Author: Mike McWilliams

I ask you , with tears in my eyes. Where would you like a major energy discovery to take place?

My leg is healing quite well and I never got a replacement Mac from Morningside Mediclinic. However, I was able to rewrite the manuscript I had lost on that laptop and my book has been finally published in the UK and is now in South Africa as well. Moneyweb never used my Soapbox article I wrote on the same subject some months ago, but perhaps this new iteration will see the light.

I am at my wits end. South Africa, while being rich in coal, is really short of any other energy resources. Environmentalists have been telling us for ages, that coal is dirty and contributes massively to climate change when used as fuel. We are urged to switch to clean fuels such as biofuels and natural gas.

But, as soon as a deposit of natural gas is found, those same environmentalists scream blue murder and try to prohibit its exploitation. The Shale Gas find in the Karoo has excited such hysteria that it is likely that this major asset to the country will lie unused because environmentalists are scared that its exploitation may harm the eco-structure of the Karoo.

I ask you , with tears in my eyes. Where would you like a major energy discovery to take place?

If one were to search the entire sub continent, it would be difficult to find an area less populated and more under-used than the Karoo. It is a semi-desert, with miles and miles of Bokkerall as any Karoo farmer will tell you. Home to a dwindling number of sheep, at the sparse rate of one per hectare, the Karoo is a place which can surely host a few gas wells without anyone noticing.

What is wrong with you all? Would you prefer that exploration to take place in the Drakensberg, or perhaps the Outeniqua forests. How about the Kruger Park? The Karoo has the cheapest land in the country. Has anyone ever asked why? It is because it isn’t much good for anything apart from a bit of sheep farming and the ranching of Springbok, both enterprises which will be completely undisturbed by the exploration and fracking which would take place.

What possesses you to forsake a resource which could replace coal in order to protect an environment that no one really wants in the first place?

While you all yell loudly that fracking is untested in its environmental friendliness, you ignore the equally valid viewpoint that your insistence on its dangers are also totally without foundation.

There is environmental risk in exploiting any resource and it needs to be monitored carefully and corrective action taken timeously. This is what you should be insisting on. Not the banning of any activity which may or may not impact on the countryside. You need to insist that any exploitation of this resource is free from the usual government corruption and that it benefits the people of South Africa and not just a few officials and multi-nationals who exploit it.

Norway’s use of its oil assets are a shining example to the world, and South Africa in particular. By good government planning and good faith intentions, its oil from the sea, which incidentally, is also a big environment risk, has been harvested for the good of the people. It is no coincidence that Norway has the world’s most prosperous populace and its least corrupt government.

Come on South African environmentalists, be a little positive. Look for sustainable growth and practical benefits. Don’t just fret over fynbos. Give a little thought to the thousands who might find employment if this windfall were to be intelligently exploited.

*Mike McWilliams is a member of the Moneyweb Community