(Swedish in a separat blog)
“The Globe” is a program broadcast by Sweden’s Radio P1 on Wednesdays at 1:20 PM and repeated on Thursdays at 7:30 PM and Friday morning at 1:03AM. This week’s broadcast concerned South Africa’s investment in coal-fired electricity generation, and this is the summary by Margareta Svensson in Johannesburg:
(You can also listen to the program in Swedish directly from The Globe’s website.)
One of the world’s largest coal-fired power stations is being built in South Africa. The World Bank is financing it despite international criticism.
The building of the new coal-fired power station Medupi in a sensitive natural environment is an acknowledgement that something is more important – namely that the nation gets sufficient energy. This was the reasoning of both South Africa and the World Bank before the decision to lend SA $3.75 to build one of the world’s largest coal-fired power stations despite international protests. That, in addition, the ANC government owns shares in one of the three companies involved were also ignored. In the surrounding area there are also plans for an installation for South Africa’s largest carbon dioxide producer – namely SASOL – that converts coal into liquid fuel.
Despite a shortage of electricity it has been taken for granted in South Africa as an infinite resource – and cheap electricity is a reason that many foreign energy-craving industries have established themselves here.
A coal-fired power station has a working life of approximately 40 years but the existing stations are inefficient and old and the heavy coal transports they require dirty the nation’s roads.
Today 90 percent of South Africa’s energy comes from coal. 75% of the nation currently has electricity, but the need for electricity is calculated to grow faster than the supply and not even the Medupi installation will be sufficient in a few years. The price of electricity has been raised 25% to pay for Medupi’s construction.
While South Africa continues to discuss who will get to construct the next nuclear power station, the electricity company Eskom has decided to raise the price of electricity by 25% per year for the next three years to pay part of the cost of construction of the Medupi installation.
This is a shock for many of the poor and unemployed, that presumably will continue to steal electricity, but it is also a shock for small businesses. In comparison, larger industries have not complained as loudly and it is speculated that they may have arranged a special agreement with the electricity producer.
The government’s current goal is that all of 10,000 gigawatthours will be generated by alternative energy sources by 2013 but there is no management of how this will be achieved. The question is what goals the new national planning commission will establish.
Then again there is now increasing talk about alternative and more cost-effective sources of energy – especially on solar panels. These should be profitable since the sun shines all year round in South Africa.
The World Bank’s approval of financing for the coal-fired power station Medupi also includes construction of 100 megawatts of solar panels and an equal amount of energy from windpower – it will be South Africa’s greatest investment in renewable energy to date.
The coal to the new powerstation will come from the Grootgeluk coal mine, which has to double it production (read more)
Three hours before the program was broadcast The Globe’s journalist Johan Bergendoeff came to the Ångström Laboratory to make a recording on coal in South Africa. In total the recording became a segment of 4 minutes and 14 seconds and it has been given its own page at The Globe’s website.
The headline became “How long will the coal last?” and the summary text is:
Physics professor Kjell Aleklett and his research group at Uppsala University have been very productive in recent years and have published 15 studies in rapid tact in various scientific journals [Publications by Uppsala Global Energy Systems Group, Uppsala University, Sweden]. Their research concerns how much mineable coal, oil and natural gas is left in the world and their numbers are not as alarming as the latest report from the UN’s climate panel the IPCC. On the other hand, their numbers mean that there is little time left to find alternative energy sources since they consider that the peak of oil production, so-called “Peak Oil”, will happen this year. [Comment from Kjell Aleklett: More exactly, we said that Peak Oil already occurred in 2008 or will happen in a few years if production in Iraq gets moving – see the article “Peak of the Oil Age”]
“South Africa has mined coal for more than 100 years and has, therefore, used most of its easily mined coal discoveries” says Mikael Höök who performs doctoral research on the world’s coal reserves at Uppsala University. “There is still coal left there but it will be more difficult and expensive to mine in future. But South Africa only has a little oil and natural gas so they are still investing in coal despite that it will be more expensive to extract in future. However, they will be forced to invest in renewable fuels as well, if not other things, because of the international pressure to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.”
JB: “You have measured how much fossil fuel there is left in the world and arrived at numbers that are much lower than the IPCC’s. What conclusions should one draw from that?” – “We have measured how big the tap is, i.e. how much one can produce from those reserves that exist in the world”, says Kjell Aleklett. “The IPCC has taken an overly optimistic view of the world’s fossil fuel reserves in its future scenarios. Emissions in future will not be as great as the IPCC has so far calculated. [Comment from Kjell: The production volumes per year that that IPCC used in some of its future scenarios are not realistic. They have assumed far to large a tap. They have also forgotten to take into account that large reserves are required to produce large volumes of fuel in 2100.]
JB: “But of course there are other estimates that state that the Earth’s coal will last for hundreds of years.” – “People have not looked thoroughly at the scientific and geological data. Instead they have made economic calculations”, asserts Mikael Höök. “We have looked at the extractability of the coal that is influenced by the investment economy and regulations. For example, in the USA large coal reserves lie in national parks. The coal exists geologically but cannot be mined without tearing up a mass of environmental legislation.”
