Global coal body CEO urges SA to invest in clean technologies

The head of the World Coal Association says SA stands a better chance of meeting its energy requirements, as well as reducing its emissions, if investment is made in new clean coal technology rather than trying to eliminate all fossil fuels.

SA is set to receive $8.5bn (R135bn) from wealthy nations to help end its reliance on coal in a deal announced at the recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).

Ending that reliance, however, is a tall order given the country’s dependence on coal for electricity generation, a sore point amid load-shedding.

SA already has 15 coal-fired plants with a nominal capacity of more than 38,000MW and is the world’s 12th-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. In all this, there are plans to build 1,500MW of new coal capacity contained in the government’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), a 2019 document laying out the energy mix up to 2030.

Michelle Manook, CEO of the World Coal Association, which represents the global coal industry, says even if R100bn is thrown at this problem, it is unlikely to be a quick fix to the role coal plays in SA’s economy.

“I think ... a better way of talking about it is ‘supporting a diversification of its energy system’,” Manook said in a Business Day Spotlight podcast interview.

“When we’re looking at the sort of funds that support that decarbonisation, it ought to include some of those clean coal technologies which SA has also identified in its own programme and policies including highefficiency low emissions.”

Efforts should be focused on using a multitude of energy sources, including coal, she said. “We don’t really lean into this ‘either or’ thing. There is room for everyone and there has to be. That is actually what a secure energy system looks like.”

Developing and emerging countries have more choice today, Manook said. “They are lucky and they should engage with that choice in a way in which they can continue to provide affordable and reliable power, but the idea that we can’t have baseload power that would be coal, with new technologies supporting its abatement, I think is naive.”

She concludes that coal will continue to be “important and relevant” for years to come, “but where we want to get to is really supporting the clean technologies”.

According to the department of mineral resources & energy, about 77% of SA’s primary energy needs are provided by coal. This is unlikely to change significantly in the next two decades due to the relative lack of suitable alternatives to coal as an energy source.

A BETTER WAY OF TALKING ABOUT IT IS ‘SUPPORTING A DIVERSIFICATION OF ITS ENERGY SYSTEM’

Michelle Manook, CEO, World Coal Association