South Africa comes second last on energy transition index

OK what does that really mean? According to World Economic Forum this actually means that South Africa is failing to maintain the balance between energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability. So out of 114 countries evaluated South Africa was number 113, that is not good at all right? As we all know the energy source of S.A. is a non-renewable resource that means it has to be used efficiently and effectively and that does not come at a cheaper price, it very prohibitive.

The energy supply takes a larger portion of the government's overall expenditure because not so longer the State Owned Entity known as a Eskom was bankrupt and the state had to come to its rescue with a huge amount of capital and the coal is also running, it really easy to use other alternatives of energy as very expense. In the minister of finance's budget speech it was said that the government will no longer opt to Nuclear energy since the country was having an economic deficit so it cannot afford it. The organizations and projects that teach people on how to save energy without causing pollution are also costly and it was said that the pollution costs gradually increases by 1% every year, that has a huge impact on the economy as whole.

I really think that the government should consider putting this nuclear energy idea into practice whilst there's still time because the coal is running and our currency exchange rates are not really stable so importing coal will be very expensive at least the nuclear energy supply will be a once-off big expenditure and the opportunity will not be high. We can't base our decisions on the sunk costs, Yes we invested a lot in coal energy supply but those are sunk costs, we cannot reverse them but we can't continue to throw money in an unproductive project.

This matter is serious and we cannot just wake up and forget that the coal energy supply is more and more becoming a burden.

SOURCE: NEWS24

LINK: https://www.fin24/Economy/south-africa-comes-second-last-on-energy-transition-index-20180316