Aleklett and Höök point out that their calculations of the world’s remaining reserves of fossil fuel mean that we must act very rapidly to convert to other sources of energy. And they do not reject any of the IPCC’s conclusions that the global warming that we now see is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. They only assert that there is not enough fossil fuel left on Earth to attain the worst temperature increases that the IPCC predicts.
———
It is now more than two months since we published our article (read the peer-reviewed paper) that showed that the IPCC’s emissions scenarios of 2000 (the same scenarios that are used by the world’s climate researchers to calculate future temperature increases) cannot be realized. We have also reported on this internationally at the Energy Bulletin. What amazes me most is that not one single journalist around the world thinks that this is interesting. I don’t think they realize the magnitude of our research result. Maybe this segment on The Globe will open some people’s eyes. If not, one must place a large question mark over the world’s journalists. (email: kjell.aleklett@fysast.uu.se, mobile phone: +46 70 425 0604).
Kris De Decker
May 15, 2010
“One must place a large question mark over the world’s journalists.”
Because they don’t notice your paper?
If you want people, including journalists, to read and talk about your peer-reviewed paper, you might consider making it freely accessible. If I would have to pay $34 for every article I want to read, I would be very ill-informed.
aleklett
May 15, 2010
If you read the details on the page you can find that you can get it from the Global Energy Systems:
Click to access IPCC_article.pdf
Kris De Decker
May 17, 2010
Thanks.
It would help if you put that link above or before the paid content link. People don’t expect to find free access with the second link if the first link goes to a pay wall.
Babun
May 16, 2010
“We have looked at the extractability of the coal that is influenced by the investment economy and regulations. ”
I’d be particularly interested in reading what you have come up with regarding this. The only analysis i have read concerning this issue is research conducted by the USGS, which indicates the opposite result.
Mikael Höök
May 17, 2010
Dear Babun,
As an example, one may take the Gillete coal field in Wyoming and USGS’ comprehensive investigation of its coal supply. Luppens et al. (2008) assessed the Gillette coalfield and its eleven coal beds and estimated the original coal in place to be 182 Gt, with no restrictions applied. Available coal resources, which are part of the original resource that is accessible for potential mine development after subtracting all restrictions, are about 148 Gt. Recoverable coal, which is the portion of available coal remaining after subtracting mining and processing losses, was determined for a stripping ratio of 10:1 or less and resulted in a total of 70 Gt. Applying current economic constraints and using a discounted cash flow at 8% rate of return, the coal reserve estimate for the Gillette coalfield is only 9.1 Gt. While economic conditions definitively have the largest impact, reductions caused by technical and availability restrictions are also significant. This is only based on the USGS’ own research…
You can also read studies of the USA here:
Click to access USA_Coal.pdf
Click to access US_Coal_NRR.pdf
Babun
May 18, 2010
I was of course referring to the estimated effect of coal prices on reserves, which in my opinion is central to the issue of a possible peak coal as it is to peak oil.
Granted, there isn’t a lot of research on the subject, and the Gillette field is just one field – but even with the restrictions you mentioned, which the USGS also seems to have considered – USGS came to the conclusion that coal reserves are very reactive to prices.
At least in one of your papers you concluded that the DRB is unrealistic to work with and therefore worked with reserve estimates instead. Well, the DRB may be unrealistic to work with, but so is working with current reserve estimates. It is in my opinion almost certain that prices will affect recovery a lot – even if not to the full extent the USGS implies with its Gillette field research.
So i guess i was expecting some kind of analysis on future outlooks of reserve economics.
Kris De Decker
May 17, 2010
Thanks.
It would help if you put that link above or before the paid content link. People don’t expect to find free access with the second link if the first link goes to a pay wall.
tahoevalleylines
May 31, 2010
We are getting a stream of reasons why every single energy source has limits, and being shown limits that are far more restrictive than previously assumed or taken for granted.
Mission of tahoevalleylines posts on various web pages is to suggest need for railway mode in every country interested in maintaining Societal & Commercial Cohesion as we pass through the Oil Interregnum. See our comments on theoildrum and also, “aspoarticle1037” in James Howard Kunstler blog.
As part of the effort, we are in contact with Mr. Christopher C. Swan -author of “ELECTRIC WATER” and presently working on “Suntrain Transportation Corporation” renewable power railway infrastructure. We note, as should followers of Mssrs. Aleklett & Hook, the Chinese all-out efforts to emplace railway capacity, some of which is linked to renewable generation. China has leadership well versed in the strategic writings of SunTzu, and that fact alone is a word to the wise.
mygreencafe.com
June 25, 2010
Through the process of collecting solar energy industry is becoming more and more solar panels and the response to air pollution, global warming and a host of other factors does not mean quality air. The building of their own solar panels is now available for almost all homeowners, then you will have an impact on our overall lifestyle.
kervennic
January 12, 2012
Taking into account conservation laws is a joke, a romantic vision. Given the general mindset of the population and historical records, it is more than clear that if people start to freeze in the state or need to pump water for irrigation, they will burn all their coal and suppress or twist all regulation.
It just take another Bush or Ron Paul to get these laws cancelled, and Ron Paul’s type is getting more and more popular in the state.