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: Sun and wind energy this week became the big new pursuit of one of South Africa’s largest coal-mining companies.

Creamer: The company concerned is Sereti Resources. It is a 91% black-owned company. It is now massive in coal. It took over all Anglo Americans coal assets, as well as South32’s coal assets. But, it is a very responsible company and it is looking to the future, so it has plunged itself deeply into renewables. It has bought over an Australian company. It will be spending a lot of money in Mpumalanga, particularly, starting with construction next year of 150 MW of clean, green renewable energy. Early on, it will take a lot of that energy for its own mine, where instead of using coal fired power to mine, it will use renewable energy to mine. Going forward, it has got 900 MW of solar and wind power already permitted. It is looking at four gigawatts of electricity over a ten-year period. Also, it has bought into East Africa, so they will have great opportunities to harvest the wind, which is so strong in Tanzania and Kenya and other places in East Africa. They are thinking big for the benefit of future generations, which they will eventually serve as a renewable energy stronghold.

Kamwendo: A call to speed up investment in green hydrogen was made at this week’s South Africa  Green Hydrogen Summit.

Creamer: The South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit that took place in Cape Town this week was vigorous, with people from all over the world looking at how best South Africa and the  rest of the world should transition into a new clean, green energy system. Funding becomes difficult because of the need to enter into a new energy era. Investors are cautious, because they want to make sure that they don't lose money. What came through at the South Africa Green Hydrogen Summit was a fantastic offer from H2Global, a German green hydrogen instrument, which encourages businesses to ramp up green hydrogen projects with less risk. In offering its helping hand, H2Global made strong calls for South Africa’s aspiring green energy producers to take final investment decisions. The organisation urged South Africans to move rapidly into green hydrogen, under its trading regime, which ensures short-term financial subsidisation.

Kamwendo: Smart South African hydrogen technology has won top honours at the Global Hydrogen Forum in Monaco.

Creamer: This is incredible. We have got a small innovative company in Strydom Park, Randburg, which for the past ten years has been working its socks off to find cost-effective ways of generating green hydrogen, the world’s new fuel of the future. Hydrox took its offering to the Green Hydrogen Forum in Monaco, explained its inner workings in the presence of Prince Albert, and swept the boards because of its lower cost of production. Everybody from Gibraltar to Malta, and Spain to Italy, wanted to know more about how they manage to generate green hydrogen so cheaply without the help of membranes. For the last 200 years, people making electrolyers have insisted on the need for membranes to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen during electrolysis. But this requires low temperature. When Hydrox does it without the use of membranes, high temperatures are possible, which makes it 30% cheaper through its greater efficiencies. As a result, Hydrox won a lot of the awards dished out by Prince Albert and a lot of the countries are now rushing around to get this new technology that Hydrox can provide from South Africa.

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