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Hello and welcome to the So What podcast, in which political economic analyst JP Landman

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discusses the issues uppermost in the minds of South Africans.

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You can find a written version of this content on JP's website, jplandman.co.za.

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I am Ruda Landman and I am your host.

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These first few recordings were done at our dining room table, but we will soon be moving

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into a studio.

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Hello and a very warm welcome to another recording to go with JP's newsletter.

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This one is dated the 23rd of November 2022 and the heading COP27 and South Africa, a

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basic introduction.

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I think we need to, as you do in your first paragraph, sort out some background, some

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jargon.

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Why is it called COP?

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Why is it 27?

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Why is Paris important in the history and how does South Africa fit in?

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Yeah, now indeed, those are the starting points.

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COP is simply the convention of the parties.

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The full title is the Convention of the Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

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This is a conference that has been held every year now for 27 years.

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The first one, COP1, was in 1993 and as I say, it's been going on every year.

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South Africa has got a long political commitment to the COP process.

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We were involved from the very first one.

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We also hosted COP17 in Durban in South Africa and the whole COP process actually came out

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of the Johannesburg Sustainable Development Conference, which was held way back before

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that time.

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Paris is important because over the 27 years, the parties to the United Nations Conference

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on Climate Change have struggled to reach meaningful consensus on what can be done about

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climate change.

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An agreement was reached at Kyoto, but George Bush, previous US president, would draw the

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United States from that agreement.

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So it collapsed.

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Then the parties had to start all over again.

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And then in 2015, an agreement was made at Paris.

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And the Paris Agreement essentially said that the nations of the world commit themselves

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to take steps to reduce carbon emissions to a level sustainable with an increase in global

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temperatures of not more than one and a half to 2%.

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South Africa was part of that agreement.

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When Zuma was then the president of the country, he was in Paris, he agreed to it.

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And the following year in April 2016, Edna Muleva, who is late minister in the cabinet

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of Zuma, signed the agreement, the physical document on behalf of South Africa.

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So yeah, we've had a long commitment to this convention of the parties.

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It's about climate change.

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And the commitment that South Africa has made, like so many things in the Zuma government,

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the ideas were articulated, but they were not in them.

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Two years ago in 2021, South Africa actually set a target for a number for the reduction

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in carbon emissions from the country to be sustainable or to be on a level of climate

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change of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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And the government determined that to be 350 to 375 tons per annum, the maximum number

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of tons that can be emitted.

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Now at that stage, we were admitting as a country about 450 tons.

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It has come down to 420, but from 420 to 350 to 375, it's still a 17% reduction.

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And that is what the Just Economic Transition Plan is about.

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It sets out the practical steps that need to be taken to achieve that 17% reduction,

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but it also sets out the money side.

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How are you going to pay for it and fund this reduction?

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Where do we fit into the global picture?

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Are we a big emitter?

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It does this matter?

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Yes, we are a big emitter.

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We are really just look at the number of tons of carbon emissions, carbon equivalent emissions,

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then we are the 13th largest in the world.

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Now if you think that our economy is about 28 to 29th in size, if you think that the

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companies like the US, like China, India, much, much bigger companies and much bigger

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economies than ours, for us to be number 13, nonetheless, is quite high.

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If you adjust for population and you look at emissions per capita, then we're coming

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at about number 15 in the world, still high.

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So our per capita emissions are sitting at about 7.5 tons per person per year, and the

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global average is about 4.8.

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So we are a really big emitter in all terms.

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Why is that the case?

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Why are we such a big emitter?

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I suppose the short answer is history catching up with us.

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It's coal.

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South Africa generates, at least used to generate almost 100% of its electricity from coal.

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Plus we have a simple fuel industry, which is a very successful industry and it serves

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South Africa very well, but it has had enormous negative consequences around coal.

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So what are those negative consequences?

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Well, carbon emissions is number one, but there's also environmental and a health dimension.

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You're going to Mopulanga, where most of the coal activities are concentrated.

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There are a range of indicators indicating that the people living there are suffering

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severe health consequences, self disadvantages.

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You look at the pollution of soil, you look at the pollution of water.

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These things are all the downside of coal.

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So coal on the one hand was very good for us, but coal on the other hand has been very

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bad for us.

