The recent Presidential Climate Commission consultative paper is welcome as a matter of procedure but not in its content. To lay the ground for my arguments, I reflect on Athens. Socrates the philosopher, who was sentenced to death in 369BC by popular vote and not by logical reasoning, had offended the Greek authorities by advocating for an election model of democracy. He detested the mercantilist general dealer form of democracy. It is said the birth place of democracy, Athens, was an arena known more for rhetoric that was unconstrained by any commitment to facts.
Rhetoric arose during the Aristotelian era, whereby his students struggled towards the yet to take form concepts and principles of logic. In this vacuum entered the dominance of sophists, who were teachers of rhetoric. Sadly, theirs was focused on controlling the audience’s emotions rather than influencing their logical thinking, it is said. There is a clear need therefore, and superior logic of thought worth considering from the Confucian philosophy of China, which corresponds to Socratic philosophy of why leading through knowledge and facts is superior. Socrates revolted against anyone harnessing the collective will of the citizens by appealing to their emotions rather than using evidence and facts to change their minds. In 2001, Helmut Spinner of Karlsruhe University, in his lecture to the statisticians of the Economic Commission for Europe, undertook an analysis that pointed to why official statistics as a science of the state empowers democracy. To this end he argues that official statistics as an institution have to be independent from government. The United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics so prescribe as a global law adopted in 2014 by the UN General Assembly.
The Peloponnesian War led by Pericles, a democratically elected leader not considered a tyrant, was nonetheless, according to the Greek historian Thucydides, able to manipulate the Athenian citizenry. Thucydides writes: “Whenever he Pericles, sensed that arrogance was making them more confident than the situation merited, he would say something to strike fear into their hearts; and when on the other hand he saw them fearful without good reason, he restored their confidence again. So it came about that what was in name a democracy was in practice government by the foremost man.”
There is a lot we can learn from the Greek, not so much about the decade-long court battles they have had against the cold truths from their chief statistician but what knowledge they have contributed. To this end they have deliberated concepts such as the definition of an idiot: a person only interested in private life, private gain, private advantage, with no conception of a public good, common wealth, shared interest.
The Zondo commission has revealed the extent of destruction in the South African social, political and moral fibre. The chief justice has gone further to point to government inaction on the findings and concludes that corruption is bound to continue unabated. His statement received a scathing critique from legislators even though the evidence is overwhelming that the legislators and government have not done anything that matches the scale of the findings he made. Even before he could make his conclusions, in his address to the ANC, the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, noted that the ANC sits as accused number one in the Zondo commission. Can a finger point at itself? And this is where we are — a Gwara-Gwara state and counting, as researched and reflected by the Indlulamithi Scenarios. What Zondo uncovered is that we are led by the most contemptible of all, by the Greek definition of the idiot.
Why the Presidential Climate Change consultative document should be an affirmation of the era of the idiot is borne out by the critique we advanced, and we pull no punches against it on a scientific, economic, social, moral and political basis.
In our document titled “Response to the draft report of the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) on SA’s Electricity Strategy drawing attention to Serious Flaws and Inadequacies” we bring a woke body of knowledge by professionals who in a comprehensive research dispute the idiotic consultative draft document. To a large extent we demonstrate how a Socrates cum Confucius based democracy can work. One led by seeking truth in the evidence and not palliative.
The 23-paged well-researched document starts with a summary that asks deep questions.
The President’s Climate Commission (PCC) is being dangerously disingenuous if not deliberately deceitful, in the findings from its recently released report: “Supporting the Recommendations for SA’s Electricity System” (May 2023), the data on which these are based and the nameless authors behind it, who through the content of the report, appear to be heavily influenced, if not led, by foreign vested, commercial interests.
The report needs to be rigorously scrutinised and all implications carefully considered against the backdrop of SA’s energy needs before we commit ourselves irrevocably to a non-fossil fuel scenario in a country with an abundance of fossil energy sources, for the sake of bailing out this political regime. It is time to have a frank discussion and a socioeconomic impact assessment (SEIA) of the “just transition” where SA’s national interests are priority and not based on the highest bidder. We must not trade our energy sovereignty for the enrichment of other nations no matter the price offered. Supping with the devil requires a long spoon.
