The public hearings on the draft Integrated Resource Plan 2018 (IRP) conducted by the portfolio committee on energy have been very successful. The process may not yield an ideal solution, but at least it has begun in earnest and without disruption.
Part of the reason for the success is that the usually vocal and disruptive anti-nuclear forces who peddle renewable energy as an ideological campaign entered the process believing they had won the argument, and celebrated in silence.
The article "Dirty business as coalition of the sidelined distorts the clean energy debate" by Professor Anton Eberhard (October 28) clearly suggests that the anti-nuclear lobby is in a state of panic. For years it carried on with self-serving rhetoric that was largely unchallenged. Now that the IRP has created a platform for serious engagement, it is becoming clear the pendulum is swinging the other way.
The silent majority was woken up by this process and has made robust arguments to challenge the hitherto popular rhetoric in favour of renewable energy. This group consists of people from a wide range of communities, who do not support the blind adoption in SA of energy policies concocted abroad.
Eberhard refers to them as "a coalition of the recently sidelined and embittered". He uses such phrases as "elements from the Zuma wing of the ANC" that are designed to discredit the growing chorus against imposed energy policies.
Eberhard also identifies four issues that he conveniently refers to as fallacies. The first is that solar and wind are unreliable and expensive.
Yes, they are. The sun shines during the day and sometimes it does not shine at all. The wind only blows sometimes. This is what we call an intermittent source of energy. Euphemisms will not disguise the true nature of renewable energy.
Rather than argue that this energy source is reliable, it would be better to say how it would be backed up.
It is also expensive. Ask the Germans and the South Australians. If the cost of wind and solar has dropped, it is not due to significant breakthroughs in technology but to overproduction in other countries resulting in overcapacity. Therefore there is an element of dumping of these units on developing countries.
The second issue is that the arguments for renewable energy do not adequately consider the impact on the rest of the electricity system. Even a scenario run on legitimate Plexos modelling software requires a number of assumptions. The approach that the anti-baseload propagandists have taken is to focus on generating electricity and leave it up to the utility to ensure it is made available to consumers.
A more persuasive argument is one that emphasises how certain limited levels of renewable energy can complement baseload power such as nuclear or coal.
The third issue is that of job creation. Eberhard concedes there is a need for more data and analysis but says it is undeniable that renewable energy contributes to local manufacturing and jobs. An audit of renewable energy projects implemented so far would dispel any false notion that meaningful jobs are being created. Let him try convincing people in the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape. Of course jobs are created, but not even remotely as many as would be created by the equivalent installed capacity for baseload power plants.
Typically, when estimates of new jobs are made, the anti-nuclear lobby bases the calculation on the equivalent megawatts per hour generated. A renewable-energy installation generates very little power, so on average one needs to install more than three times as many of them to get the energy that a single conventional baseload plant would deliver. This is the trick used to embellish the employment figures. They still come up short.
The fourth issue is that of transparency. For years, the anti-nuclear lobby has been playing the corruption card against nuclear. Corruption is not a technology issue but a governance issue. Honestly, there has not been a nuclear procurement process, therefore there is nothing to critique.
The probability of corruption is a lot higher in the independent power producer (IPP) arena than in a process involving international watchdogs in a highly regulated industry like nuclear. A nuclear deal would require one lawyer, one financier (or two) and typically a government-to-government agreement, with a nuclear vendor involved. It is clear that there is less chance of crooked deals with nuclear than with IPPs.
In a democracy, there are ways to punish a government that transgresses. Business people, however, are not knights in shining armour; the public has heard much about white-collar crime.
The energy transition should not be prescribed to mean moving from coal to renewable energy. Any argument should be based on sound principles and not ideological paradigms of anti-nuclearism. Ironically, the anti-nuclear lobby is quite happy to embrace gas, which is a fossil fuel, as complementing renewable energy - all in the name of transitioning to clean energy.
Nuclear is indeed clean energy. Actually, it is also renewable; energy from the atom is truly inexhaustible and therefore renewable.
Robust debate is needed before the IRP is finalised. The argument that privatisation of the energy sector via renewables is the answer to SA's energy challenges is not necessarily correct. There is no question renewable energy could and should play a role as part of broader economic development. But it is important to plan for an energy mix that does not only look at short-term "flavour of the month" technology that appears cheap but may prove disastrous in the long run.
The improvements in renewable energy technology do not dwarf developments in the nuclear sector; the portrayal of renewable energy as a recent technology breakthrough is without merit.
• Msebenzi is MD of the Nuclear Industry Association of SA..