Notes from underground: Going Green: installing a solar-powered geyser

Notes from underground: Going Green: installing a solar-powered geyser:

This morning workmen came to install a solar-powered geyser in our house. It's a cold and rainy day and winter is approaching, so I'm not sure if we'll see the benefit immediately, but it will be interesting to see if the electricity bills are reduced after a few months.

Eskom, the national electricity supplier, offers subsidies for the installation of solar-powered geysers.

Earth Hour 2010

On 28 March 2009, in probably the single biggest mass action in history, a wave of darkness swept across the world’s cities and towns as millions of people switched off their lights for an hour, pledging their support for decisive action against climate change.

In South Africa more than 100 000 people signed up their support. Further, based on the reduced electricity consumption over Earth Hour, ESKOM estimated that 1 million South African households participated!
Earth Hour 2010 will have a very important role to play in ensuring that the South African government takes strong action against climate change.

Please save the date: 27 March 2010, 8:30pm – 9:30pm.
We hope that you will support Earth Hour 2010. We look forward to engaging with you next year on this exciting and important worldwide campaign.

Renewable Energy lobby group:

A group of parliamentarians have formed themselves into a Renewable Energy lobby group called e-REACT. The first major outcome of this group is a private members bill on Feed In Tariffs called REFIT. Nersa announced at a WWF conference on Renewable Energy last week that Feed In Tariff legislation will be ready for implementation by February 28th, 2009 (postponed from September 25^th). Eskom is likely to be the only approved power purchase agency. Only wind, solar, landfill gas and hydro will qualify for power purchase agreements. Biomass and Solar PV will not qualify.

Sponsored by Dr Ruth Rabinowitz (IFP) who is also the convenor, the private members bill supports speedy introduction of Feed In Tariff legislation and aims to be a wake-up call to Ministers that we are nowhere near realisation of the 2003 White Paper on Renewable energy which set a target for 10 000 GwH by 2013. The e-REACT private members bill will be discussed in parliament on 18 November at 12h30.

If you cannot attend the discussion, please consider emailing a note of support to either Ruth Rabinowitz (IFP), Gareth Morgan (DA), Lance Greyling (ID) or Judy Chalmers (ANC), stating your name, telephone number, fax (if you have one) and email address and a note saying why you support REFIT.

You can email it to one of these addresses:

Dr Ruth Rabinowitz (IFP) reureka@iafrica.com

Gareth Morgan (DA) morgan@da.org.za

Lance Greyling (ID) lanceg@id.org.za

Judy Chalmers (ANC) jchalmer@mweb.co.za

For further information contact Dr Ruth Rabinowitz MP on 011 802 1826 or 082 579 3698

Government's CO2 mitigation strategy

MITIGATION STRATEGY

With reference specifically to our mitigation strategy, Cabinet adopted the following approach:

1. The Start Now strategic option as outlined in the LTMS will be further implemented. This is based, amongst others, on accelerated energy efficiency and conservation across all sectors, including industry, commerce, transport and residential, inter alia through more stringent building standards.
2. We will invest in the Reach for the Goal strategic option by setting ambitious research and development targets focussing on carbon-friendly technologies, identifying new resources and affecting behavioral change.
3. Furthermore, regulatory mechanisms as set out in the Scale Up strategic option will be combined with economic instruments such as taxes and incentives under the Use the Market strategic option, with a view to:
• Setting ambitious and mandatory (as distinct from voluntary) targets for energy efficiency and in other sub-national sectors. In the next few months each sector will be required to do work to enable it to decide on actions and targets in relation to this overall framework.
• Based on the electricity-crisis response, government’s energy efficiency policies and strategies will be continuously reviewed and amended to reflect more ambitious national targets aligned with the LTMS.
• Increasing the price on carbon through an escalating CO2 tax, or an alternative market mechanism.
• Diversifying the energy mix away from coal whilst shifting to cleaner coal, by for example introducing more stringent thermal efficiency and emissions standards for coal fired power stations.
• Setting similar targets for electricity generated from both renewable and nuclear energy sources by the end of the next two decades.
• Laying the basis for a net zero-carbon electricity sector in the long term.
• Incentivising renewable energy through feed-in tariffs.
• Exploring and developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) for coal fired power stations and all coal-to-liquid (CTL) plants, and not approving new coal fired power stations without carbon capture readiness.
• Introducing industrial policy that favours sectors using less energy per unit of economic output and building domestic industries in these emerging sectors.
• Setting ambitious and where appropriate mandatory national targets for the reduction of transport emissions, including through stringent and escalating fuel efficiency standards, facilitating passenger modal shifts towards public transport and the aggressive promotion of hybrids and electric vehicles.

PROCESS GOING FORWARD: 2009 to 2012

Cabinet has mandated a clear path for the future. Milestones will include a national summit in February next year, the conclusion of international negotiations at the end of 2009 and a final domestic policy to be adopted by the end of 2010 after international negotiations have been completed.

