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: Exporting sunshine as valuable green hydrogen is the theme of a big global conference to be held at Sun City.

Creamer: Sounds surreal that you can export your sunshine, but you can in the form of green hydrogen. The world is really searching for every bit of green hydrogen it can get its hands on. South Africa has been chosen as the next big centre where they will discuss the water electrolysis technology that provides the green hydrogen – and Sun City is the venue, which is quite appropriate because it’s all about using the power of the African sun to create clean, green electricity to save the planet from climate change destruction.

We are seeing that what has happened at these conferences already in Denmark, Norway, US and now Africa, is moving the world towards new geopolitics, because in the past, if a country had oil and it had gas, it are able to grow faster economically, but that is now changing. The people in the pound seats now are those ones with good wind, the good sunshine – and the world is recognising that Africa is a great place for sunshine, and that is why the International Conference on Electrolysis  – ICE 2023 – will take place right here in Africa, at Sun City, in August this year.

Kamwendo: The 9 000 megawatts of electricity that business says it can provide must be snapped up as fast as possible.

Creamer: 9 000 megawatts. South African business is saying it can give us 9 000 worth of megawatts in the form of sun and wind energy, with storage infrastructure and green hydrogen generation thrown in. It is an absolute no brainer, because just the mining companies alone are going to put in R150-billion renewable power.

One assumes that the government will seize this wonderful opportunity, because South Africa is suffering an electricity loadshedding disruption and this will end loadshedding. Alright, it is going to take a bit of time, but already 3 000 megawatts are being built, so one would hope that the red tape is cut left, right and centre to allow business to give us the full 9 000 megawatts as fast as they possibly can.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News & Mining Weekly and he will be back with us at the same time next Friday.