Mixed signals and frantic feet in gaping mouths take 2013 biscuit
THIS was a strange year for the energy industry. Like the contentious Nkandla “fire pool” issue, things have unequivocally not been what they appear.
From the ridiculous to the embarrassing and absurd, let us reflect on 2013 by awarding a series of prizes. from its increasingly radical theories or dares to interrogate the supposed wisdom of institutions perpetually rubber-stamping the existence of anthropogenic climate change.
Explanation: In 2013, Liberal Democrat MP David Ward made a series of offensive remarks in the UK on Palestine. Asked to explain his actions, this politician chose the usual taken-outof-context, -scratching-head excuses.
Winner: Viktor Yanukovych, prime minister of Ukraine. Ukraine is a political prize sought by the Russians and the Europeans. Just when ties between Ukraine and the European Union were being strengthened, Yanukovych balked – an event that is leading to a repeat of the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Explanation: The Darwin Awards recognise groups and individuals who have contributed towards evolution by exterminating or embarrassing themselves through foolish deeds.
Winner: This was a tough call. Short-listed candidates included Medupi, Friends of the Earth and Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, but Greenpeace snatched it by a whisker.
It said it was going to invade the Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Barents Sea. Russia warned that its activists would be arrested. Greenpeace tried to invade the oil platform. Its activists were arrested.
Like Living Planet, Greenpeace’s cup runneth over with an obsession with publicity, ultimately for itself. The fact that a South African, Kumi Naidoo, heads the organisation is not something to be proud of. Explanation: None required. Winner: Vladimir Putin. Every year Russia’s bear-wrestling, tiger-darting, horse-riding president takes off his shirt for the Russian press. But the strongman’s popularity stunts took a smack when he claimed to have discovered treasure from a shipwreck that had already been discovered. In the face of hostile criticism towards, among other things, his position on gay and lesbian people, he needed something to sway international opinion.
When he entered the Kremlin, Putin warned oligarchs who had accumulated vast fortunes to steer clear of politics. Most of Putin’s wrath was reserved for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and the head of the oil giant Yukos. Khodorkovsky was incarcerated.
This month, Putin exercised a series of pardons to appease the wave of revulsion: the aforementioned Greenpeace activists, remaining members of the band Pussy Riot and Khodorkovsky were all released.
Winners: Renewable energy and shale gas. The latter has been subjected to a vindictive smear cam- paign, but the former has shone through in 2013. However, a combination of these is possibly SA’s greatest future hope. The downright loser is coal – unless the new Medupi power station performs without a hitch for the next 20 years (if it ever works).
Dearly Departed winners: Brian Dames and Paul O’Flaherty. Having steered Eskom through the darkness that was directly the fault of key members of the Mbeki administration and the heads of Eskom at the time, both men retired this year.
Not-So-Dearly Departed winners: Marc Rich, pardoned founder of what is now Glencore, and Hugo Chavez, former Venezualan president.
So what is to be expected in 2014? Probably fireworks.
Reader is the co-founder and chief investment officer of private equity firm RE:RE Capital, specialising in the development of both renewable and conventional energy facilities. Previously he has worked for UNAids. He writes a weekly column for BDlive.