MechChem Africa May-June 2023

Can SA become a green hydrogen fuel exporter?

Governments are scrambling to meet ambitious carbon reduction targets towards net zero, initially to meet interim 2030 commitments but ultimately for 2050, by which time CO 2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere are ‘scheduled’ to have stopped ris ing. That gives us less than 27 years to completely transform the global energy system away from using fossil-based fuels: coal, gas, petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, heavy oil, paraffin and many more. It is worth remembering how short a time 27 years really is: The first climate conference was held in Geneva in 1979. The final declaration at that conference was: ‘To foresee and prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity’. That was 44 years ago! Then in 1997 in Kyoto, 26 years ago, the first declaration to reduce overall emissions of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases – by at least 5.0% – came into ‘force’. In South Africa, load shedding first started at the end of 2007, 16 years ago, but warnings of an im pending power crisis were first identified in a 1998 report by ‘analysts and experts in Eskom and the SA Government’. So, we in South Africa have been grap pling with this need to transform our power grid for 25 years. And it has never been more obvious, not only because of the climate crisis, that the South African energy grid must be completely transformed. My daughter will be 49 in 2050. Will she still be living with a climate crisis? Will South Africa still be facing load shedding? The transformation to a greener, net-zero world involves, first and foremost, the replacement of fossil-based power generation with renewable alternatives – wind, solar, hydroelectric, geother mal, etc – while focusing on the electrification of transport systems to displace demand for liquid fuels. These changes are happening, more rapidly in some countries than others, but renewable en ergy plants are now accepted as cost effective and adoption rates are accelerating. The International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates that global renew able power capacity will have grown by 2 400 GW by 2027 and, in the UK, the proportion of new cars sold in April 2023 that were either fully electric or plug-in hybrid was 21.9%. But there are still some hard to decarbonise sectors in industries where direct electrification is difficult, such as metal and cement processing, and transportation for aviation, shipping and heavy on- and off-road vehicles. It is in these areas where renewable/green hydrogen is seen as playing an essential role in displacing carbon and supporting the

energy transition to net zero. This issue features an excellent article, by Karen Surridge of SANEDI, that unpacks why green hydro gen is ideal for SA. In it she cites South Africa’s well developed expertise in Fischer-Tropsch technology. South Africa has an abundance of the platinum group metals (PGMs) required for making the cata lysts for hydrogen fuel cells, as well as those for use in Sasol’s gas-to-liquid fuel reforming processes. Sasol’s Fischer-Tropsch technology relies on cata lysts to convert Syngas – a mixture of hydrogen (H 2 ) and carbon monoxide (CO) – into syncrude, which can then be refined to produce high quality liquid fuels and chemicals. While Sasol’s gas-to-liquids process is far from green at present, it isn’t hard to imagine the pro duction of its fuels becoming greener as part of an energy transition. Eventually we will have to stop burning carbon-based transport fuels, but in the interim, green hydrogen and renewable energy could help to decarbonise the production processes to some extent. And the quality of fuels produced via Sasol’s Fischer-Tropsch process makes them ideal for greener aviation fuel, which currently has few carbon-zero alternatives. Green hydrogen fuel is ideal for direct use in trucks and heavy on- and offroad vehicles, with hydrogen fuel cells producing onboard electricity to power electric drives. An alternative hydrogen-based green fuel is am monia (NH 3 ), which has a higher energy density per unit volume than hydrogen gas and it is easier to store and transport. Suitable for trucks and ships, ammonia can be used to fuel combustion engines or, again via hydrogen fuel cells, to power electric drives. Surridge cites our abundant sun- and wind-ener gy resources, along with the land on which we can establish industrial-scale renewable energy plants. Via electrolysers, these can be used to generate the hydrogen needed for next-generation green fuels. Launched late last year, the Infrastructure SA hydrogen economy pipeline of 19 green hydrogen projects is valued at more than R300-billion, while the IDC has secured €23-million (R478-million) in grant funds from the German government to sup port our green hydrogen economy. The troublesome Medupi and Kusili power stations have cost us that much already. Like Karen Surridge, I am excited and inspired by the goals of this programme. Wouldn’t it be fantastic for South Africa to become a green fuel exporter, while simultaneously creating a transformed, stable, reliable and clean energy network.

Peter Middleton

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2 ¦ MechChem Africa • May-June 2023