Organergy: Facing South Africa’s pending energy
crisis
Anaerobic
digestion of biogas at waste water treatment plant in South Africa results in cleaner
development materials, sustaining renewable energy.
Photo: CAE
BY MIKO SCHNEIDER
In the past South Africa took energy consumption for granted... Today, it paves a new path for new initiatives and the utilization of resources and technology to combat their current pending energy crisis.
Once
upon a time, South Africans had the luxury of cheap and abundant coal-powered
electricity, but this is no longer the case. In June 2009, the National Energy
Regulator of South Africa granted the electricity public utility Eskom a 31% interim price increase; which includes a
levy on the sale of electricity generated from non-renewable sources.
This is
the second electricity tariff increase in two years of over 30%, and follows
widespread energy shortages and power load shedding in the country over the
past two years.
A call for
South Africans to take climate change Seriously
One of Cape
Advanced Engineering’s (CAE) top engineers, Hein Reynke, heads up a division
that focuses specifically on renewable energy and biogas electricity, under the
brand name ‘Organergy’. CEA was established in the late 1990s at the University
of Stellenbosch, South Africa, as an
automotive-testing and development company.
In 2002 it was privatised, and the
idea behind CAE is efficiency through innovation, by means of improved design,
special fuels, or hybrid vehicles.
Hein would like
to see South Africans take climate change more seriously; but also concedes
that in a developing country, food, clothing and employment are the citizens’
and government’s priorities.
The argument from developing nations is that
reducing carbon emissions will hamper economic growth and increase development
costs.
However, reducing carbon emissions should only result in more expensive short-term solutions for governments to
deliver services to their citizens, Clean Development Materials (CDM) projects,
like Organergy’s biogas plants, are designed to bridge the financial gap by
assisting ‘third world’ countries to make ‘first world’ money.
Public and
private project developers can generate and sell certified emission reductions
(CERs) from projects that reduce emissions in developing countries. In other
words, developing countries are selling industrialised nations an absence of
greenhouse gasses admitted to the atmosphere.
Real
emission reductions and advances in sustainable development
To qualify for
CDM approval, projects need demonstrate that their envisaged emission reductions are real, measurable and additional to
any that would have occurred in the absence of the project.
They must also
demonstrate the benefit of the project to the community in which they are
based; and undergo an Environmental Impact Assessment.
Advantages of CDM projects
include advances in sustainable development for the host country; increased
employment and technological development; as well as funding (usually in
foreign currency).
What exactly is Biogas?
CAE’s CDM projects centre on the development of Organergy biogas
electricity plants. Biogas is mainly constituted of methane; which is derived
from organic waste materials of livestock and poultry, vegetable waste, crop
residue, harvest surplus, etc.
According
to the CAE website, “For
cooking and lighting, a family of four would consume 4.25 cubic meters
of biogas per day, an amount that is easily generated from the family's night
soil and the dung of three cows.”
The biogas plants are therefore situated primarily within the
agricultural industry, such as poultry and pig farms, where animals produce
large quantities of collectable organic waste. Wastewater treatment plants in
human settlements are additional sources of organic waste.
Organic waste harvesting and processing provides four mains sources
CERs:
Generating electricity using biogas as fuel. This electricity
has zero coal emissions and is therefore far more environmentally friendly than
regular energy (1 megawatt hour of coal burning electricity is approximately
equal to 1.2 tons of CO2 in South Africa as 98% of electricity is
currently derived from coal.)
Biogas electricity generation also generates plenty of waste heat,
which can be used as a thermal energy source. For example, the waste heat can
be used to heat and cool chicken houses on a poultry farm – again saving fossil
fuels.
Production of natural fertilizer. The post digestate sludge is
an excellent natural fertilizer. Bearing in mind that chemical fertilizer made
from oil is linked to the volatile oil price – natural fertilizer not only
saves fossil fuels, but is also more affordable and sustainable.
Preventing methane from going into the atmosphere
What the future has in store in terms of energy supply expenditures
While other developing countries might be utilising expensive European
solutions; CAE is developing local technologies, using local labour, materials,
and manufacturers; which is in turn uplifting the communities in which the
projects are based and limiting the need to transport equipment overseas - thus
reducing the project’s carbon footprint.
Hein predicts
the worst is still to come in terms of a scarcity and expense of energy supply.
By 2030 world energy demand is forecasted to double; and by 2050 it could
triple.
Yet there are the technology and
skills in South Africa
to harness natural sources of energy. While it might have been easy in the past
to take energy for granted due to extremely low national energy rates; that
reality is about to change and South Africans will soon need to utilise their
technology, resources and inner drive to combat the pending energy crisis.
Miko
Schneider is a freelance print and radio journalist, producer and voice artist.
Her background is in youth development, entertainment-education, corporate
social responsibility and, more recently, business development within a digital
media environment. She has worked for a number of community, public and private
media, including TEAMtalk Media (part of the BSkyB network of companies), as
well as the Children’s Radio Foundation, which was recently endorsed by Kofi
Annan. She is currently reading for a Masters in Journalism within
Globalisation, administered jointly by the University of Arhus,
Denmark; and CityUniversity,
London. Her
area of academic specialisation is business and financial journalism.
