some idea of the global temperature in about 1860, when calibrated thermometers became widely available. Since then, it has warmed by a little more than 0.8°C.
The million-dollar question is how much of this warming is caused by added carbon dioxide. Clearly not all of it, because the temperature shot up between 1910 and 1940 and there was little increase in carbon dioxide in that period. So we don’t know how much extra carbon dioxide is likely to cause the atmosphere to warm by 2°C. It seems irrational to propose getting rid of fossil fuels – all our coal, oil and natural gas – to achieve a target that is so ill-defined.
Nearly 90% of all the energy we use worldwide comes from fossil fuels. South Africa uses fossil fuel for nearly 95% of its needs. The world cannot be weaned off fossil fuels overnight. Indeed, right now the use of fossil fuels is growing rapidly and seems likely to persist as China develops, India follows and Africa finally takes off economically.
There is a direct relationship between economic growth and energy consumption. When nearly 90% of your energy comes from fossil fuels, there is an close relationship between economic growth and growth in fossil fuel use. By calling for restrictions on the use of fossil fuels, Le Page is calling for less development – all very well if you are part of the developed world, but not if you are developing and have millions living in poverty.
The government of India has said its development problems are such that eliminating poverty is far more important than addressing climate change. Recently it banned the foreign funding of Greenpeace and other nongovernmental organisations it sees as posing a “significant threat to national economic security”.
A decade ago, India emitted about twice as much carbon dioxide as South Africa; today it emits about four times as much, and it is growing at about 100-million tonnes a year.
We must not underestimate the benefits of fossil fuel use. If the internal combustion engine had not come into widespread use in the 20th century, we would have seen massive starvation on Earth. In 1900, nearly half the area devoted to agriculture was used to grow fodder for draft animals. Fossil fuels have allowed us to use huge tracts of land to feed people, not animals. That, and the increase in productivity owed to scientific farming, has meant that the supply of food has grown faster than the human population, so starvation is no longer a real threat for most people.
Renewable energy may have its place, but modern economies need constant power. The South African economy is stuttering right now because even the fossil fuel supply is intermittent. Try to imagine what life would be like if most of our power stopped the moment the sun went down. Most of the energy we generate goes not to individuals but to keeping our developed economy going. Fewer than 100 organisations in South Africa use about two-thirds of all the energy we produce. Modern economies demand energy to generate wealth, and that energy needs to be available every hour of every day.
The energy supply lost in 2008 cost the South African economy about R75 for every kilowatt-hour lost. Eskom spends 60c at present to produce a kilowatt-hour. It is infinitely better to have too much power than too little.
Of course, we need sustainable development. But there is no point in committing economic suicide in an attempt to sustain ourselves, as Le Page would have us do. According to the definition of the World Commission on Environment and Development: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Yes, we have to worry about future generations, but we cannot compromise our ability to meet our own needs. My generation coped with the previous generation’s love affair with nuclear weapons. I have every confidence that my children will cope with the far lesser threats of climate change in ways that will amaze us. – Professor Philip Lloyd, Energy Institute, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
A prayer for clean power
Dear Minister of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene,
I had the privilege of meeting you last year when I told you about the impending visit of Charles Eisenstein, the author of Sacred Economics, and was delighted that you were appointed. Your midterm budget confirmed that you intended to keep a firm hand on South Africa’s financial stability, and I felt encouraged.
It was, therefore, most disturbing to read that President Jacob Zuma was reported to have said at Davos, during the World Economic Forum, that you would give details of the state’s financial backing for its nuclear power plan in your budget speech.
Like families, nations have to live within their means. We in the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI) believe strongly that nuclear energy will lock us into monopolistic energy development, which is going in entirely the wrong direction. We do not see how nuclear energy is a solution to our immediate energy crisis when it takes 10 or more years to build nuclear plants.
By then, the energy scene will have changed and nuclear plants could be white elephants with a legacy of pollution for future generations to cope with. The National Development Plan (NDP) warns about being locked into expensive structures that will not be needed in 50 years’ time.
