Africa urged to fully exploit coal reserves
The Minerals Development Company Botswana ( MDCB), a government’s investment arm for mining and minerals assets wants Africa to benefit from coal before transitioning to renewable energies.
“Suddenly thermal coal is the currency even though in the medium to long term there are significant headwinds against thermal coal. “This necessitates that Africa must ensure maximum extraction of this resource in the short to medium term while at the same time navigating the transition to net zero,” said MDCB Chief Executive Officer, Matome Tsholetsa Malema, addressing delegates at the Women in Mining Conference recently. Malema’s call comes as the world’s efforts to move towards an energy transition has been upset by geopolitical, reversing the trend and creating an uptake in the production of thermal coal to substitute the energy deficit. With over 200 billion tonnes of coal, Botswana is one of the countries that has not fully exploited its coal reserve with Morupule Coal Mine ( MCM) and Minergy’s Masama Coal Mine in production. “In Botswana, we have high quality coal with high CV ( calorific value), low sulphur, low moisture, low ash, and self- buffering coal. In fact, the coal we feed in the power station is better quality coal that would otherwise be used for other applications,” Malema said. Last month, Minergy announced that coal will remain an essential component of national energy mix for years to come. “Notwithstanding the desire to switch to greener options in developing countries, it is in no way affordable. We believe that the solution lies in considering clean coal technologies such as HELE which is a process of High Efficiency, Low Emissions,”