What Port Nolloth tells us about our past and our future
The secret to our growth might lie in the story of Port Nolloth (and the nearby Boegoebaai)
Where is the best country in the world for solar power? Our neighbour, Namibia, aka Nambia.
And so unsurprisingly, the Northern Cape comes very close to being one of the best spots for solar electricity, particularly those deserty and desolate parts near in the northern parts of the Northern Cape. The Northern Cape is also home to the largest wind farms in the country. The Khobab and Loeriesfontein twin wind farms make up a combined 122 wind turbine generators and power 240,000 homes.
This unlocks a huge opportunity that the new world of renewable energy provides us . Cheap energy. It turns out, as Ricardo Hausmann from Harvard has pointed out, that the economics of transporting dirty energy versus clean energy are very different.
Both oil and coal are “energy-dense”. That means that each kilogram of coal and each barrel of oil holds a lot of untapped energy.
The costs of shipping oil and coal are very small compared to the cost of the oil and coal itself. It is therefore cheap to move a ton of coal or a barrel of oil from a mine in South Africa across the world to China where it can turned into electricity to manufacture goods.
The Paris Agreement together with carbon taxes being introduced across the world makes it more and more expensive to use oil and coal for energy. This means that the economics of manufacturing change quite significantly.
Moving solar and wind energy is much more difficult than moving oil and coal energy. One option is to produce “green hydrogen” through electrolysis powered by wind and solar. During periods of down time, the carbon-free green hydrogen can be burnt to produce energy. This is a good way of storing renewable energy and using it at times when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. It is also possible to move the hydrogen and burn it elsewhere - the easiest is by ship.
So you need a cheap way of producing it and a port to move it.
There are two big opportunities for South Africa. The first is to manufacture green hydrogen for export. The second is to attract energy intensive manufacturing to South Africa.
The story of the first option is the little town of Boegoebaai in the Northern Cape. It is perched on the very northern end of South Africa’s long western coast close to the town of Port Nolloth in Namaqualand which has a famous weather station. It is (in relative terms) close to Alexander Bay, where the mighty Orange River pours into the sea.
The story of Port Nolloth is a wonderful metaphor for how the shift towards green energy offers huge opportunities.
Port Nolloth was founded in 1854 as a port for exporting copper. At the time, Namaqualand was a huge source of copper deposits, and during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a significant mining area.
The copper was gradually exhausted, and the town started to decline.
Then in 1925, something remarkable happened. Jack Carstens, the son of a storekeeper who was also the local Reuters correspondent, was exploring the Oubeep farm, south of the port, when he picked up a shiny lump of rock. News of this discovery – the first diamond found on the Namaqualand coast, spread quickly thanks to his father and his newspaper connections. The discoveries quickly followed. Robert Kennedy an experienced prospector, was swimming in the cold sea and looked up to see a diamond-bearing rock. There were fourteen diamonds on the site. And then another prospector – Solomon Rabinowitz – was scratching around mouth of the Orange River. Hidden among the oyster shells, he found 334 diamonds. Clearly, there were rich pickings to be had and by 1926 the mining rights to most of Alexander Bay had been snapped up.
This became one of the most significant diamond producing parts of the world but just as the copper ran out, the diamonds also started to run out and so the area became less important.
But now, the Port has a new opportunity in the form of renewable energy which could become South Africa’s next copper or diamond boom.
Green hydrogen needs to be manufactured using green energy. It can then be transported to other industrial parts of the world on ships and used to create green energy there. In many ways it is like coal – in that it is a source of energy, but green energy.
Boegoebaai is emerging as a prime location for green hydrogen production. What sets Namaqualand apart is its abundant renewable energy resources, with plentiful sunlight and consistent wind patterns. These attributes make it an ideal candidate for renewable energy generation, specifically through solar and wind power, which can be harnessed to produce green hydrogen via electrolysis. This process allows for the clean separation of hydrogen from water without contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
Given the growing global demand for clean hydrogen as a sustainable energy source, this location's accessibility to export routes is a significant advantage.
The Northern Cape, historically less industrialised, stands to benefit from job creation and increased economic activity resulting from these initiatives. The hydrogen produced could be a valuable asset for energy-intensive sectors like mining and industry, aiding their transition toward cleaner energy sources and reducing carbon emissions.
In line with global efforts to combat climate change, the South African government's support for green hydrogen development reinforces Boegoebaai's status as a promising hub for clean energy projects. As technology and infrastructure continue to evolve, Boegoebaai may play a pivotal role in South Africa's contribution to a sustainable and low-carbon future.
While our first opportunity is to export green hydrogen to the rest of the world, the second one lies in energy-intensive manufacturing. For industrial manufacturers that need vast amounts of electricity, the solution is to move close to the sources of electricity. And here South Africa is near the top of the list. If we create a reliable and cheap way for big manufacturing companies to acquire energy, we can transform our manufacturing base. We already have potentially large pools of unskilled labour, and matched with renewable energy this can be a game changer.
This means huge probable changes in global manufacturing value chains. With the right nudges and the right incentives, it may be possible for new industries to be formed in South Africa.
One such option is around the deep-water port of Saldanha Bay located on South Africa's west coast which has a rich history dating back centuries. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama first landed there in 1497, marking its discovery. However, it was the Dutch who established a more significant presence in the 17th century during their colonial expansion. Saldanha Bay was initially considered as a potential harbour due to its strategic location and much deeper waters, but the Dutch ultimately decided against its extensive use. It was a much safer port than the notorious Table Bay in Cape Town, originally named Cape of Storms by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias which was the scene of many shipwrecks.
One of the main reasons the Dutch chose not to make Saldanha Bay a major port was because of a lack of freshwater which is crucial for both sustenance and ship maintenance during the long sea voyages of that era. Instead, the Dutch favoured Cape Town, which had a more reliable water supply and better conditions for supporting their maritime endeavours. Consequently, Cape Town flourished as a colonial port while Saldanha Bay remained a secondary option for occasional anchorage and limited maritime activities.
Today Saldanha Bay has fresh water, a deeper port and easy access to enormous amounts of cheap solar and wind electricity. The West Coast is one of the best parts of the world for wind power, and the nearby northern Cape is one of best places in the world for solar.
Saldanha is also a possible place in which to manufacture green hydrogen – the advantages of being close to endless supplies of sun and wind make it a prime location.
The fire, the wind and the sun
So the story of climate change is how we move our source of energy from carbon, which creates pollution, to the wind and the sun which does not.
For South Africa, one of the sunniest countries in the world, climate change is not something to fear. How we confront it creates both new and significant opportunities.
The story of Port Nolloth is in many ways the story of the South African economy.
First, agriculture, then copper, then diamonds, and now green hydrogen. The copper needed new technologies to be imported to drive their growth; similarly, the diamonds needed new technology. Our history has been built on using our resources – this time, however, we should use our resources wisely in a way that benefits everyone.