A breath of fresh air

There are numerous renewable resources available for us to choose from, but they all come with their own challenges and price tags. They also have their own particular use cases, challenges and benefits. For the electricity grid, wind is already being captured by farms in windy areas like the Eastern Cape, but not all areas have the wind required and storage to the grid can be complex and costly. Solar is one of the most popular solutions for energy in Africa, but the storage solutions available at present are also expensive, and not as efficient as they need to be for long-term baseload provision. Biofuels are a superb form of renewable energy, but they are more suited to agriculture or more labour-intensive activities.

“Solar and wind are efficient, but wind can be highly erratic,” says Professor van Zyl, department of microbiology, University of Stellenbosch. “Biofuels are not ideal for heat or electricity, but can replace fossil fuels. They also can be used to supplement agriculture and assist in job creation. The issue is that we don’t have an industry running this as yet, and it is complex, and requires extensive integration.”

South Africa can also harness the power of ocean currents, something which the Cape coastline has in abundance; landfill; industrial waste; biogas and digestion; geothermal applications and biomass. Many of these alternatives are already being investigated, some have been installed and it looks like South Africa is at least paying attention to what can solve our energy needs without the potential environmental destruction of fracking and nuclear.

Source: www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/06/06/ report-shows-alarming-rise-in-amount-costs-of-garbage