Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: A South African company is going all out to turn the curse of polluted mine water into competitively priced transport fuel.

Creamer: For long we have been cursed with this acid-mine drainage (AMD) and people said this is a legacy that is going to decant onto Joburg streets at some time. It gives you the indication that there is a lot of water there. In water is hydrogen, so what this company from Randburg, Hydrox, is doing, is that it wants to extract the hydrogen out of that and be able to dispense it here at prices that are at petrol price level.

They want to prepare for the switch to moving from oil-based fuels to hydrogen-fuels, which is sweeping the whole world at the moment, because the world is demanding that we have clean energy. This is one of the ways to do it, because if you put it into fuel cell cars it can, of course, drive those cars without emitting any pollution into the air. It is quite an exciting innovation and people are moving quite firmly to make sure that it can meet the petrol price level in order to be competitive.

Kamwendo: Clean hydrogen is being advanced to replace oil and lower climate change risk.

Creamer: Yes, you know it is transportable, tradeable, it is green hydrogen and it is there now earmarked in the days ahead to replace oil. The big difference is that it won’t pollute the earth. This is what is being demanded now in the world that you have this clean energy. The Germans have perfected the transport of the gas.

So you would think how are you going to move this gas, it is not like oil where you move it in the same way and use the same facilities. They have created a liquid organic oxygen carrier, which turns it into an oil like substance, when you need it to be oil and then release the oil like substance when you need it to be gas. In this way we can see a total transformation of the way we are mobilised and the electricity that we produce through hydrogen now and that is what is envisaged.

Kamwendo: Climate change is resulting in coal mining companies being forced to pay higher insurance premiums.

Creamer: People are starting to turn their back on coal mining and this is also related to what we have been talking about the hydrogen economy is moving in. Even coal mining companies are now starting to restructure themselves to make sure that they are not left with stranded assets when this turn happens.

Of course, we are going to need coal for a long time, but at the same time you need to be cognisant of the fact that banks are turning their backs on you, they won’t give you loans. Insurance companies now are forcing you to pay higher premiums, because they are also looking at climate change risk and what could be claimed in future with regard to hurting Mother Earth by having a high-carbon economy, instead of a low-carbon economy.

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