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It has certainly been bad for our relationships.

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And that's why we need to do something about it.

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So do we have a plan?

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Yes, that is the whole point of the so-called JET, Just Energy Transition.

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It's a plan for how we can move from where we are to where we want to go.

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But it's also a plan for trying to manage the negative consequences of this transition.

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A lot of people will lose their jobs.

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A lot of small towns will close down.

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A lot of businesses will close down, use their business models.

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So you have to try and manage these things as well as you can.

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And that is what is called JET, or Just Energy Transition.

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It's a 216 page document, government has published.

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This note is merely the briefest of summaries, but it's a very comprehensive plan of where

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we want to go.

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And essentially, it talks about the three priorities, electricity, new energy vehicles

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and hydrogen.

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Now the plan will cost about in round terms, 1.5 trillion rand over five years, 1.48 actually

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over five years.

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70% of that money will be spent on electricity.

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Can I just put that in perspective?

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What is South Africa's national budget for the year?

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Well, our GDP this year will be about 6 trillion rand.

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So 1.5 is an enormous chunk.

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But that's of course, it's 1.5 spread over five years, but it's still a lot.

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And if you bring into consideration that most of that 1.5 trillion over 1.3 trillion will

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be capital expenditure, infrastructure expenditure, then you can see that it's going to have a

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huge impact on the country.

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So as I've said, 70% of the money will go to electricity.

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Whatever that be used for, it'll be used for the first, the biggest item will be to build

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more and new capacity.

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About 46% of that money will be spent on building new wind farms and new solar farms.

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So it's clear which way the wind is blowing, so to speak.

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The second biggest project, about 130 billion rand will be spent on upgrading the South

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African transmission grid, so then you could accommodate all these renewables.

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It's no good having wind farms and some solar farms, and you can't get the electricity generated

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there spread over the country to where it is needed.

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To do that, we've got to upgrade the grid.

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And that'll be about 131 billion.

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And then the third element of electricity is the distribution systems, i.e. electricity

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inside municipalities.

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Now we all know how that infrastructure has been neglected and depleted in those cases,

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if not all.

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And you will have to spend a lot of money to upgrade that and bring that to the level

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that is needed.

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And the money it visits for that is about 200 billion.

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Now in the context of emissions, which is where this whole thing starts, ESCOM is going

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to close down nine of its 15 coal-fired power stations.

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Basically it is now eight of 14 because commodity closed down on 31 October.

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They switched the last unit off according to 12 on the 36th.

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So there are now 14 coal-fired power stations, eight of them will be closed down, and you

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have to replace that with something else.

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And the replacement will be largely new, but also a bit of gas and probably a bit of nuclear.

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In the context of emissions, the closing down of those nine or now eight power stations

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will cut the coal consumption for electricity production by 50%.

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It will cut it from 113 million tonnes per year to about 55, 56 million tonnes.

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So it's a huge cut in coal consumption, and that will help to bring down our emissions.

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They're aiming to do that, Bonnie, what did you say?

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The date for closing down the power stations, the last date is 2034.

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It'll happen in phases, but the last one will be out by 2034.

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Now you think that is now, that's only about, it's up in 2022, it's only 12 years away.

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It's actually not at one time.

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So you have to really move to get renewables and other sources of power generation into

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the system before you close down the last of those power stations.

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The second element is the new energy vehicles.

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That's not something that's so much on our radar.

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Now that all and note the category, the category is new energy vehicles, not just electric

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vehicles, although that is where the attention is.

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It's also using hydrogen as an energy source for particularly heavy transport.

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Now and your platinum, for example, is running those huge trucks that they use for mining

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at the mine in Mokolakwina using now hydrogen trucks.

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It's quite an astonishing thing.

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So the idea is that you slowly expand the frontier and go from those big trucks to other

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trucks running on the highways, to buses if possible, to trains and of course, airplanes.

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Those are your big energy emitters.

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And if you can deal with them by way of electricity and hydrogen, it will make a big contribution

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to the reduction in emissions.

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The nice thing about new energy vehicles, as in the case of platinum, the private sector

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can do the investment.

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They will make the money out of it, out of selling electric vehicles as they're currently

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doing.

