Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: South Africa’s Mintek this week shot ahead of the world by using hydrogen to process ferromanganese.

Creamer: This State-owned agency that does all the minerals research in South Africa really deserves a pat on the back for streaking ahead of the world and showing how the use of hydrogen can be applied to ferroalloys, ferro-manganese in particular. We have got a big supply of manganese ore here in South Africa and we used to add value to it through iron-ore addition to make it ferromanganese, which makes steel very strong, and it is used throughout the world. Then we lost that because of the high energy prices that Eskom was charging. With this, we could regain it, because the world is looking for metals and minerals that are cleaner and greener and you can actually use this as a way of getting a price premium. We know that in the background, people are working flat out now to reintroduce our ferrochrome, ferromanganese into the market in a way that will be cheaper and we'll use much, much less electricity with these new technologies. So the timing of this is absolutely perfect.

Kamwendo: Bulgaria this week reached out to South Africa to collaboratively perfect the generation of green hydrogen.

Creamer: It's amazing how advanced Bulgaria is in green hydrogen. They've also got a lot of solar power and wind power, and they're putting this to good use to become energy independent. Now, those two words could do so much for our economy. Energy independence - it means that you don't have to take your rands and send them out of the country all the time to get fuel, to get petrol, to get diesel. These people are looking at energy independence in a way that's very, very clean, and it involves green hydrogen. They've already got a special Hydrogen Valley. They'll soon have a research center, and they're inviting South Africa to send students over, to send people doing doctorates, so we can work together and elevate this whole green hydrogen opportunity sky-high. They've even got a teach-the-teachers programme, so they're inviting our schools to get in touch with them so they can link up with our schools. Fantastic effort by Bulgaria. They’ve really showed how deeply involved they are in this and how willing they are to share their green hydrogen knowledge with South Africa at a time when it could be crucial for our economy.

Kamwendo: Storing hydrogen is the best way to store energy, a top German research company pointed out this week.

Creamer: Once you've got that green energy from the sun and the wind, people are finding it a bit difficult to store it as renewable energy for long periods of time and very costly, too. They've got to have these storage systems called BESS [battery energy storage systems], and they're finding that you can't store forever. You've got to use the renewable energy. In contrast, the Germans have just pointed out and declared that green hydrogen is the best way to store that renewable energy. And what they're saying is you can put that green hydrogen in storage for a minute, two minutes, one hour, two weeks, four weeks, a year, more than a year, and it's still there to be used, which is a massive advantage and cost saving. So, one of Germany’s big pump manufacturing companies, Wilo, which is also represented in South Africa, has already gone ahead. Now they've got solar panels on the roofs of all their buildings and factories, they are producing the green hydrogen, and every time they need energy in their factories, they give themselves the energy. They don't have to go out there and buy it. And it's not a situation where you need massive infrastructure. This is just a normal factory with solar panels on the roof and water, which can be used water, and you turn it into hydrogen, then you turn it back into electricity, clean electricity with fuel cells, and it can be stored for ages. This is music to the ears of South Africa, because platinum is involved in all of these activities, first to electrolyse the water and then to turn the green hydrogen back into the cleanest of clean electricity.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing, editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly.