October 2011

Hydrids and ‘best of both' technology solutions

In the early days of touch screen technology, I remember quoting an IT guru who said that technology development tended to result in better performance in some aspects and worse in others. Having finally got my first smartphone, I can relate to what he meant. I miss my keypad, and while touch is fantastic for browsing and the simple stuff, I struggle to write an SMS. Isn't it unfortunate that we can't always have the ‘best of both'?

Our different renewable energy options seem fraught with exactly this dilemma. Each individual technology has its own advantages, vigorously championed by its supporters, and its drawbacks, pilloried by its detractors. This is also true of our traditional base-load generation technologies, ie, nuclear and coal-fired power technologies, safety and cost being the key negatives for nuclear and CO² emissions for coal.

A similar development scenario is being played out in the automotive sector. Traditional petrol and diesel powered vehicles are being driven towards better and better efficiencies and several different zero- and low-emission options are being introduced. Nissan is championing the electric vehicle through its Leaf, which, infrastructure permitting, will be introduced into South Africa in 2013. Honda (and more recently VW) have chosen fuel-cell technology, and Toyota, the first manufacturer to fully commercialise green technology with its Prius Hybrid vehicle, continues to incorporate and extend its technology into more of its models.

But for all types of hybrid, the merging of technologies produces a softening of the advantages but a significant reduction in the highly inconvenient disadvantages.

There is no doubt that both South Africa and the world are going to have to reduce their dependence on both coal and oil from now on, coal because of emissions and oil due to the pressure on supply - oil reserves are drying up faster than new resources are being discovered. We are going to become increasingly dependent on more-expensive alternative technologies.

But hybridisation, coupling the old with the new, can offer us a way of mitigating the worst inconveniences of the alternatives, of making the transition more affordable and less risky, and of evolving towards long-term sustainability without flip-flopping from one champion to another.

Peter Middleton