Then we rigorously illustrate the weaknesses of the report and why it should be rejected.
Is it a ‘just transition’ for SA?
Misleadingly called the “just” energy transition, government is apparently being advised by foreign interests to deplete our strategic national assets and deprive mainly black, working-class citizens of their livelihood. Our energy security, strategic national assets, coal and nuclear energy sectors, and rural communities are at risk of becoming casualties of extreme elements within the environmental movement that are hijacking public policy for their, and not our, interests. Not only does it contain seriously adverse implications for SA’s energy policy and security but raises grave and far-reaching concerns and many questions regarding the optimal way forward for SA’s energy strategy. But is this really in SA’s national interest? And can we trust their data, analysis and conclusions?
Who is behind the PCC report?
The PCC website lists committee members, but there are no author names or possible conflicts of interest cited; a serious omission given the substantial socioeconomic consequences of their recommendations. We assume the committee is responsible collectively. However, it is known that the PCC agenda is to promote renewables at the expense of SA’s abundance of fossil fuel resources.
This is a highly misunderstood factor in the nuclear war of words. Nuclear waste consists of low-level waste, medium-level waste and high-level waste, the latter being mostly limited to spent fuel.
Is this being driven by SA’s energy interests, or by the foreign billions on the table for the transition to renewable energy. Who authored the report and who is paying them?
SEIA — Socioeconomic Impact Assessment
All new policy recommendations must have a SEIA to examine all costs and benefits before it can go to legislation. Has this been done? Is it in progress? We need to know.
Misleading data
To support apparently predetermined outcomes, the PCC report is misleading us by providing tables that are completely out of context and not benchmarked on proven international data, especially about nuclear energy. (See below)
Foreign interests
It appears that foreign funders with vested interests are driving SA’s energy policy and strategy based on their commercial concerns, not ours.
The climate commission’s website shows that various committee members have links to the NGO industrial complex such as Friends of the Earth, the World Wild Life Foundation and Earth Life Africa, all environmental groups that receive billions in funding from overseas oligarchs who are invested in “renewable energy” and not fossil fuel, which SA has in abundance. This has profound implications, and public scrutiny is required.
The PCC is yet another organisation with a political and commercial agenda, which cannot be held accountable for the success or failure of our electricity systems, yet SA citizens must live with the consequences for generations. Parliament must have oversight of their work and output. Does it, and how is this being done? Will the public see the findings? Transparency and accountability are demanded.
The PCC Report shows disturbing bias towards renewable energy and predictably, bias against coal and nuclear energy. This is suicidal for a country still heavily dependent on these reliable energies amid an energy security crisis, which renewable energy alone cannot yet address.
Economic trade-offs
Economics is ultimately about trade-offs, balancing interests, and not ideologically driven dogmatic solutions. High Emissions, Low Efficiency (HELE) coal plants, for example, can be part of the decarbonisation solution, or at least an intermediary step as the country transitions to others. Contrary to uninformed opinion, for SA to remain with coal in the short term would make no difference to the temperature of the earth as our current C0₂ emissions are just slightly more than 1% of all the world’s emissions. Moving away from coal and towards the “just transition” immediately as the PCC recommends, would be economic suicide, not least rendering 2.3 million South Africans unemployed.
The PCC does not mention this trade-off. Neither is there a mention of South African fly-ash industry and the role that this coal by-product plays in decarbonising our cement industry. If we were to build nuclear plants for example, our cement would be of a low C0₂ type and therefore the emissions cited in the PCC Report, would be substantially less for nuclear power. Yet all roads lead to renewables in the PCC’s opinion.
The German influence
The report reads like the German “thought experiment” that infiltrated our Integrated Resource Planning (IRP2019) via SA’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In March 2023, Germany and SA signed a “co-operative agreement” for a “just transition”. Why? And on whose advice? Who was involved in making this decision? SA does not have an obligation to adhere to a neocolonial relationship without due regard for modern national interests. The large sums of money on the table for a “just transition”, are talking over SA’s own voice.
