The energy crisis in Western Europe should act as a warning to South Africa.
Rich, powerful economies in Europe are threatened because of idiotic energy policies. If we follow their stupid policies, as our green establishment wants us to do, the future of our much weaker economy is doomed.
Are we so stupid, so feeble, so enslaved by other peoples’ ideologies that we shall do so? I wish I could say ‘no’. But, as I read our mainstream media, from the Daily Maverick to Business Day, I cannot.
In Britain, surging energy prices have shut down two critical fertiliser factories, which also produce crucial industrial gases such as CO2, used for foodstuffs and beverages. At one stage this month, Britain had to pay 8,000 SA cents /kWh (kilowatt/hour) for electricity (£4000/MWh). This compares with Eskom’s average selling price of about 100 cents/kWh. Britain had to make a payment for electricity that was 80 times higher than our price from Eskom.
Energy prices in Western Europe are soaring, threatening critical industries, making it impossible for poor people to pay energy bills.
There are two main reasons. The first is the increasing use of wind and solar power for grid electricity, at huge cost. It has been an expensive disaster. In Germany, the mad ‘energiewende’ is phasing out cheap, safe, clean, reliable nuclear energy and replacing it with expensive, unreliable solar and wind.
The predictable result has been rocketing final electricity prices, condemning some of the citizens of Germany, perhaps the most powerful industrial nation on Earth, to energy poverty. Because wind and solar are useless for grid electricity, Germany has to turn to the burning of very dirty coal to keep the lights on.
This has increased CO2 emissions (which does not bother me but should bother the green climate alarmists). Please check this at electricityMap | Live CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption
Swallowed every lie
Britain might be worse. British governments, the Tories as bad as Labour, have swallowed every lie about dangerous manmade climate change.
The British Industrial Revolution, which changed the world for the better, was based on coal, but the ruling elite in Britain now regards coal and other fossil fuels as Satanic. It has tried to shut down the coal stations or, even worse, as in the Drax station, to convert them to burning wood, imported from the US, with calamitous environmental consequences.
Britain has spent astronomical amounts in building a huge fleet of wind turbines onshore and offshore. Another expensive disaster. They prove the falsehood of the statement that ‘the wind is always blowing somewhere’ (which does not mean the wind is always blowing strongly enough somewhere to provide reliable energy generally).
Time and again, wind over the whole of the UK, including vast offshore areas, is blowing so feebly as to provide next to no electricity.
The second reason is rapidly rising natural gas prices. Objectively, natural gas is a clean, reliable fuel, consisting mainly of methane (CH4). Ideologically, it is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The greens regard it either as a wonderful saviour or as an agent of the Devil, depending on their fashion.
Our appalling Integrated Resources Plan 2019 (IRP2019) calls on immense amounts of natural gas to supplement solar and wind in its ‘least cost’ option (actually staggeringly expensive, second only to the even more expensive option of solar, wind and batteries).
South Africa -Eskom’s power crisis is worse than you think: report
IRP wants us to set up a gargantuan gas system of pipelines, receiving terminals, deliquefying stations and compressors, at enormous cost. Here gas is green and benevolent. But when it comes to fracking and powerships, the exact same gas is dirty and malevolent. The greens say that methane leaks could make natural gas give rise to worse greenhouse gases than CO2 from coal. True, but why don’t they say this about natural gas in the IRP2019?
Recent tiff
Europe depends more and more on gas imported from Russia. In a recent tiff, Putin decided to reduce gas exports to the lowest allowable under contract. At the same time energy demand was rising with recovery from Covid-19. The result was a sharp increase in European energy prices. Making it worse for Britain was a fire on an ‘interconnector’ cable bringing nuclear electricity from France to Britain.
Winter approaches in Europe. It will increase energy demand and threaten crisis. Boris Johnson, a great disappointment, faces another farcical UN COP (Conference of the Parties) climate conference in Glasgow next month, where he will join other world leaders in talking unscientific rubbish about climate change. At the same moment Britain’s energy supply faces collapse because of his stupid policies.
What about us?
South Africa, unlike Britain and Germany, does not have interconnectors from neighbouring countries generating enough electricity to rescue us. Solar and wind have proved an expensive disaster, yet the rich green establishment wants to force more upon us. We have little natural gas of our own, so the greens want us to depend on imported natural gas, with highly volatile international prices.
