This Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Jon Gericke once again spoke to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Gericke: Mining companies are going all out to generate their own green electricity.

Creamer: Yes, mining companies in particular are generating their own power. We saw it again this week with Harmony Gold going for another 100 MW, this time near Orkney in the North West. They have already got 30 MW in the Free State. Every mining company you speak to is doing it or will do it and that is because it is so much cheaper. Not only do they get the greenness, but they get the value. The Eskom price lift was so extreme, amounting to an increase of  more than 500% over ten years. So, mining companies either generate renewable electricity themselves, which is known as embedded, behind-the-meter, which remains off the national electricity grid, or they get involved with the wheeling of electricity, dealing with independent power producers. But whatever way, mines have really contributed massively to the amount of energy that is being produced and also at a lower cost, which is good for those holding shares in our mines that are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Gericke: South Africa is very much back on the global investment radar. I saw a report earlier about how much loadshedding hurt possible investments are things being turned around.

Creamer: The absence of loadshedding is one of the things that is encouraging people to invest again. We had Exxaro, a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, saying, how much better the sentiment is to invest. We also had Southern Palladium, which is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and also in Sydney, saying, we definitely seeing South Africa back on the global investment radar. Southern Palladium have been in New York, they have been in Toronto. They have been listening to investors and the sentiment is great. One of the things is that we have had so many days without loadshedding, but also they see more port stabilisation and Transnet stabilising a bit better, not perfect, but starting to stabilise. That gives a lot of encouragement to investors. We seeing that Southern Palladium came in with money, drilled, had fantastic results, so they are very happy.

Gericke: The ongoing growth of the global hydrogen and fuel cell sector is good news for South Africa.

Creamer: Oh look, growth announcements involving hydrogen and fuel cells is just so good for South Africa. Everyday there are new investments, every day there is a new buildout of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. When it comes to hydrogen and fuel cells, we invariably associate the two with mobility. We begin to thinking about the hydrogen fuel cells in the cars and we know that BMW just announced two things this week. We saw Toyota with Hilux in the UK coming in with 10 new hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It just happens. By the minute, these things are happening around the world. But what we don't normally associate with hydrogen and fuel cells are what we know as a power station. So, if you go along to Mpumalanga and you see one of those big power stations, that is not mobility. The only mobility out of that is the electricity that flows out of it. But what is happening is that you see now in South Korea, it is going to be a massive situation where they have got a big power station and this is going to be a hydrogen fuel cell power station and we, as South Africans, clap at both ends because to generate the hydrogen, they use our platinum group metals and then to turn that hydrogen into electricity – isn't that magic – they use fuel cells and again, those magical electricity creating moments within the fuel cells are brough about once again, you guessed it, by platinum group metals, which South Africa hosts in such large quantity.

Gericke: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly, and he’ll be back At the Coal Face at the same time next Friday.