South African says it will shift energy policy from coal to combat climate change

The Associated Press
Published: July 28, 2008

CAPE TOWN, South Africa: The South African government said Monday it would move away from cheap coal — long the engine of its economic growth — and embrace nuclear and renewable energy in a bid to combat climate change.
South Africa relies on its coal mines for 90 percent of its energy and has sought to attract electricity guzzling industries such as aluminum smelters as a key plank of its foreign investment policy.
But Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that would now change under a newly agreed Cabinet policy.
"We are saying to business and society at large that we have to move away from dirty coal as a dominant energy source," he said. Instead, the government would promote greater use of renewable energy and nuclear fuel.
"The longer we wait the more expensive it will become," he told a news conference.

Africa is the continent expected to be hardest hit by global warming. According to U.N. climate projections, the western part of South Africa faces increasing drought and declining crop yields, while the eastern part risks more torrential rain and flood-related devastation.
In the Kruger National Park, a temperature increase of 2.5-3 degrees Celsius could lead to the extinction of more than one quarter of its mammal and bird species and decimate butterfly populations. Cape Town's fruit and wine industries could become history, and its famed fynbos vegetation devastated.
Like other developing countries, South Africa is pushing the United States and other industrialized countries blamed for most of the global warming to slash their greenhouse gas emissions. Van Schalkwyk said developed countries must agree to cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2025 and by 85-90 percent by 2050. This has so far been resisted.
South Africa and other developing countries must also play their part, van Schalkwyk said. If the country took concerted action now, its greenhouse gas emissions should stabilize by 2025 and then decline. Without government intervention, emissions might quadruple by 2050, he said.
Van Schalkwyk said the government would come up with concrete measures by next year — including mandatory energy saving measures and a possible carbon tax.
He said the environmental benefits of the new policy would offset the economic costs, with government models predicting no net job losses in a country struggling with nearly 30 percent unemployment.
South Africa's boon days for energy ended abruptly at the start of the year when rolling blackouts brought industry to its knees. The acute energy shortage was caused by lack of planning amid sustained economic growth since the end of apartheid in 1994, including several years of 5 percent expansion.
The International Monetary Fund predicts South Africa's growth will slow to 3.8 percent this year, and possibly lower given the nation's energy crunch.
Van Schalkwyk indicated the new energy policy would have no immediate impact on national utility Eskom's plans to build a new coal-fired power station by 2013 and bring two obsolete ones back into production to offset the electricity shortage. But he said that, in the future, the government would only allow the construction of new power generators that were committed to "capturing" carbon dioxide emissions.
Even with electricity costs rising to fund Eskom's new investments, South Africa has the world's cheapest coal-fired energy at 22 cents (11 U.S. cents) per kilowatt/hour, compared with solar energy at 46 cents (7 U.S. cents) and wind energy at 57 cents (8 U.S. cents).
The government has long used this as an excuse not to invest in alternative forms of energy even though the country is sunny and with a long, windy coastline that make it ideal for solar and wind power.
The country's first wind farm came into operation this year near Cape Town, but produces only a fraction of national energy needs and uses only four wind turbines. By comparison, there are 19,000 turbines in Germany.
The government is also investing heavily in nuclear power and has asked U.S. and French companies to build a second nuclear plant alongside one near Cape Town.
Van Schalkwyk said this was part of South Africa's greenhouse gas goals, which he described as "progressive" compared with many other countries.
"This Cabinet decision is sending a very strong message that, as a government and country, we are committing ourselves to a low carbon economy," he said.
There was no immediate reaction from industry. But the World Wildlife Fund South Africa welcomed the announcement.
"This statement signals clear recognition by government as a whole that the transformational change required in response to global warming is fully consistent with addressing immediate development needs and inequality within our society," said the organization's CEO, Morne Du Plessis.