South African Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe has a thing for coal and is taking a stance against ending the country’s dependence on it.
South Africa already has a problem with power output, with load shedding being a constant problem we face and our aging coal power stations aren’t helping.
The real reason for this post is how numbers just don’t add up and South Africa is definitely playing its part fucking up our planet.
South Africa is the 23rd most populous country in the world, we ranked 42 as the world’s biggest economy in 2019 yet we are number 13 among the biggest polluters in the world!
Those numbers don’t add up…
There’s usually a coloration between the size of the economy and CO2 emissions.
The United States and China, the two largest economies in the world are also the top two polluters.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy is also its largest polluter.
Our stubbornness of sticking to coal simply because we have the reserves is dumb.
You wouldn’t eat all the rat poison in storage because it’s there right?
And people need to stop saying that large economies are forcing us into giving up our coal because they have run out.
South Africa is number 8 on the list of countries with the most coal reserves.
Our total share sits at 3.1.%, with Poland at 2.5% and the United States which is moving away from coal having almost a quarter of all the world’s reserves at 22.3%
But much more importantly, our coal power stations are aging and reaching their end of life.
What South Africa and Africa as a whole need is to go where the puck is going not where it is.
In addressing our load-shedding issues we need to jump straight into renewables and forget about old technology.
Africa as a whole skipped the telephone revolution and went straight to mobile, power generation should be the same.
And as for us, we had our fun with coal, we fucked our planet now it’s time to unfuck it!