SHAMMY LUVHENGO AND CLARENCE TSHITEREKE: Is green energy really that clean?

In the last few years, we have witnessed an explosion of rooftop photovoltaic solar panels as households seek to escape recurring power cuts. For environmentally conscious consumers, getting off the grid by tapping into infinite quantities of natural energy has become fashionable as a humble household contribution towards mitigating the effect of human activities on the planet.

However, with half of SA’s adult population unemployed, access to green energy remains an option restricted to affluent households due to associated prohibitive installation, maintenance and long-term insurance costs. Combined, these costs make green energy an expensive alternative.

The relative success of the green energy revolution will therefore have to be measured against general affordable access to reliable power that  improves the quality of life of ordinary South Africans. Clean energy helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also generating savings for households — so the litany goes. However, such savings are only realised at breakeven point, generally about seven years after installation.

What is often overlooked is how to manage the waste that green energy technologies create. So far, such waste has not caused concern due to their relatively low-scale application. But this supposedly clean energy may not be that clean after all, and could in fact inflict more damage on the environment than fossil fuels. 

At a basic level, the metals and minerals required to produce steel and manufacture solar panels, storage batteries and associated electronics, require energy to produce, which clearly contributes to environmental damage. The average lifespan of solar panels is about 25-30 years, and it is reasonable to posit that we are still in the installation phase, since the first panels appeared no more than 20 or so years ago.

Before the first installed solar panels reach the end of their lifespan, we necessarily need a specific statutory framework and associated regulations for an industrial scale solar cycling programme. Technological innovations render electronic products obsolete within a short period, and if not properly managed their hazardous waste can cause severe risk to human and environmental health. 

Equally, batteries used to store solar energy, particularly lithium-ion and nickel-cadmium, have a shelf life of between three and five years and are often discarded at the end of that period. Whether this does not defeat the primary objective of choosing renewable energy remains a moot point. While recovering some critical components for recycling is valuable, an objective evaluation of the solar panel and battery manufacturing value chain presents a not-so-clean outlook. It would be reckless to neglect responsible recycling by relegating exhausted solar panels, batteries and associated electronics to landfills. 

It is worth considering whether humanity is creating an unsustainable dependence on various indispensable rare earth metals and minerals, such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, indium and tungsten. While recent prospecting has brought confidence that there will be sufficient rare earth metals to meet rising demand for green energy, mining them will continue to degrade the environment and subject some miners to dehumanising working conditions. The mining of such rare earth metals as cobalt to produce solar panels is frequently undertaken in crude and dangerous conditions in places like Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  

Indeed, there would be no green energy for the affluent suburbs without dirty, dangerous mining undertaken with the tacit endorsement of the international community. Barefoot, bucket and shovel artisanal gutter mining in DRC continues in the 21st century. Perhaps it is too early to glory in the success of the green energy revolution. 

While green energy is helping households and small businesses mitigate load-shedding woes, the extent to which it can power our heavy industry remains questionable. Currently, industry consumes more than 50% of Eskom-produced energy from coal-fired power stations, while households consume about 20%. Some of our primary industry energy-intensive drivers such as aluminium and steel smelters consume about 1,000MW each, the equivalent maximum power output of Eskom’s recently mothballed Komati coal-fired power station. The fact that intermittent energy supply is not conducive to the efficient operation of such smelters makes green energy unsuitable.  

Apart from the economic consequences for our energy-intensive industry sector, the dilemma that green energy presents is whether we should mothball electricity-guzzling aluminium and steel smelters — and if not, what should power them? In today’s competitive global economy there is extensive evidence of the nexus between a country’s ability to harness industrial productive efficiencies and economic success. Therefore, the primacy of industry not only in producing goods, but also in large-scale job creation that spurs economic growth, cannot be underestimated.  

For our realities, an energy system guided by rational economics requires pragmatic adoption of a diversified optimal energy mix inclusive of coal, oil and gas for long-term economic sustainability. Though uncomfortable for many, fossil fuels, including coal-fired power stations, are indispensable to a sustainable energy system. The sustainability of our current energy system calls for the installation of carbon capture and storage technologies to our existing coal-fired power stations to trap carbon dioxide and minimise emissions to achieve mitigation targets.

Decisions we take on policy positions regarding future energy source preferences must acknowledge the inherent limitations of green energy. 

• Luvhengo is executive director of mid-tier coal producer Ndalamo Resources. Tshitereke is researching the potential socioeconomic effect of reducing SA’s reliance on coal-fired power stations.