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They'll make the money out of new infrastructure, which is put out to accommodate the vehicles.

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So one can expect them to do the bulk of the investment in this category of new electric

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vehicles, just as private companies are doing almost all the investment in renewable energy

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up to date.

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It's a typical private sector activity.

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And then the third element, green hydrogen, what does that mean?

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Yeah, hydrogen, you're seeing hydrogen in terms of colors, hydrogen is being manufactured

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to the moment in the world and it's called gray hydrogen, white gray, because fossil

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fuels are used to produce that hydrogen.

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When you switch from fossil fuels in the production to renewables, then the resultant hydrogen

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is called green hydrogen.

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It is called pink hydrogen if you use neoclear power and it is called blue if you use fossil

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fuels, but you do capturing of the carbon emissions.

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So these colors tell us about different processes.

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And essentially the point is to switch the worlds to do two things.

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First of all, switch hydrogen production from carbon gray that is using fossil fuels to

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green, which is using renewables.

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But secondly, also to expand the fields and the areas of natural life where hydrogen can

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be used.

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Hydrogen has got three problems.

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Basically there's a price problem and there is a safety problem.

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If hydrogen interacts with oxygen, it can lead to a huge blow up.

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And thirdly, storage.

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It's not that easy to restore and transport hydrogen.

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But a lot of people are investing a lot of time and money into pushing the technology

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frontiers of all these areas as India Platinum is doing at their mine.

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So I would expect huge probabilities to come in the next couple of years.

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The war that Russia has launched on Ukraine will also help.

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At the moment we see some regressions that's inevitable because it's an emergency situation.

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But what the war has done is to illustrate how vulnerable the world is to fossil fuel

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supplies and that is spurring particularly the Germans on to look at alternatives.

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And the German chancellor has been here to South Africa on a state visit.

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And as I've said to people, the visit only lasted about 20 hours.

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The Luftwaffe couldn't fly from Berlin to Johannesburg and back in 20 hours.

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You flew more than the time you spent on the ground here.

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Why did the chancellor do it?

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Well, he's done it to come and sign agreements with the government, but also with SASL around

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developing hydrogen technologies for use in Germany, for use in the world, but essentially

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sponsored by the German government.

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So hydrogen is the next big thing where a lot of energy and money and the search for

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new technology will go on.

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You and I have been to the West coast of South Africa, to Wohel Bay, which is 60 kilometers

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north of Port Mollusk, between Port Mollusk and the mouth of the Orange River, the border

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with Namibia.

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There's nothing there as you will recall, but the idea is to, the feasibility studies

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are going on now to build a deep sea harbor there.

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And not just a deep sea harbor, but also a railway line and to use that as a point for

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exporting hydrogen to Europe.

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So I would expect over the next 10 years for hydrogen in South Africa to become a major

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economic activity and exporting it to world markets.

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You have touched on this, but all of this is going to cost enormous amounts of money.

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Well, what does the funding plan look like?

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Yeah, that is in the sense that most, not the most interesting, but it is an interesting

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part of the basic jet plan.

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As we discussed earlier, it'll cost about 1.5 trillion over the first five years and

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of course much more thereafter.

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We just remember South Africa has not only made a goal now for reducing carbon emissions,

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it also set the goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.

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So it's an ongoing process.

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It's not something that can stop after five years.

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But the first five years will cost 1.5 trillion.

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Now a group of countries and the European Union and the World Bank, basically the UK,

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the US, France, Germany, those four companies, the EU and the climate change funds, which

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are administered by the World Bank, so it's all in all six players, have contributed $8.5

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billion US dollars to this just economic transition of South Africa.

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You work at an exchange rate of 15 to one, which is perhaps conservative, you're looking

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at 128 billion rare that will come into the country.

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Most of that money, the first phase, not all of it, but most of it will probably be used

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to upgrade the grid.

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The first monies have already coming, France and Germany have signed agreements with the

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National Treasury in South Africa for 600 million euros, euros, not dollars, of concessional

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cheap funding.

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20 years, five year growth period, interest rate about three and a quarter cent.

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So that money will flow into Treasury and Treasury can then allocate the two programs

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around just transition.

