Podcasts from the Edge

Whatever your politics, there’s no doubt that Eskom’s unreliable power supply, the worsening condition of its kit and the prospect of a complete Eskom system failure are the single biggest barriers to investment and growth in South Africa. Something radical has to be done and it has to be done now. And the amazing thing is it can easily be done. We just need leadership. Prof Mark Swilling, among many things the current chair of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, has a simple plan he puts to Peter Bruce in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge: Put all arguments about coal and other fossil fuels aside for 24 months, clear all regulatory and ideological barriers aside, and for two years build and install 10 000MW of renewable power... wind and solar. And 5 000MW of battery storage. Once that’s done there will simply be no more load shedding and Eskom and start maintaining its plant the way it should be maintained. “I think we have a six week window to make a strategic decision that would preempt a disaster being triggered by some kind of national semi-collapse or total collapse,” he warns. And only President Cyril Ramaphosa can make it happen.

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As business and the State lean towards gas as an intermediate fuel between our current dependence on coal and our future commitment to renewable energy, some voices are being raised about the futility of inventing, building and paying for an entirely new energy infrastructure to power South Africa, only for it to be abandoned for renewables by 2020.

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Peter Bruce asks South Africa’s busiest and arguably most influential agriculture and land advisor, Wandile Sihlobo, why the newly-released Agriculture and Agro-processing Masterplan is so complicated. Does he really expect this ANC government to be able to do any of the things the plan says the state will do? In this edition of Podcasts from the Edge Bruce and Sihlobo go back and talk about what has to be fixed before farming can be fixed. Its a lot. The sewerage in Idutywa might be one problem but farming is different — it’s about history and land and the people that have it and the people that want it. What’s fair and how we get there? Ultimately it's about trust. Sihlobo is a positive guy…

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Goldfield CEO Chris Griffith tells Peter Bruce in this episode of Podcasts from the Edge that he thinks South Africa is still investable but that the state makes too many plans that it doesn’t implement. On the cusp of switching on a 50MW renewable power project to help power close to 30 per cent of Goldfields' South Deep mine on the Witwatersrand, he reckons the goal would be enough renewable to make it 100%. Investors want it. Banks want it. "Going green won’t reflect in your revenue,” he says. “It’ll be in your share price.”

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You don't hear a lot (or enough) about South Africa's Presidential Climate Commission but it is at the very centre of what happens to us as an economy over the next two decades. Unless the highly unlikely occurs and President Cyril Ramaphosa is somehow removed from office, It is this Commission that will decide what energy we will use and who will run it. It promises to be a difficult and often nasty job, messy and always controversial. An experienced public policy expert, activist and author, Dr Crispian Olver, is Executive Director of the Commission's secretariat. He tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge the commission is finalising a framework for a Just Transition, the first in a range of mountains it has to climb to get our economy off coal and into renewables. And yes, he's aware that people worry the Just Transition is simply the Arms Deal redux to decades later. Over his dead body but keeping the process free of corruption is one thing. Making the right decisions is another...

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Ukraine Ambassador to South Africa, Liubov Abravitova tells Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that preparations for her President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take a call from President Cyril Ramaphosa are afoot but, boy, is it hard getting the attention of senior figures around Ramaphosa. The sooner she gets to talk to senior members of the government and can build some context for a call with her boss in Kiev, the sooner the phone call can happen. "Both presidents need this call," she says. For Ramaphosa, that's putting it mildly. Diplomacy and cheery read-outs of calls with world leaders aside, the Europeans, especially, are furious with South Africa's tacit support for Vladimir Putin's invasion.

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Analysts and journalists who couldn’t function without Robin McGregor's fine Who Owns Whom were shocked rigid in 2008 when this giant figure was brutally stabbed to death in his new home in Tullbagh. He was 79 and full of life. A murderer was quickly found, tried and put in prison. But that wasn’t the end of the story for his daughter Elizabeth, who has just published her account of the murder and its aftermath. Listen to this episode of Podcasts from the Edge as Liz McGregor tells Peter Bruce about her efforts to meet her dad’s killer in prison and how she eventually succeeded. And whether it mattered...

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When the great and the good are lining up to manage South Africa’s transition from coal fired energy to renewable energy, you just know money is going to do most of the talking. Now that business has thrown its weight behind minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe’s favourite new fuel — gas — the transition to renewables just has to be under threat. How could it not be. Renewable energy — wind, solar, hydro and batteries — are already mature technologies and the fuel cost for each is zero. But we will have to wait while the rich and their political enablers eat. Listen in as Roland Ngam, project Manager for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation talks to Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge about the Just Transition. Who would that justice be for, exactly? Certainly not the poor, who could be generating electrify this morning if the state had any imagination.

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When Eskom plunges is into load shedding, it is often because it is diverting power to pump water uphill for its storage systems, or filling up the tanks at the 20 diesel generators it uses when its plant falls over. In other words, we may mot have enough storage. So why don’t we get more storage? Partly it is because the energy establishment is still wedded to always-on power — coal of gas or fossil fuels of one kind or the other. And partly because the alternative — batteries — are expensive. But as expensive as constant load shedding? Unlikely. Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson tell Peter Bruce in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge that, starting tomorrow, South Africa could begin, at pace, to install up to 35 000 MW of renewable storage by 2035 to completely solve our power problems. Obviously in addition to ramping up solar and wind investment as well. While the government and business slow-talk their way through our crisis the answer is right in from of us. Why transition from coal to gas to renewables? Its a waste of time and money. Go staring for renewables. Gas is obsolete already…..

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Climate change is now so severe that unless we speed up our adaptation now, by 2050 more than 250 000 people will die each year directly because of heat, undernutrition, malaria and diarrhoea. That’s according to a new report compiled by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Heat and drought will reduce the ability to work outdoors and lead to food price increases. If we don’t cut emission sharpish in southern Africa, the heatwaves we experience now could rise 12-fold. Peter Bruce asks UCT’s Dr Chris Trisos how much time we have to get it right. “There is, Trisos warns “ a brief and rapidly closing window” of opportunity to do so. “Rapid and deep cuts in emissions are required.” Tell that though to the government as it tries to ensure the jobs in coal are given a just transition to renewable energy. What might be the cost of waiting too long.

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