Rob Hersov: "Burn the coal, and drill, baby, drill!"
Key topics:
SA’s IRP 2025 bets on costly renewables over reliable coal and gas.
Coal, gas, and nuclear seen as key to energy security and jobs.
Green transition risks wealth outflow, higher tariffs, and instability.
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By Rob Hersov*
South Africa has a new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2025).
It reads like a wish list drafted in Davos and rubber-stamped in Pretoria: 34 gigawatts of wind, 25 of solar, 16 of gas and just 2.5 of nuclear by 2039. The total bill? More than R 2.2 trillion. Behind the glossy charts and “Just Transition” slogans hide a simple question: who pays—and who keeps the lights on while the Greenie/cultural Marxist ideology burns cash?
The Western world is quietly and sensibly walking back from Net Zero
Across Europe and America, governments are discovering that physics beats politics.
The UK’s Clean Power 2030 target—95 percent “low-carbon” electricity by decade-end—is already being watered down. The Tony Blair Institute admits the goal was “right for its time” but now threatens energy bills and competitiveness. In Washington, the U.S. State Department has rejected an UN-style global carbon tax as an attack on sovereignty and growth. Germany has restarted coal plants to keep factories running. Japan is building new coal units under the banner of “high-efficiency thermal.” The Net Zero consensus is fraying.
Why? Because the economics never added up. Offshore wind projects are collapsing under cost inflation; solar supply chains depend on Chinese dominance; and battery storage remains ruinously expensive. Nations are relearning an old truth: reliable baseload power—coal, gas, nuclear—is not a moral failure. It’s civilisation’s plumbing.
South Africa’s risky bet
The IRP 2025 assumes that Eskom’s ancient coal fleet, already operating at about 54 percent energy-availability, can be rapidly replaced by intermittent renewables and imported gas. Yet load-shedding cost the economy roughly R 270 billion in 2023—five percent of GDP. That’s not a “transition”; it’s national self-harm.
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Coal still supplies around 58 percent of our electricity and supports over 90 000 direct mining jobs. Those wages circulate in towns like Emalahleni and Lephalale—the beating heart of South African industry. Shuttering that backbone before credible replacements exist is like firing your best revenue team while your start-up still lives on credit.
Wind and solar have their place—but not as the foundation of a heavy-industrial economy. Each megawatt of renewable capacity requires a mirror megawatt of backup from gas, diesel or batteries. When clouds gather or the wind dies, production stops. Grid expansion and storage add billions more in hidden costs, all passed to the consumer.
Gas and nuclear: the bridge to realism
The IRP does include 16 GW of new gas generation. That’s a start, but timid. South Africa sits atop onshore gas in the Karoo and promising offshore reserves along the Orange Basin. Fast-track exploration, build LNG import terminals, and sign take-or-pay supply contracts with private operators. Gas can stabilise the grid within five years if we get regulation out of the way.
Nuclear must also move from afterthought to anchor. Koeberg has proved reliable for four decades. Modern small-modular reactors can be built faster, safer, and with higher load factors than any renewable project. The IRP’s token 2.5 GW target should be tripled by 2040. France runs on 70 percent nuclear and enjoys both low-cost power and low emissions. That’s what pragmatic climate action looks like.
Follow the money
The green transition isn’t a charity project. It’s a global supply chain directed by foreign investors, development banks and NGOs who earn management fees from every megawatt “deployed.” Every imported turbine, every financed solar farm, means hard currency leaving the country. Meanwhile, our domestic coal mines are taxed, vilified and starved of capital. It’s a transfer of wealth from local labour to offshore balance sheets dressed up as virtue.
Businesspeople understand this instinctively. If South Africa (Pty) Ltd were a company, its executives are closing the cash-cow division—coal—while borrowing billions to fund a risky start-up—wind & solar Inc.—that can’t deliver product on time. Shareholders—citizens—are diluted, dividends (public services) suspended, and the auditors (rating agencies) are nervous. A competent board would stabilise core operations first, diversify later.
The moral misdirection
Criticising Net Zero isn’t climate denial; it’s economic realism. South Africa emits about 1 percent of global CO₂. Even if we shut every coal station tomorrow, global temperatures wouldn’t shift a rounding error. Yet the cost to our people—jobs lost, tariffs doubled, industries fleeing—would be catastrophic. Environmental stewardship matters, but poverty is the dirtiest fuel of all.
What must change
Refit and extend: Keep Medupi and Kusile running with flue-gas scrubbers and modern efficiency upgrades. Cleaner coal is possible—and cheaper than premature retirement.
Drill and build: Approve exploration licences for on- and offshore gas. Partner with private capital, not state monopolies.
Scale nuclear: Commit to at least 7 GW by 2040. Nuclear technology is the ultimate hedge against volatility.
Reform Eskom: Split generation, transmission and distribution; tie executive pay to plant availability and cash flow. Publish monthly performance dashboards.
Transparent tenders: End rent-seeking in renewable contracts. If a project needs endless subsidies to survive, it’s not viable.
Measure success not by ideology but by a single metric: GDP per kilowatt-hour generated. When that rises, ordinary South Africans win.
The cost of inaction
If we continue to chase fashionable targets rather than reliable supply, we’ll repeat the Eskom crisis at national scale. The next five years will decide whether South Africa is an energy exporter or a failed-state importer of diesel. Investors don’t fund uncertainty. They follow reliability, rule of law and power that stays on.
The upside of courage
Imagine a South Africa that doubles down on its strengths: coal modernised, gas expanded, nuclear scaled, renewables added only where grid stability allows. Electricity prices fall, manufacturing revives, exports grow, and young engineers see opportunity at home rather than abroad. That’s the dividend of independence.
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As Churchill said, “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” We need courage to defy global groupthink and design policy for South Africans, not for conference applause.
My closing thought
The lights that power this nation are more than electrons; they’re the lifeblood of sovereignty. Our ancestors mined the coal that forged the modern economy. Our children deserve a country that values competence over slogans. Burn the coal. Harness the gas. Build the reactors. Keep the power—and the power of decision—here at home.
My vote will always be for energy independence - burn the coal, and drill, baby, drill!
References:
• Department of Mineral Resources & Energy – Integrated Resource Plan 2025 (Infographics), Oct 2025
• Eskom Holdings – Annual Report 2024
• National Treasury – Macroeconomic Review 2024
• Stats SA – Labour Market Quarterly Q2 2024
• Tony Blair Institute for Global Change – Clean Power 2030 Report, 23 Oct 2025
• U.S. State Department – Statement on IMO Net Zero Framework, 22 Oct 2025
• Engineering News – “IRP 2025 Raises Gas Load Factor to 50 %,” 19 Oct 2025
*Rob Hersov, South African businessman and patriot