The process will culminate in the introduction of a legislative, regulatory and fiscal package to give effect to the strategic direction and policy from now up to 2012.

Click here for the PowerPoint presentation of the Media Statement.

Enquiries to:
Ronel Bester Mobile: 083-242-7763 E-mail: rbester@deat.gov.za

The Blackouts Spread

With the rolling blackouts at the beginning of this year and the media coverage South Africans might be forgiven for thinking that Eskom was the only electricity provider in the world that has been having problems. But apparently the energy crisis is worldwide.

Falls Church News-Press - The Peak Oil Crisis: The Blackouts Spread:

Shortages, however, are not confined to small, poor states, but, in an increasing number of cases, are appearing in large, relatively well-off and active states on which the OECD world of North America, Europe and parts of Asia are very dependent. Several of the countries having energy problems are actually oil exporting states that, for one reason or another, are not able to turn their increasing oil wealth into smoothly functioning shortage-free economies. Unfortunately, several major countries appear to be on the path to an energy shortage-induced economic and perhaps political collapse within the foreseeable future which obviously will have serious consequences for us all.

Currently, the most serious situations appear to be in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Both are nations with populations in excess of 150 million people that are ensnared in devastating power shortages that have destroyed their export industries. Both are facing water and agricultural problems that threaten their food supplies. Liquid fuels are running short and reductions in exports threaten their ability to import oil and natural gas. It was recently revealed that the Saudis already are forgiving $6 billion of Pakistan's $12 billion annual oil import bill.

Canadian obsession with fossil fuels

What is it with Canadians?

Western Canada has one of the most abundant sources of hydro-electricity in the world, but first they want to move their aluminium smelting operations to South Africa (a plan that seems to have been aborted by Eskom's failure to plan for more generating capacity) and now their municipalities are wanting to replace clean trolley buses with fossil-fuel guzzling diesels.

Real Estate Weekly:

After years of neglect and operational sabotage, city bean counters and Edmonton Transit administrators have finally succeeded in their obsessive quest to pull the plug on the city’s 70-year-old trolleybus system. Last month, they finally got a majority on council that was gullible enough to swallow the misinformation that trolleybuses are a technology of the past, not a way to a cleaner and greener future.

While municipalities around the world are expanding their electrically-powered public transit fleets, Edmonton city council voted seven-to-six to begin the process of dismantling the city’s trolleybus network by 2010. Instead, they’ll abandon proven trolley technology and buy 47 diesel hybrid buses that have an uncertain lifespan, burn more fossil fuels and spew more emissions at street level.

South African bus operators are not much better -- cities like Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town lost their trolley buses about 30 years ago. Of course they relied on coal-fired power stations, so they still used fossil fuels, though indirectly. But at least the coal was mined locally, and not imported. Cities in western Canada have no such excuse.

Cohen: Bring on the right biofuels - International Herald Tribune

An attempt to put the biofuels issue into a wider perspective.

Cohen: Bring on the right biofuels - International Herald Tribune:

The supposed crimes of biofuels are manifold. They're behind soaring global commodity prices, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, increased rather than diminished greenhouse gases, food riots in Haiti, Indonesian deforestation and, no doubt, your mother-in-law's toothache.

Most of this, to borrow a farm image, is hogwash and bilge.

I'll grant that the fashion for biofuels led to excess, and that some farm-to-fuel-plant conversion, particularly in subsidized U.S. and European markets, makes no sense. But biofuels remain very much part of the solution. It just depends which biofuels.

Any comments? Has he missed something?

Eskom is one of the biggest polluters in the world

Eskom is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world said Valli Moosa, the non-executive chairman of the Eskom board, and former Minister for Environmental Affairs.

Moosa was speaking at the conference of the Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) at Rosettenville last night. The picture shows Valli Moosa with Bishop Geoff Davies of Cape Town and Rabbi Hillel Avidan of Durban at the meeting.


Valli Moosa was Minister of Constitutional Development under President Mandela, and inserted a clause in the constitution on the right to a clean and healthy environment.

He was Minister of Environmental Affairs 1999-2004, after which he retired from government, but is still active in politics and was reelected to the ANC National Executive at the Polokwane conference last December.

He was asked to serve as non-executive director of the board of Eskom in 2005.

Here is a summary of Valli Moosa's speech:

There was a problem in serving on the board, Moosa said, as Eskom is one of the biggest polluters in the world. This was an interesting challenge for someone who had championed the Kyoto Protocol. The policy of Eskom had been to produce cheap electricity, so Eskom burns cheap coal, which is less efficient, and so produces more pollutants.

South Africa is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita in the world because of our use of low-grade coal, and there is no requirement for Eskom to reduce its greenhouse gases. The big challenge for Eskom is to meet the growing demand for electricity.

South Africa has become an energy-hungry country because we have had wrong policies. The policy has been to provide cheap electricity and thus attract industry and so create jobs. But because electricity was cheap, people tended to use more. We have had massive economic growth.

