Heal the World

I said that there will be some serious pieces on this blog from time to time, this is one of them.

Since the turn of the millennium, there has been some serious concerns about the state of our planet. Former US vice president Al Gore reports that Global Warming will be one of the biggest challenges facing the human race in the new century. Many agree.

We have all heard, and seen the warning signs regarding global warming. The polar ice caps are melting transforming an already fragile eco system into an ecosystem that will only exist in story books and legends. Many animal species that depend on this eco system are also under threat.

The nature of politics is that it is about old men sitting and talking, and not doing anything. I have always been an advocate about this. However, there seems to be some moves to implement a plan of action to resolve the global warming issue.

One of the biggest issues regarding addressing the global warming issue is that of carbon emissions and carbon footprint. Which is basically the amount of carbon dioxide you as a consumer pout into the atmosphere.

One of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions is coal fired power stations, which burn coal to generate electricity.

In an effort to decrease carbon emissions, many countries have initiated programmes to increase their dependency on renewable energy sources. This is being funded through a feed-in-tariff, which is basically a minimum cost put onto the power purchaser to ensure the future technological development of renewable energy technology.

Many leading countries in the world, the US, Germany, Spain, have a long history of implementing this system.

But what is happening locally?

At the beginning of last year. Eskom had to embark on a load shedding programme to generate sufficient capacity after significant shortfalls proved that the utility could not guarantee electricity supply to the masses. Although that was a short-term solution, the utility did initiate a capacity build programme which will see the first power stations in over 20 years being built in South Africa.

The problem is that these power stations will be coal fired.

That’s not to say that Eskom is not initiating a feed-in-tariff programme. The National Energy Regulator last year embarked on an extensive fact finding mission to find the right system to implement in the local market.

South Africa is basing its programme largely on the German model and has set itself a 3% renewable energy consumption target by 2013. Which means by 2013 3% of all of the energy that we use will come from renewable energy.

Although there are those who are happy that South Africa is initiating such programmes. There are those who feel that South Africa is un-ambitious in this target.

The main way that renewable energy producers will be funding future technological developments in the industry will be through the feed-in-tariff that it will charge Eskom for the electricity. The prices range from 63c/kWh for hydro power to 75c/kWh for solar power.

The World Wide Fund for nature, formally known as the World Wildlife Fund, has criticised the National energy Regulator stating that if Sa were to implement a flat tariff across all technologies, then a renewable energy consumption target of between 10 and 12% is possible.

The National Energy Regulator’s reasoning behind not putting all of its weight behind renewable energy is that the capital outlay for renewable technology is significant. However, the World Wide Fund for Nature points out that the capital outlay for renewable technology is only R5-million more then the capital outlay for fossil fuel technology.

When Government has been the major solicitor of funds to Eskom for the rolling out of its capacity build programme, could it not see the long term value in spending a few million more to preserve a world that will be around for our kids and grandkids to enjoy?