Foot on the Gas must Stop

Below you’ll find comments on NERSA’s proposed concurrence with the Ministerial Determination on the procurement of new generation capacity of 3000 MW from gas.This is a joint submission between CER, Natural Justice, groundWork and SDCEA, endorsed by Oceans Not Oil, Earthlife Africa, Green Connection, Project 90 by 2030 and 350Africa.org comm. We object to yoking South Africa’s future to ever more methane as an energy option. Howarth et al., (2011, 2014; Howarth, 2021) have shown that the radiative forcing of methane means its larger global warming role (Howarth, 2014) than coal or oil “for any possible use of natural gas” (Howarth et al., 2012).

Howarth, R. W., Santoro, R., & Ingraffea, A. (2011). Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations. Climatic change, 106(4), 679-690.

Howarth, R. W., Shindell, D., Santoro, R., Ingraffea, A., Phillips, N., & Townsend-Small, A. (2012). Methane emissions from natural gas systems. Background paper prepared for the National Climate Assessment, Reference# 2011-003, Office of Science & Technology Policy Assessment, Washington, DC.

Howarth, R. W. (2014). A bridge to nowhere: methane emissions and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas. Energy Science & Engineering, 2(2), 47-60.

Howarth, R. W. (2021). Methane and climate change. Environmental Impacts from Development of Unconventional Oil and Gas Reserves.

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