Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCI
The controversy over the World Bank decision to help fund a coal power station in South Africa has highlighted the difficult question of how we meet increasing demands for energy, whilst minimising environmental impacts.
Coal is not popular. It has environmental impacts which have to be – and are being – minimised. But coal is absolutely essential to meeting energy demand worldwide. It is particularly important in supplying electricity, providing over 41% of global electricity. And access to energy is absolutely essential to human development.
If you think of everything you do every single day which requires electricity you get a sense of how vital electricity is to every facet of modern, developed societies – using your computer, charging your mobile phone, turning the lights on, refrigerating food. At the same time, industries cannot operate without access to energy; they rely on a regular, affordable supply of electricity.
So for a developing country like South Africa, with its own large resources of coal, the idea that it should not be allowed to use this coal to generate affordable electricity for its development is irresponsible.
South Africa’s Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, said: “If there were any other way to meet our power needs as quickly or as affordably as our present circumstances demand, or on the required scale, we would obviously prefer technologies…that leave little or no carbon footprint. But we do not have that luxury…”
Over 80% of the growth in electricity demand over the next 20 years will take place in developing countries. At the same time, 1.5 billion people – or 22% of people worldwide – still do not have access to electricity and this figure will only drop to 1.3 billion by 2030. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 29% of the population has access to electricity today. And despite increasing electrification rates, the total number of people in the region without access to electricity has actually grown by 78 million since 2001 – more than the total UK population.
This is not to argue that environmental considerations have to take a back seat to the basic need to meet energy demand. It is important that technologies are used which reduce environmental impacts. The Medupi coal power station will be the first in Africa to use the supercritical technology used in most high-income countries for new coal power generation. Using these efficient technologies does make a significant difference in reducing emissions from coal power plants. Replacing all older and smaller coal power stations with the sort of technology that will be used at Medupi could globally reduce greenhouse emissions by 5.5% – more than the intended effect (5%) of all the measures included in the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.
Without coal, South Africa would find it impossible to meet its energy needs going forward and economic and social development would flounder. It has been suffering an energy crisis since 2007 and the construction of baseload power is absolutely essential to getting back on track. As controversial as the World Bank decision has been, it was absolutely the right decision for South Africa.
Note
The World Bank is now undertaking a review of its energy strategy and investments. The World Coal Institute has already submitted a response to the consultation. We would encourage anyone concerned about poverty and development to send a submission through to the World Bank Group.
