Fossil fuels available in South Africa and the development of new “greener” options
Fossil fuels are a limited resource. They are the products of what were once vegetation and other living matter that has been buried beneath the earth’s surface for up to 300 million years. During this time, the intense pressure and heat that it has been subjected to has enriched and concentrated its carbon elements, and turned it into various types of fossil fuels. The three main types of fossil fuels are coal, natural gas, and oil from which petroleum amongst other things is produced. All three types of fossil fuels are being used to provide the energy to provide the heat, light, and power for industrial and personal use.
Because this transformation of matter into fossil fuels has taken up to 300 million years, and mankind are depleting fossil fuel reserves at an unbelievably fast rate, through many mining and drilling operations worldwide, fossil fuels are considered to be an unsustainable resource.
In the H1 table of the World Carbon Dioxide Emissions through the burning of fossil fuels, North America is way, way ahead of any other world nation. Here is a brief summary of the H1 top 11 emissions culprits as last recorded in 1998. the figures shown represent how many million tons of carbon dioxide as produced in 1998 alone: United States (1495), China (740), Russia (405), Japan (288), India (253), Germany (228), United Kingdom (147), Canada (139), Italy (120), France (107), and South Africa (102).
South Africa is the economic power house of the African continent and accounts for almost 50% of the entire continent’s carbon dioxide emissions. Their domestic economy was mostly dependent on coal and as the economy has grown, emissions have increased by over 6.5 times since 1950. Of the total emissions from the fossil fuels South Africa has consumed , 86% was down to the burning of coal products, 10% from oil, and the remainder came from the use of natural gas.
Coal was first mined in South Africa back in 1857 and in the years since that time, South Africa has risen to be the world’s 6th largest producer of coal. Since the early 1950s, much of the home mined coal was used to produce coal based oils in order to reduce the country’s exposure to imports of crude oil.
But South Africa, as with many other nations of the world, is becoming more conscious of the so called “green” issues, particularly greenhouse gasses and global warming. In order to try and reduce her emissions of the so called greenhouse gasses, South Africa is investing heavily in other alternative, sustainable sources of energy. Her latest initiative is to the production of biodiesel and bio-ethanol both of which are produced from maize crops. The South African government is now offering large incentives to farmers for converting their crop cultivation over to maize. It is seen that many thousands of new jobs could be created in the cultivation, harvesting and processing of maize into bio fuels. This would not only be great news for their own internal economy as regards employment figures, but it would also substantially reduce her dependence on crude oil both internally mined offshore, and also imported from foreign countries. It is an important initiative and a useful contribution towards saving limited fossil fuel reserves.
The Fossil Fuel Foundation of Africa is the premier world-class, knowledge-based institution serving the techno-intellectual needs of the multidisciplinary fossil fuel and energy community in Africa through communication, information distribution, coordination, education, promotion and networking.
