MIKE MULLER: Green magical thinking is aggravating our energy misery

By the end of 2022 a desperate and angry SA public was demanding that someone do something now to fix the electricity crisis and end load-shedding.

For many the solution is obvious. Encouraged by green lobbyists, echoed by commentators such as Business Day columnist Peter Bruce, they are adamant that we must focus on renewable energy from the sun and wind; anything else would be a wasteful distraction (“Gas? A transition to totally wasted infrastructure”, December 8).

If only it were that simple. Two news items just before New Year should give pause to the enthusiastic clamour to “solve” load-shedding by covering remote parts of the countryside with wind turbines and solar panels. First, it was announced that only six of the 56 solar and wind power projects proposed in bid window 6 had been accepted. Most of the others failed because, it was reported, there is no capacity on the grid to deliver the energy they generate to where it is needed.

A few days later, electricity regulator Nersa rejected Eskom’s proposal to build 3,000MW of gas generation that could quickly be connected to the existing grid. Its excuse? The application was made under the wrong paragraph of the Energy Regulation Act.

When faced with complex problems and difficult detail people often find easy answers comforting, even if they don’t really work. Psychologists refer to this as “magical thinking”. Initially used by anthropologists to describe “primitive” belief systems, the term was then adopted by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget to explain how young children make sense of their environments.

More recently, psychologists and anthropologists have found it helpful to explain how adults living in complex “modern” societies deal with challenges to which they can find no obvious or acceptable response.

Both renewable energy climate activists and the traditional energy industry that they oppose have attacked each other’s positions on the energy transition as “magical thinking”. But these green propaganda wars are dangerous. They confuse important policy debates and divert vital energies from the necessarily complex work needed to get agreement on how a country like SA can position itself to succeed in a rapidly changing world. 

This confusion is evident in SA’s energy sector and has already helped  aggravate what is now sufficiently persistent and disruptive to be described as an energy crisis. As an example, even as the failure of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer bid window 6 was announced, Stellenbosch “sustainability professor” Mark Swilling continued to promote the “wind and solar first” strategy.

“The only technologies that can deliver new generation capacity quickly (within two years), affordably and on budget are solar and wind power, backed up with batteries and gas” he claimed.

It’s true that solar and wind generators can be built quite quickly. If government guarantees to buy their output at a fixed price for the next 20 years, they can also be financed. But 3,000MW of gas generators would provide as much energy as 10,000MW of intermittent solar and wind, more reliably. And if the green lobby would get out of the way, they could be fuelled with local gas.

Importantly, gas will not need thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines and huge storage systems to have energy delivered when and where it’s needed. That infrastructure will cost substantially more than the renewable generators themselves, and there is still no explanation for how it will be financed. Anyway, Eskom says it could take a decade before it could be built. Unfortunately, the public and politicians are not getting that message. 

Where Swilling is correct is that there is no short-term solution for load-shedding. Eskom must do its best to keep its coal fleet running as reliably as possible for the next few years. Private sector self-generation, mainly from solar power, will ease supply during the day. But as population — and, we hope, the economy — grows, supply restrictions will still be needed to manage peak demand.

So where do we go from here? We need to step back, consider our long-term destination and chart a coherent way forward. Given current global trends by 2050 or 2060 most of SA’s energy needs will have to be met from climate neutral sources. The big policy question is how to get there.

It would of course be easier if we could start from a different place. SA’s electricity generation is the most coal intensive in the world; in addition, about 40% of liquid fuels for transport are made from coal and gas, through equally carbon-intensive processes. That’s why our per capita greenhouse gas emissions are more than double the middle-income country average, and why it will cost us more than most to build a cleaner energy system.

Huge investments will be needed to transform and expand the electricity sector to power new transport and industrial processes for cement, steel and fertiliser production. Even if all new generation is privately funded, public investment will be required for the additional transmission, distribution and storage infrastructure.

This public expenditure must be coherently programmed if it is to contribute efficiently to the goal of reducing SA’s greenhouse gas emissions while supporting the wider welfare of the society. The current hiccup over transmission capacity for new renewable generation is just a small illustration of the dangers of patchwork planning.

The electricity transition has to be strategised as just part of the larger, long-term, energy transition. Magical thinking that focuses on “solving” short-term problems simply by building more solar and wind generators risks distracting policymakers from the critical business of identifying, prioritising and initiating the longer-term investments that will be needed. Those measures must ensure the energy transition supports wider national development objectives — creating jobs, using local resources and reducing exposure to volatile international energy markets.

Aside from keeping Eskom’s battered fleet of coal-fired stations running as well as possible, a sensible programme would immediately:

• Build the planned 3,000MW of gas-fired generators at ports with existing grid connections and potential for gas imports or local supply;
• Initiate the long-term grid expansions to allow more wind and solar power into the system; and
• Invest in new wind and solar at a pace that accompanies grid expansion.

Critical medium-term projects that will take longer to complete should also be accelerated, specifically:

• Construction of more long duration energy storage to manage the risks of climate variability, which will grow as the proportion of intermittent renewables increases;
• Development of green hydrogen production and use; and
• Evaluation of the potential for regional hydropower and new nuclear power options.

If programmed appropriately and procured and implemented efficiently, these initial interventions will provide the foundation on which an energy system can be built that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.

That long-term goal will only be achieved through hard work and consistent communication that sustains support from both politicians and the public. But it must start now. It is time to leave the talkers and their magic wands at the door and hand over to the doers.

Muller, a registered professional engineer, is visiting adjunct professor at the Wits School of Governance. He worked on climate and energy strategies for the region as a national planning commissioner focused on economic infrastructure, environmental sustainability and regional co-operation.