Botswana the answer to our power needs?

[DigitalSoldier]

"Botswana has vast coal resources estimated at over 200 000 megatonnes. The resources are grossly under-exploited with a production of less than one million tonnes a year," said Kgomotso Abi, acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=312399&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/

Most of the time when I read something about Botswana its good news, whats the chances of Botswana in the near future taking over from South Africa as the economic powerhouse.

 

[supersunbird]

Not much, 1.5 million people and high HIV rate...

 

[NoADSLyet]

" whats the chances of Botswana in the near future taking over from South Africa as the economic powerhouse.

Nothing is beyond the local ethnic Africans capability.

 

[DigitalSoldier]

Not much, 1.5 million people and high HIV rate...

Well... we also have a high HIV rate and milions of Zimbabweans also with the HIV coming through our borders daily, our president said there is nothing the government can do about the border problem and we should just deal with it.

In Botswana they are busy constructing a 3m high electric fence to keep out all illegal immigrants even though relations with a struggle hero will suffer.

 

[lucifir]

I think we should rather look at the production of electricity from sugar cane .... that way .... we can produce and export more sugar .... while also producing vast amounts of electricity ... and its a renewable source .... unlike using coal or even a nuclear plant ....
also .... we already have the skills and resources to do this

 

[Moederloos]

Botswana may indeed become Africa's power house.
They need not even do anything, SA may remove itself from the race all by itself.

 

[Geriatrix]

I think we should rather look at the production of electricity from sugar cane .... that way .... we can produce and export more sugar .... while also producing vast amounts of electricity ... and its a renewable source .... unlike using coal or even a nuclear plant ....
also .... we already have the skills and resources to do this

Brazil is doing that, and most of their petrol is made from sugarcane(which is a lot cheaper, more environmentally friendly and causes less wear and tear on vehicles) as well.

Apparently they hardly import oil or feel oil price flux like oil importing nations do.

 

[w1z4rd]

Coal energy is very dirty. I hope we can move on from this old technology.

 

[Tassidar]

I think we should rather look at the production of electricity from sugar cane .... that way .... we can produce and export more sugar .... while also producing vast amounts of electricity ... and its a renewable source .... unlike using coal or even a nuclear plant ....
also .... we already have the skills and resources to do this

Hi Lucifir,

There are a couple of flaws to your argument.
(1) There is limited land suitable for sugar cane production
(2) While it is renewable, it isn't necessarily more environmentally friendly.
(3) Increasing power from sugar production, will push up the price of sugar and lead to greater imports of sugar (because of point 1)

Finally, the sugar mills do to some extent power themselves already, using the cane residue.

 

[lucifir]

Hi Lucifir,

There are a couple of flaws to your argument.
(1) There is limited land suitable for sugar cane production
(2) While it is renewable, it isn't necessarily more environmentally friendly.
(3) Increasing power from sugar production, will push up the price of sugar and lead to greater imports of sugar (because of point 1)

Finally, the sugar mills do to some extent power themselves already, using the cane residue.

Hi Tassidar,

I obviously have not done research in this area ... hence u may be right about there not being enough land .... especially with the prices that land is fetching in those once sugar cane areas aka uhmlanga
Not sure about ur point number 2 .... don't see how it can be more harm than a nuclear reactor ... especially with having to store waste materials etc.
Actually ... if land was not an issue(which it probably is), then more sugar production will actually probably drop the price ... as the electricity is produced more as a by-product and does not consume any of the sugar(as best I understand it )
Also... the mills (from an article I read recently) do power themselves while also providing around 400MWatts to the national grid

 

[McSack]

In Botswana they are busy constructing a 3m high electric fence to keep out all illegal immigrants even though relations with a struggle hero will suffer.

