"Coal is globally, and certainly for South Africa, the most important source of power. The commodity is required for almost every product and structure that we see around us and use every single day, either directly or indirectly. There is virtually no machine, cement, steel, aluminum, building, car, computer, iPhone, or even a solar panel or windmill that can be created without coal. In South Africa, the warnings of many engineers, economists and other experts within the energy sector that South Africa won’t easily walk away from coal has already played itself out in the political scene in 2023 when the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, a former coal miner, called the just energy transition that advocated for a rapid transition towards “renewable” energy only, “a foreign concept”."
"Coal is globally, and certainly for South Africa, the most important source of power. The commodity is required for almost every product and structure that we see around us and use every single day, either directly or indirectly. There is virtually no machine, cement, steel, aluminum, building, car, computer, iPhone, or even a solar panel or windmill that can be created without coal. In South Africa, the warnings of many engineers, economists and other experts within the energy sector that South Africa won’t easily walk away from coal has already played itself out in the political scene in 2023 when the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, a former coal miner, called the just energy transition that advocated for a rapid transition towards “renewable” energy only, “a foreign concept”."