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On-The-Air (13/06/2014)

safm13june 2.mp3

13th June 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’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 solar energy atlas is being developed to stimulate the use of sun power in sunny South Africa.

Creamer: The government is going about developing this atlas and it is cooperating with the Weather Bureau. The Weather Bureau is setting up 12 solar radiation stations, six of them are already in place, so that they can quantify where the best areas are to exploit this wonderful sunshine that South Africa has. Of course, the Northern Cape, which is sun-drenched, is one of the targeted areas already, because the government is trying to generate from the sun close to 10 000 MW of electricity by 2030. They are giving themselves quite a bit of a leeway there. Most of that will come from the photovoltaic method of generating electricity, solar panels on roofs and things like that. A percentage of it, about 1 200 MW, is envisaged for concentrated solar power and these are fascinating big systems that use mirrors. They beam the heat of the sun to a point where they heat up water and create steam. You see it in some of the Kalahari pictures now where they have got these artist impressions. That steam then turns the turbines and generates the electricity. They normally link that to a bit of hot-house farming as well. It is really an exciting future coming up. The government and South Africa’s Science and Technology Department are working with the world on this, because the world also wants to know where these hotspots are. Of course, that is literal and figuratively speaking, so that we can benefit from this solar power, which is such a gift to us here. We see individual companies as well, like Dawn, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, has got its headquarters in Germiston. It has now got a company that is Russian-linked, Avalar Energy, to set it up in a solar way with panels on its roofs. It is a business case, these people can do it at a cost lower then what they are envisaging having to pay Eskom for power. So it is great when there is a business case.

Kamwendo: The bid to break the world land speed record in the Northern Cape is setting up South Africa for extreme-sports tourism.

Creamer: The rocket-powered Bloodhound has been wanting to break this world record for the last five-years. That is a UK based entity and that team was involved in breaking the last record. They did it 17-years ago, 1997 in the Nevada desert in the United States where they set in kilometre terms the world land speed record at 1 228 km an hour. Of course, because they work in miles per hour the big target now, when they come to the Northern Cape and go to Hakskeenpan that is where they have selected the site. They are targeting 1 000 miles per hour, that is the magic number. If you translate that into kilometres it is 1 609 km an hour. This is faster then a bullet goes out of a gun. We are looking to fantastic speeds. Why they have chosen the Northern Cape and Hakskeenpan in the Kalahari, is because it is so long, flat and firm. There are also a few rocks there so they employed 300 people who are actually removing 6 000 tons of rock from there. They need to be ready by next year October, because that is the first date which they will test this Bloodhound and see what fine tuning needs to be. It is going to be done in two stages, October 2015 that will be when they first set off and see how this goes, because they are not convinced that they can do it in one stretch. Then they will come back the following year to do the final run to actually assault that 1 609 km an hour target.

Kamwendo: Strike-hit South Africa may lose platinum market share to Zimbabwe, which is investing  $100-milion to boost its platinum refining capacity.

Creamer: Zimbabwe is sitting there watching South Africa. We are playing fast and loose with our platinum endowment, which is a gift from the heavens that we should really be using, because we know that we have got people 80 000 of them not keen on working. The eye of Zimbabwe then looks across the border and says that this is an opportunity for them. They have got the Great Dyke, they have got platinum and you see that their productivity is much better then ours at the moment. They are mechanised and they have got a different level of cost, their cost are way below ours. They are not as deep, so they are about 210 meters down, we are over 1 000 meters down on average. So there are cost advantages there and they are looking to exploit them. They are putting $100-million now into a metals refinery, which is platinum-linked. There you can see they are taking steps to do what South Africa does for them, they are going to do for themselves. This is part of the government pressurising them saying that they have got to add value in the country. We see that Zimplats and the Chamber of Mines Alex Mahembre has come out with the statement that they are going to invest now to make sure that they float all boats and do what the government wants and at the same time become more efficient for their country. The crown of platinum is starting to slip off the head of South Africa, because we are seen as an unreliable supplier. Zimbabwe is reaching out to take that crown and put it on its own head, because of the advantages it has. Some of the South African companies are already up there. Implats is the controller of Zimplats, so they are keen to have an alternative source where they don’t have as much labour angst as they are having here. We can see Zimbabwe trying to step in to South Africa’s shoes in platinum.

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same on June 27, 2014.

 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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