Germany could afford to implement their “Energiewende” (low carbon energy transition programme) being a rich developed nation. However, its recent failure during the Ukraine war forced them to make a U-turn back to coal, just six months after they announced, “the end of nuclear”. Wind farms are being demolished to get to the coalfields below them, while driving up their CO₂ emissions. This demonstrates the frailty of their “just energy transition” yet it is being forced on to us. Why? In whose interests?
Decarbonisation or selling German solutions?
The PCC’s objective is to decarbonise SA, but it fails to say that France and Sweden, both of which rely primarily on nuclear power, emit lower C0₂ emissions per MWh than Germany. France’s C0₂ intensity is at 57g of C0₂ per kWh, more than six times lower than Germany, at 366g of C0₂ per kWh. Also, France had the fastest route to decarbonisation, under the successful Messmer Plan (to build a huge nuclear power capability after the 1973 oil crisis), and French household electricity prices have always been below the EU average while using nuclear power.
It is also nonsense to maintain that nuclear power stations cannot be constructed at a rapid rate when many countries, notably France and Sweden, have deployed them in a short time span. No country, to date, has decarbonised on renewables alone.
PCC is pushing an expensive option that does not in reality lead to decarbonisation
It is wishful thinking to believe that an industrialised country like SA can rely on intermittent weather-dependent technologies for reliable baseload capacity. We should have a mix of energy sources to support our national needs. Renewable energies play their part but cannot support national baseload, and battery storage is not yet capable of delivering this. This scientific debate was settled at the end of 2022 by the global energy crisis that saw the scramble for energy at the heart of the geopolitical New Great Game. Germany’s industries for example closed down because their politicians were told that “energy security” and “baseload” are outdated concepts under “smart grids”. Then in the wake of the Russia/Ukraine war, Germany found itself in a difficult position: being dependent on Russian natural gas and without leverage over Russia or the US, the latter from whom it was forced to import gas at a high tariff due to Russian sanctions. It is important to understand that in any intermittent electrical system, dispatchable fuels, usually in the form of fossil fuels (natural gas, coal or diesel) will always offer the safety of supply. In times of crisis, if there is not sufficient capacity, the grid collapses. In 2023, German and Sweden’s leaders finally came to the admission that they needed France’s nuclear power stations, because having closed their remaining three in favour of renewables, they no longer have baseload capacity.
The importance of nuclear power
Meanwhile the rest of the world is realising the value proposition of nuclear energy (notably the UK, Eastern Europe, South Korea and China) and adding it to their future energy mix. The PCC is going in the opposite direction and recommending a myopic “one source fits all”, energy strategy for SA and ignoring nuclear power. Yet nuclear energy is of low entropy quality, the type without which the industrial revolution could not have taken place. Nuclear power’s full thermodynamic potential has not yet been realised. Prominent examples being the production of hydrogen, the desalination of seawater (that SA desperately needs), small modular reactors (already in use in China), as well as more advanced thorium-based reactors that are expected to be developed in the future. Why are PCC members ignoring this? Opponents of nuclear appear to be unaware or deliberately ignore that nuclear power is low carbon.
Nuclear waste
This is a highly misunderstood factor in the nuclear war of words. Nuclear waste consists of low-level waste, medium-level waste and high-level waste, the latter being mostly limited to spent fuel.
After powering the Western Cape for almost 40 years, Koeberg’s spent fuel can fit half a tennis court. This spent fuel is safely stored in the fuel pools inside containment and has “cooled down” enough to be safely stored in dry storage casks for the long-term. Today, spent fuel from the likes of Koeberg is more likely to be reprocessed into advanced nuclear energy fuels than stored in underground repositories. The management of spent fuel is already factored into the operating costs of the nuclear power plant and is not an additional cost. This needs to be properly explained and understood rather than the scaremongering by the anti-nuclear lobby.
The PCC report also ignores that in SA already has a waste depository at Vaalputs in the Karoo Desert, where most of the waste is safely stored. This site is in one of the most barren locations in the world, with a water table 1,000m below the surface and zero possibility of corrosion. Risks of radiation are blown out of all proportion by activists as human beings have natural immunity to low levels of radiation (a phenomenon known as radiation hormesis), observed in the medical records of the atomic bomb survivors.
Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of SA.
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