Many acerbic comments have been made about the folly of government pursuing a strategy to build a ‘new’ national carrier from the carcass of the old South African Airways (SAA). It did not take long, however, for the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) to make the ‘new SAA’ proposal look eminently rational when held up against the priorities it was setting for itself for the period from 2020 to 2025.

The lowlight, without question, is the target to procure 2 500 MW of new nuclear energy by 2024. In an effort to make the nuclear proposal palatable, the department stressed that it would focus its nuclear procurement energies on small modular reactors (a technology that does not yet exist as a commercial solution) and that it could be pursued as a build-operate-and-transfer venture so that there would be no immediate call on the fiscus. It would test market appetite for building such reactors through a request for information.

The priority given to nuclear in the plan is not only irrational, but damaging. It undermines the policy certainty that should now be consolidated following the eventual updating of the Integrated Resource Plan 2019 (IRP 2019), which makes no allocation for new nuclear to 2030 besides the already well-advanced plan for extending the life of Koeberg, in the Western Cape.

True, following some labour disquiet at the exclusion of nuclear in the document, an insertion was belatedly made to cater for “preparatory work” for the development of a road map for a future nuclear expansion at a “pace and modular scale (as opposed to a fleet approach)” that the country could afford. It was never an immediate priority, however, and no procurement deadline was stated. Instead, the IRP 2019 prioritises the massive upscaling of renewable energy and storage, with onshore wind and solar photovoltaic deemed to be the least-cost new build options and, thus, receiving the lion’s share of the allocation.

The emphasis given to nuclear also distracts from what should, in fact, be one of the DMRE’s main priorities, which is to clear the hurdles still blocking an accelerated investment into much-needed new generation.

Without doubt, a rational strategic plan would be placing major emphasis on addressing the licensing and registration logjams at the energy regulator; aligning policy and new-build regulations such that they facilitate investment by both utility-scale independent power producers and small-scale self-generators; and working with other departments and the private sector to cushion those that may find themselves vulnerable to South Africa’s transition from coal to renewables.

Instead, there is now a real risk that the transition will take place by default, rather than design, leaving coal miners in the lurch and South Africa a laggard in the world trend towards green industrialisation. Sadly, the DMRE is setting itself up to become the department of wasted energy.