We also did not bother to develop legal standards, like building regulations to make buildings more energy efficient. There are no regulations for the energy efficiency of light bulbs. The problem of cheap electricity is also seen in consumer behaviour. Salesmen comparing fridges never say which model consumes less electricity, and consumers never ask this.

But even though we are a developing country (and ths exempt from having to apply the Kyoto Protocol) we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The ANC conference at Polokwane last December adopted a resolution calling for the country to set emission targets. This was largely ignored by the media, who were interested in other things, but no other ruling party in the world has done this.

Eskom also has a responsibility to set its own targets, and has begun to do so. Eskom aims to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases per megawatt up to 2025, and after that to achieve an absolute reduction. After 2025 the older coal-fired power stations will begin to be decommissioned, and they should be replaced by power stations that do not use fossil fuels. Two new coal-fired power stations are being built, and Moosa said he hoped they would be the last.

There will have to be a mix of renewable and nuclear energy sources, and there has to be a trade off. The best thing is solar energy. Nuclear power requires uranium, and the mining of uranium itself damages the environment, and there is also the problem of nuclear waste, but Moosa said he believed it was better than the use of coal-fired power stations.

The most effective renewable source of energy is solar, and the government is introducing a subsidy for solar panels to heat water for household use. Wind is another option, and Eskom is building two wind farms, but wind is not reliable all the time, and so wind power may not be available when it is most needed. It is difficulty to store electricity, but we do have some dam storage schemes, where water is pumped up to a storage dam at times of low demand, and released to generate electricity at peak periods.

There is also solar thermal technology that can produce distributable power, but this is still at the research stage.

In spite of recent and proposed price hikes, South Africa's electricity remains the cheapest in the world, and even if we doubled the price we would still be cheaper than anywhere else. Without the increases we will not achieve energy efficiency, because people will continue to waste electricity.

There is an opportunity in the crisis, which may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Until the power cuts last January, no one took the problem seriously. From the environmental point of view it has encouraged people to use energy more responsibly. If we hadn't built big aluminium smelters there would be no energy crisis, and this is another example of wrong policies in the past leading to the present problem, but this is a sensitive issue, as can be seen in BHP Billiton taking away its business from Standard Bank as a result of a Standard Bank spokesman saying that aluminium smelters should be closed down.

During question time several people queried the need for nuclear power, but Moosa maintained that it still remained the most feasible alternative to coal-fired power stations, which did more damage to the environment. Another questioner asked for more tranparency on the part of Eskom's board, and Moosa promised to try to arrange a meeting between the Eskom board and representatives of SAFCEI.

SAFCEI AGM and Public Meeting - Johannesburg

SAFCEI AGM AND CONFERENCE - “TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE”

We invite you to attend the SAFCEI AGM and Conference at St Peter’s Place, 128 Victoria Street, Rosettenville, Johannesburg from 12h30 Monday 31^st March to lunchtime on Wednesday 2^nd April 2008.

WILL YOUR FAITH COMMUNITY BE REPRESENTED?

It would be to the good of all if more than one representative of your faith community or organization could attend. Those residing in the Gauteng area may be able to attend on a daily basis.

PROVISIONAL CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Monday 31^st March Afternoon session: Climate Change

Evening (19h00): SAFCEI AGM.

Tuesday 1^st April: Morning session: Economics, Environment and Eco-Justice.

Afternoon session: Water

Evening (19h00): Public Meeting

Wednesday 2^nd April: Morning session: How do Faith Communities Respond?

SAFCEI ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

If you want to find out more about SAFCEI and its vision and purpose, please come along to our Second Annual General Meeting which will take place on Monday 31^st March at 19h00 at St Peter’s Place, 128 Victoria Street, Rosettenville. There will be no charge to attend this meeting.

PUBLIC MEETING TUESDAY 1^ST APRIL AT 19h30

We also give advance notice of a Public Meeting to be held on Tuesday 1^st April at 19h30 at St Martin’s School, 114 Victoria Street, Rosettenville. We are hoping that a prominent public figure will address the meeting on the topic: ”Is the current energy crisis a blessing in disguise?”

There will be no charge to attend this meeting and refreshments will be served.

TRAVEL AND ACCOMMODATION COSTS

There is no charge to register for the Conference, AGM or Public Meeting. Meals can be ordered for day delegates at R50 per meal. The cost for accommodation and meals Monday to Wednesday is R550 per person. If your community can cover accommodation and travel costs this would be most helpful. If you are unable to do so, please apply to the SAFCEI office for funding.

TO BOOK YOUR PLACE OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Contact the SAFCEI OFFICE: 021 7018145 Fax: 086 6969666 Email: secretary@safcei.org.za

We do hope you can be with us and we trust that your faith community will be well represented at the SAFCEI AGM and Conference.

With all best wishes

Bishop Geoff Davies