Forget nuclear power, look at IngaDamproject

WE RECENTLY witnessed the highly irregular behaviour of President Jacob Zuma in making an unannounced visit to Russia and, on his return, the country being informed that nuclear power stations had been secured. Apart from Zuma’s odyssey being redolent of the infamous arms deal, with probably the same underlying motive, it only showed how pathetic the government’s understanding of its energy options is. That is no surprise, seeing Tina JoematPettersson is the inept custodian of the nation’s Integrated Resource Plan on energy. However, serious alternatives to the nuclear option do exist, without any persuasion from the anti-nuclear lobby.

After the financial debacle surrounding Medupi and Kusile, the country simply cannot afford nuclear power stations costing the odd trillion rand. Then, if the funding ever became available, it is unlikely that the International Atomic Energy Agency would ever grant Eskom an operating licence for a new nuclear power station – if it cannot reliably operate a coalfired power station, a well-established fact, then it has no chance of another nuclear ticket. And the embarrassment of being refused such a licence would lead to unimaginable political fall-out around perceived discrimination.

Further, the so-called energy experts of McKinsey & Company recently predicted that the future energy needs of sub-Saharan Africa would be dominated by natural gas by 2020. In view of Nigeria’s record of utter failure to utilise its massive natural gas resources, one seriously doubts Africa’s ability to implement any significant energy development outside South Africa. There appears to be a total disconnect between Africa and energy needs, possibly because there is always a big bill to be paid and Africa is only interested in “dividends” rather than investment.

The simple solution to the region’s power problem lies on the lower Congo River, almost within the general bounds of southern Africa. Grand Inga offers the easy option of generating some 40GW of hydroelectric power, the same as Eskom’s total generating capacity if everything was up and running, enough to power up the entire region. However, the project requires massive political will to bring together five or six African countries to share the power, of course, with Eskom as the only African agency capable of providing the distribution infrastructure, similar to that which Eskom operates for Cahora Bassa’s power. This is a project which would receive immediate support from international funding, it would be internationally operated, and it’s essentially carbon neutral: it is so compelling that the politicians need to be utterly insane to ignore it. However, Africa will almost certainly find a reason for doing just that, probably because it would offer only little in cash incentives.

It is very much in South Africa’s interests to propel the Grand Inga project to fruition as South Africa would anchor the power distribution grid and take 20 to 25 percent of the power output (some 10GW), thereby largely solving the country’s power problem in one simple stroke, apart from meeting the region’s developmental needs. It’s no good Zuma muttering about it in Sona, as no one was listening, and we cannot expect Joemat-Pettersson to promote it with any energy. We need a swell of influential support from the entire business community as it recognises the importance of a cheap, clean, reliable power supply, particularly one with such massive commercial potential. ROGER TOMS HOUT BAY NOWHERE, in David Wolpert’s letter (“Agoa has been a big success in SA”, Business Report, March 11) does he refute any of the points I raised regarding the dumping of poultry into South Africa and the harmful effect it has on the local industry and the 130 000 people who depend on it for their jobs.

We agree that Agoa is certainly beneficial for South Africa and that we must do all we can to make sure that it is renewed, which is why we have been actively involved in trying to resolve the “poultry issue”, and even if in so doing, we suffer some harm. But the question is whether we do so at the point of a barrel of a gun being