But decentralised renewable energy could be up and running in a year or two. We have some of the best solar resources in the world. Already, it is reported, independent power producers have saved Eskom R3.7-billion and netted R800-million. This has not cost the taxpayer a cent. Nuclear will cost us – and our children – an arm and a leg.
The latest round of bids to build 6 000MW of solar and wind power plants – more than the capacity of the Medupi coal-fired plant – will be paid for by private investors. Roof-top photovoltaics could come on line this year. Had Eskom heard the plea of faith communities in 2010 to follow the renewables route instead of Medupi, we would not be in the predicament we face now.
New solar technologies are emerging at a fraction of the cost of a few years ago. Keith Barnham has developed a solar cell three times as efficient as the most efficient solar cells on the market today, showing that our energy needs can be met with 100% renewable energy, far more cost-effectively and safely than nuclear.
It can also bring energy to the rural poor, which a centralised grid system cannot. Following the path of solar is essential if we are to confront climate change.
The NDP and Integrated Resource Plan questioned the need for nuclear energy. The SAFCEI, the Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum, the KwaZulu-Natal Inter-religious Council and individual faith leaders have written to the president for more than three years, requesting a meeting and pointing out that it is far more important for the government to develop our people than it is to spend trillions on capital-intensive energy that will impoverish us long after Zuma is gone. We believe nuclear energy is going in the wrong direction.
Minister Nene, we encourage you to tell the president and Parliament that our scarce financial resources should be prioritised for the empowerment of our people, not nuclear energy. – Bishop Geoff Davies, SAFCEI
Mandela talks began earlier than reported
Max du Preez writes: “Early in 1988 PW Botha sanctioned a highly secret committee under minister [of justice] Kobie Coetsee and [Niel] Barnard to start talks with [Nelson] Mandela in prison. Barnard first met Mandela on April 23 1988 …”
I can throw some light on this: the secret talks in fact began some three years earlier. How do I know? In January 1986 I was allowed to visit Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison. I was told it was as a friend, not as a journalist, that I was to visit, and I was required to give a written undertaking in advance that I would not write about it. This was my second visit to Mandela on the same basis.
We sat in an office with my wife Anne, in the presence of a prisons officer who took notes. During the conversation Mandela said that the ANC could perhaps recognise the existence of the Bantustans. At the time this was obviously an unusual and significant view, contrary to the line of the ANC in exile.
At the end of the interview I said goodbye to him in the prison foyer. No one was near us and I stood close to him and said quietly: “Do you want me to convey your view about the Bantustans to the government?” He said: “Yes.”
When I returned to my home in Johannesburg I phoned FW de Klerk. I knew him slightly; he was then Transvaal leader of the National Party. He thanked me for the information. A few minutes later, Kobie Coetsee, then the minister of justice, phoned me. He was indignant – he wanted to know why I had phoned FW and not him.
I said FW was the Transvaal leader and I thought he was the one I should contact. Coetsee laughed and said something along these lines: “You don’t know that I am the one dealing with Mandela! I’ve been meeting him secretly for the past year.”
Thus, according to Coetsee, the secret contacts began sometime early in 1985. – Benjamin Pogrund, Jerusalem
We’ve hardly learnt a thing in 20 years
Professor Tinyiko Maluleke (Perhaps we are too ready to forgive) has a lopsided take on Eugene de Kock. Maluleke’s character assassination in the first two paragraphs shows that incitement overrides his claim near the end: “that does not mean I do not wish to understand [De Kock] …”. The vilification of De Kock by referring to gruesome detail shows the opposite intent.
The South African press since 1994 has agonised over the demonising of this man. Simultaneously, along with the ANC-controlled broadcaster, they have forgotten that ANC operatives committed several known heinous and cowardly crimes.
Furthermore, Maluleke’s misunderstanding of how Germans of my generation have dealt with post-war society shows how little many South Africans have moved on in 20 years of self-determination. – TJ