Mechanical Technology — February 2014
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Comment
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Emission reduction: a priority
A
t as recent SANEA lecture at the Sasol Auditorium, Tshilidzi Ramuedzisi,
chief director for energy planning for the Department of Energy, presented
an overview of the
Draft 2012 Integrated Energy Planning Report
.
While the presentation itself was excellent, I feel relieved that I am not
an energy professional.
For electricity generation, five test cases and a base case were evaluated to meet demand
between now and 2050. The base case simply extends the current trajectory for the purposes of
comparison. There are three ‘peak-plateau-decline’ emissions limit test cases, which all assume
we meet currently agreed emissions’ reduction targets of 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025: “at
all costs”. These include an all-technologies emissions limiting case; a no nuclear case; and a
case prioritising natural gas. The fourth test case is the renewable energy target case, which sets
out to achieve 10% of generation from renewables by 2030; and number five is the carbon tax
case, in which the implementation of a carbon tax on relative technology choices is incorporated
as the key constraint.
It seems that nuclear generation technology only features in the general emissions limit case.
Needless to say, in all of the cases where emissions are the limiting criteria, the coal-fired generation
targets will be significantly lower by 2050 – down from 61,2 GW in the base case to 25,4 GW
in all three emissions limiting cases, and to 41,2 GW in the renewable energy target test case.
The renewable energy test case does not seem to reduce emissions by nearly as much, begging
the question as to where the 10% renewables target came from. Also, ironically, in the renewable
energy target case, coal is chosen to accompany renewables instead of nuclear, counterintuitive
given that the reason for maximising renewables is to reduce emissions?
My ‘birds-eye’ view detects a few signals that may be significant going forward. First, the
consequences of a non-nuclear future are being actively pursued, and the emerging results are
not that negative. Natural gas, including that ‘from unconventional sources’, ie, Karoo shale gas,
is also being considered in the mix and, it seems to me, wind is being overtaken by solar as the
renewable technology of choice.
The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2010-30 has also been updated to reflect “a number of
developments in the energy sector”. Most notably, revised electricity sector demand is projected in
the range of 345 - 416 TWh by 2030, down from the 454 TWh expected in the policy-adjusted
IRP. “In the shorter term (the next two to three years) there are clear guidelines arising from the
scenarios”, reads the introduction.
Specifically, “The nuclear decision can possibly be delayed. The revised demand projections
suggest that no new nuclear base-load capacity is required until after 2025 – and for lower demand
not until at earliest 2035”. Justifications include regional hydro possibilities – such as Igula – as
well as allowing “exploration of the shale gas potential before prematurely committing to a tech-
nology (nuclear) that may be redundant if the electricity demand expectations do not materialise”.
On the coal side, renewed optimism for fluidised bed combustion generation is floated as
“preferable” to the Coal 3 programme. Also proposed is to “continue with the current renewable
bid programme, with additional annual rounds of 1 000 MW PV capacity; 1 000 MW wind
capacity and 200 MW CSP capacity – which I think is excellent.
Included in this issue is a summary of a proposal for carbon trading in South Africa by
Promethium Carbon. The idea is to allow clean and emissions mitigating projects to register and
sell their emissions savings on the JSE as carbon credits. These can then be bought by a carbon
emitter and used to offset the company’s carbon tax liability. This assumes that the proposed
carbon tax legislation will be promulgated in 2015.
Ramuedzisi presented systems’ costs for the different test cases, including those for liquid fuels
for the transport industry, which dominate the total energy costs and would mostly be imported.
Extracting the infrastructure costs for electricity generation, though, the most expensive of the
analyses emerges from the carbon tax test case (R310-billion) and while the base case does result
in the lowest infrastructure cost (R189-billion), the emissions limit and no nuclear emissions limit
cases, at R199- and R203-billion, respectively, are not massively more expensive.
I am convinced that reducing emissions is a priority that outweighs, by far, the cost-based
analyses of these different test cases. Surely it is obvious that we need to maximise the use of
renewables and minimise the use of coal. And surely too, if the base load shortcomings of renew-
ables are an issue, then nuclear is the most obvious coal replacement option.
Isn’t it time to commit to an emissions reduction strategy? Why are we even considering
reneging on agreed targets?
Peter Middleton