No no no that fence is to keep out all those cows with foot and mouth that keep jumping over the barbed wire fence into Botswana... Hell if the Botswana government didn't prevent this and had to shoot a couple of the diseased beasts, that would really sour relations with their neighbour

 

[Tassidar]

Hi Tassidar,

I obviously have not done research in this area ... hence u may be right about there not being enough land .... especially with the prices that land is fetching in those once sugar cane areas aka uhmlanga
Not sure about ur point number 2 .... don't see how it can be more harm than a nuclear reactor ... especially with having to store waste materials etc.
Actually ... if land was not an issue(which it probably is), then more sugar production will actually probably drop the price ... as the electricity is produced more as a by-product and does not consume any of the sugar(as best I understand it )
Also... the mills (from an article I read recently) do power themselves while also providing around 400MWatts to the national grid

Lucifir, if this interests you, I would recommend you read the following article:
http://environment.newscientist.com...gold-big-risks-of-the-biofuel-revolution.html

This discusses why biofuels may harmful, what the land requirements are for biofuels and the possible effects that it will have on food production.

Incidentally, the author of the article is Fred Pearce, who has written some fascinating books on climate change.

Also, New Scientist has a fascinating section on Energy and Fuel Cells which has a number of highly interesting articles.

 

[lucifir]

thanx for the info .. will give it a read ... and hopefully have a good response to u next time

 

[Nanfeishen]

They dont have the infrastructure as yet,, although there is huge overseas investment in Gaberone.
They have also been politically stable for many years, and their currency (The Pula is slightly stronger than the Rand)
IMHO Botswana has a lot of potential for the future, and we could see some exceptional growth over the next 5 - 10 years.
I have always considered it a first destination in the event of having to leave S.A.

 

[werries2]

Coal remains up to date the cheapest source of energy, along with Gas. The burning of sugar cane for example would cost a lot more that Coal burning and unfortunately the energy conversion is much-much lower. (ton Coal/kW compared to ton Cane/kW). The amount of Coal burned each day in South Africa would probably compare to one year worth of Cane produced in the country. It is an enormous amount! Not even Nuclear would be able to replace the current power plants in a reasonable time frame, if ever. But since most of the Mpumalanga coal resources will be exhausted within the next 5-10 years (90% of our power resources) we sit with a serious problem...

Botswana is an attractive alternative, and think that Anglo American have already started buying up the Coal there. Will be interested to follow this over the next few years. South Africa have at least one big source of coal left in the Waterberge.

 

[Tassidar]

But since most of the Mpumalanga coal resources will be exhausted within the next 5-10 years (90% of our power resources) we sit with a serious problem...

Hi Werries,

Really interesting fact. Do you have a source for it?

Thanks

 

[werries2]

Well it is hear say, Got it from my brother that is a mining engineer in the Witbank area (BHP-Billiton). Apparently the huge power demand in the last 5 years have pushed the mining way into the red and earlier estimates of 20 odd years have been reduced to the 5-10 years.
It is some real concerning information...

I can prob contact him to find out if there is some published estimates on this.

 

[DigitalSoldier]

Well it is hear say, Got it from my brother that is a mining engineer in the Witbank area (BHP-Billiton). Apparently the huge power demand in the last 5 years have pushed the mining way into the red and earlier estimates of 20 odd years have been reduced to the 5-10 years.
It is some real concerning information...

I can prob contact him to find out if there is some published estimates on this.

I just got an email from xstratacoal and tonight at 19:30 on passela they will be broadcasting a documentary about the mine and the coal resources left.

 

[Tassidar]

Well it is hear say, Got it from my brother that is a mining engineer in the Witbank area (BHP-Billiton). Apparently the huge power demand in the last 5 years have pushed the mining way into the red and earlier estimates of 20 odd years have been reduced to the 5-10 years.
It is some real concerning information...

I can prob contact him to find out if there is some published estimates on this.

Thanks. Will try to do some research into it myself.

 

[antowan]

"Botswana has vast coal resources estimated at over 200 000 megatonnes. The resources are grossly under-exploited with a production of less than one million tonnes a year," said Kgomotso Abi, acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=312399&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__business/

Most of the time when I read something about Botswana its good news, whats the chances of Botswana in the near future taking over from South Africa as the economic powerhouse.

Very slim. Their economy is localized in a tiny portion of the population and a tiny geographical area.