Minerals and Energy Budget Vote Speech by Lance Greyling
2006-01-05. Honourable Minister it is clear that our world is changing rapidly around us. Our planet is heating up due to our continued emissions of greenhouse gases, having enormous impacts on all of our natural resources. This environmental reality is also bringing about an energy revolution. The fossil fuel age of the past 200 years is being seriously challenged as the world takes its first tentative steps towards a renewable energy revolution. There are certainly many forces and vested interests intent on holding back this revolution, using arguments such as renewable energy is unreliable, too costly or simply an environmentalist’s fantasy.
This kind of resistance is often
found at the beginning of a paradigm shift though, and we cannot lose
sight of the fact that in the next fifty years the transition to
renewable energy systems around the world will rapidly speed up.
For a country like South Africa, which has built its economy on a polluting mineral-energy complex, the pressure to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions that are currently the 14th largest in the world, will be immense. I believe, however, that it is not the pressure that should bring about the shift in our energy system, but the enormous opportunities that exist for a country like ours to be at the forefront of researching, producing and developing the renewable energy technologies of the future. Southern Africa has 80% of the world’s platinum reserves, which means that we must be the leaders in developing fuel cell technology. We have double the world’s average solar radiation which means that we should be at the forefront of producing solar thermal and PV cell technologies. Honourable Minister, we should not be importing renewable energy technologies to meet our domestic targets, but we should be turning ourselves into a leading producer and exporter of these technologies around the world.
To make this dream a reality, however, requires far more financial and human resources. We also need to dedicate more money to the Integrated Energy Planning Process so that the capacity of the department to independently plan scenarios for the next fifty years can be strengthened. Unfortunately almost all research and development money has been swallowed up by the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. In Eskom’s 2003/2004 financial period for instance, R380 million of the R500 million was given to the PBMR, leaving a measly amount for all other technologies. In the MTEF we saw another R500 million transferred to this project and this figure has now jumped to R600 million in this year’s budget. This fits the pattern of nuclear energy around the world, which has always experienced cost over-runs and has never lived up to its initial promise of energy too cheap too meter. The independent economic feasibility study of this project warned of precisely this scenario and still we proceeded to pump vast sums of money into it.
Honourable Minister, I was not surprised at your recent outburst at Earthlife Africa, because this government has always been extremely sensitive of any criticism of nuclear energy. The nuclear summit was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute last year to avoid any embarrassment to the PBMR company who was trying to drum up investors in France at the time. Since then I have tried on countless occasions and through various mechanisms to get this parliament to hold the long awaited Summit. I have been blocked at every corner and have instead sat through countless briefings in the Environment committee by nuclear proponents with not one dissenting voice ever been given a chance to speak. It is no wonder then that the anti-nuclear lobby has had to resort to legal action to get their arguments heard. In contrast, Eskom is able to use public money to run huge full page adverts in a number of newspapers to advertise the benefits of nuclear energy. Honourable Minister, the issue of the PBMR is not just about environmental or safety concerns, but about the future direction of South Africa’s energy system over the next century. You might want to pigeon-hole criticism as environmental hysteria, but the issues are far broader than that. Surely it is time that we debated all of these issues in a transparent and fair manner and the ID looks forward to doing just that.
For a country like South Africa, which has built its economy on a polluting mineral-energy complex, the pressure to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions that are currently the 14th largest in the world, will be immense. I believe, however, that it is not the pressure that should bring about the shift in our energy system, but the enormous opportunities that exist for a country like ours to be at the forefront of researching, producing and developing the renewable energy technologies of the future. Southern Africa has 80% of the world’s platinum reserves, which means that we must be the leaders in developing fuel cell technology. We have double the world’s average solar radiation which means that we should be at the forefront of producing solar thermal and PV cell technologies. Honourable Minister, we should not be importing renewable energy technologies to meet our domestic targets, but we should be turning ourselves into a leading producer and exporter of these technologies around the world.
To make this dream a reality, however, requires far more financial and human resources. We also need to dedicate more money to the Integrated Energy Planning Process so that the capacity of the department to independently plan scenarios for the next fifty years can be strengthened. Unfortunately almost all research and development money has been swallowed up by the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. In Eskom’s 2003/2004 financial period for instance, R380 million of the R500 million was given to the PBMR, leaving a measly amount for all other technologies. In the MTEF we saw another R500 million transferred to this project and this figure has now jumped to R600 million in this year’s budget. This fits the pattern of nuclear energy around the world, which has always experienced cost over-runs and has never lived up to its initial promise of energy too cheap too meter. The independent economic feasibility study of this project warned of precisely this scenario and still we proceeded to pump vast sums of money into it.
Honourable Minister, I was not surprised at your recent outburst at Earthlife Africa, because this government has always been extremely sensitive of any criticism of nuclear energy. The nuclear summit was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute last year to avoid any embarrassment to the PBMR company who was trying to drum up investors in France at the time. Since then I have tried on countless occasions and through various mechanisms to get this parliament to hold the long awaited Summit. I have been blocked at every corner and have instead sat through countless briefings in the Environment committee by nuclear proponents with not one dissenting voice ever been given a chance to speak. It is no wonder then that the anti-nuclear lobby has had to resort to legal action to get their arguments heard. In contrast, Eskom is able to use public money to run huge full page adverts in a number of newspapers to advertise the benefits of nuclear energy. Honourable Minister, the issue of the PBMR is not just about environmental or safety concerns, but about the future direction of South Africa’s energy system over the next century. You might want to pigeon-hole criticism as environmental hysteria, but the issues are far broader than that. Surely it is time that we debated all of these issues in a transparent and fair manner and the ID looks forward to doing just that.
