Every day, the sun beams enough energy into our provincial backyard to power all the houses in SA. Where does most of it go? Into thin air; like many of the urgings by scientists and industry leaders that renewable technologies can supply the entire world's energy needs in future.
At the Solar World Congress held in Sandton, last week, scientists, energy experts, and government representatives gathered to discuss how to use this daily helping of clean, free, renewable energy to power a planet dependent on greenhouse-gas-emitting, finite fuel.
A somewhat predictable result emerged: the technology is there, the solutions are there, the diagrams, pie charts and graphs showing the numbers add up are there. What is not is political will, binding global and national policies, and public uptake.
Hermann Scheer, president of the World Council for Renewable Energy and pioneer of the shift to renewables in Germany, told the congress we cannot wait for international agreements to move ahead with 100% renewable energy. Roundtable talks and endless inch-by-inch negotiations are admittedly not going to get us very far. Either global leaders commit to the kind of history-changing, no-holds-barred climate policy suggested by Gordon Brown this week, or we are going to have to look elsewhere for something to shove the green push.
Scheer's solution? Look to the natural progression of technology through the ages. To quote a certain marketing phrase, it's about simpler, better, faster. The Internet didn't wait for a global pact before people were sharing and accessing information faster than ever before. Nor did cellphones sit brooding on their ability to provide instant, multimedia communication on the go while politicians discussed international targets.
People adopt solutions that make things easier, more efficient and improve quality of life. If renewable energies offer the tools for doing things in a simpler, more time-and cost-effective way people will use it, regardless of whether they're environmentally conscious or not.
To quote Scheer, if renewables are seen not as a burden but as a benefit for all societies, then we will no longer have to wait for the outcomes of international treaties.
Will power
However, while renewable technologies do provide a more efficient, less wasteful way of producing energy, it will take time, particularly in developing countries, to bring in the infrastructure, establish a market, and allow the various solutions to find their place in the energy mix. And time is one thing we don't have.
As alluded to by delegates at the congress, technologies such as solar, wind and hydro involve large initial outlay, with low operating costs and high energy payback. Which means, spend now, save later.
Keeping the lights on in SA seems set to be a pricey, dirty business.
Lezette Engelbrecht
For this reason, national government will have to get onboard in supporting initiatives, and making them economically viable. The renewable energy feed-in tariff (Refit) programme, for example, has been criticised for having Eskom as the buyer of electricity generated by solar, wind and hydro, while also being a generator and grid operator.
The utility has also placed many of its renewable energy projects on hold, notably a 100MW wind farm in the Western Cape and a 100MW concentrating solar power plant in the Northern Cape, as it awaits funding. With Eskom planning to increase electricity cost by 45% annually for the next three years, and 80% of its energy mix still coming from coal, keeping the lights on in SA seems set to be a pricey, dirty business.
The Energy Ministry set a target of 10 000GWh produced via renewable energy by 2013, in the Renewable Energy Policy of 2003. International agreements may not materialise, but national policies are vital if the switch to renewable is to happen in time. The natural trajectory of technological revolution has to be fast-tracked in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, some of which are already irreversible.
Nick of time
The thing about renewable technologies is that they can only get cheaper, while fossil fuels can only become more costly as resources dwindle. This fact has been largely overlooked, perhaps because of the false premise that renewables cannot supply energy needs as well as their finite counterparts. 'Green technology', in the wider sense, is still haunted by the spectre of being slow, earthy, and expensive.
Calculations from the University of Johannesburg's physics department show that if an area half the size of Gauteng (17 billion square metres) was covered with 10% efficiency photovoltaic panels, they would generate an average of about 150 billion kWh per month.
If the average household needs 750kWh per month for electricity (assuming they use subsidised solar water heaters for the water heating), the 150 billion kWh would power up 200 million households on a permanent basis. That represents about 20 times more than the entire South African population, or approximately, the entire population of the African continent.
The feedstock is there - the energy to power a continent, packed in a space smaller than Gauteng - freely available.
The Solar World Congress said in its 2009 resolution that the global target of 100% renewable energy is both attainable and necessary by the middle of the next century. It added that this is motivated on the grounds of ecological, economic and social sustainability; basically, to ensure continued life on earth.
Humans have a funny way of staring the evidence in the face until it becomes so overwhelming that it galvanises a last-minute flurry of frantic action. But while our sense of self-preservation usually gets us onto the ark on time, the question is, will the waters have risen too high by then?
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