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: A new green hydrogen project is being built in South Africa with the help of German funding.

Creamer: I'm very grateful to the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, which placed an ad in the newspapers outlining this project in Prieska in the Northern Cape. The IDC itself is a part funder, but there ia also a German funder KfW and the project has received a lot of publicity, not only in our local press, but also in international press. It was great that Hydrogen Fuel News of the United States gave a lot of attention to this and it said this green hydrogen project could be a bellwether, because in creating the green hydrogen and turning it into green ammonia, which is going to be used in ships for moving goods, the US publication said that this project is combining public finance with local empowerment and global partnerships to get an offtake into Europe and Asia.

There will be a lot of eyes on this, the publication emphasised. They also gave a lot of attention to the fact that this is a platinu-based technology that will be used, which is music to he ears of South Africans as South Africa hosts the lion;s share of platinum group metals. The platinum-based technology is called PEM technolog and that is what splits the water into the hydrogen and oxygen very efficiently when there is renewable energy, which there is because this project is powered by the great sunshine of the Northern Cape, which the US publication described as a huge asset along with the wind energy of the region. So, quite a lot of very welcome global focus on this Prieska green energy, green ammonia project in South Africa.

Kamwendo: South Africa is streaking ahead with the recovery of rare earths elements from a waste dump in Limpopo.

Creamer: Yes, and this is also fantastic news and, once again, there are a lot of global eyes on this rare earths project as well. I was quite pleasantly surprised. The project is being developed by Rainbow Rare Earths. What they have done is they have gone to Phalaborwa and noted that there is a waste dump and in the stacks of this dump are rare earth elements. Because these can be recovered on surface, they believe this is going to be a very good project when it comes to return o investment, because there is no need to fund an underground or even an opencast mine.

All the rare earths are on surface and international investors have already grasped the value of that. But there is a lot more value being created as Rainbow has done intensive work on the material in its Johannesburg laboratory to turn it into probably the purest rare earth element of its kind in the world, which is in demand for magnets. The world is using magnets like never before for wind turbines and a lot of the new energy situations. These rare earth elements are in demand, so it is a good breakthrough for South Africa and for Limpopo province.

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