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Then we had 495 million US dollars, that's about 9 billion grand, which has been linked

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by the World Bank, ISCOM, again on really favorable terms, for ISCOM to do the repurposing

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of the commodity power structure.

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Now there's a difference between closing something down and repurposing.

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The repurposing will cost money and the idea is to help ISCOM to achieve that and change

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what is there now from coal to renewables.

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So that money has also come in.

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Then an interesting development is the third channel of the money so far are from international

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charity organizations.

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There's a very interesting list of them.

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There's a Bezos Foundation, for example.

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Clearly while Mr. Bezos is busy trying to fight with the moon or whatever, he also has

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a charity that's looking after, wants to look after this environment here on the planet.

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And they are sponsoring mainly training and research activities, things for which there's

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no commercial return.

255
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$10 million in one case and 180 million rand in another case to do training and in general

256
00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:37,240
help with just transition at Comarty and now also at Switzerland, which will be another

257
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:39,440
tower stage metal closed down.

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So you've got these, you've got governments, you've got international institutions, multilateral

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banks and you've got international charities, those three.

260
00:18:49,240 --> 00:18:53,640
And then of course, South Africa itself would have to invest and the way it will come is

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by way of biosector investment, as we've discussed.

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The private sector have both the solar industry and the wheat industry so far in South Africa.

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I foresee that they will build the electric vehicle industry in South Africa.

264
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,880
I foresee that they will build the hydrogen industry.

265
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:13,800
Those are all classic biosector investments because there's no return.

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CEC is really an example of how this can play out and it makes the just transition much

267
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:23,880
more tangible.

268
00:19:23,880 --> 00:19:25,480
Yeah, absolutely.

269
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:29,560
So what's happening at Comarty, as I've already said, they closed it down and switched the

270
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:32,200
last unit off on 31 October.

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00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:37,920
And what they're doing there is they're putting up 150 megawatts solar plant, a 70 megawatt

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00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:44,640
wind farm so that'll produce about 220 megawatts between those two technologies, as well as

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150 megawatts of batteries.

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So you produce the power that goes into the battery and that can help you to extend the

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00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:53,440
supply of electricity.

276
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The transmission lines are right there so you don't have to build anything.

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You just feed it into the grid and goes to wherever the power is needed.

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00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:06,200
Now, of course, the building of the new plants and so on and the batteries will cost money.

279
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:08,960
And that's part of what ISCOM got the money from.

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00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:14,920
But ISCOM has also signed an agreement with the Cape University of Technology because

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00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:21,120
at the Cape University of Technology, they've developed curricula and a program around retraining

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00:20:21,120 --> 00:20:26,860
people to switch from coal into solar industry or to go into the wind industry.

283
00:20:26,860 --> 00:20:32,240
And those curricula programs have now been accepted by CEC for use...

284
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At ISCOM?

285
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:38,760
At ISCOM, sorry, by ISCOM, and then I keep on saying CEC for use at Kumati.

286
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And they will also use it at the third flight and the other stations.

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So there you retraining people.

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A third aspect which is taking place at the moment in Kumati is that you use the land,

289
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:54,260
which is available around the power station, for agricultural purposes.

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So you establish small farmers there and enable them to grow food for the local area and so

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on.

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And it's all part and parcel of learning how to live with this transition.

293
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And one can only learn as one goes along.

294
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I think that's what ISCOM is doing.

295
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:17,060
It's interesting that you say that under the debate they've raised 180 million for a training

296
00:21:17,060 --> 00:21:23,360
center through its lay and observed that there are 16,000 vacancies right now in solar and

297
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wind industry.

298
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So people are going to do these jobs, but there will also be new opportunities.

299
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Oh, absolutely.

300
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:36,520
You know, if you think about it, 60,000 vacancies in an industry which is really flourishing.

301
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:40,920
I mean, a lot of wind farms have been built, a lot of solar farms have been built.

302
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:47,000
So the people skills, they don't have enough skills, 60,000 vacancies and we have millions

303
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,440
of people unemployed.

304
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:50,200
It is just such a logical fit.

305
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:54,920
Now, not everybody who will be the trench from a power station will necessarily get

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a job at a wind farm.

307
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We must just be realistic about that.

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But you are creating new jobs in a new industry and you are helping people, training people

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to get into those industries.

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So that's the upside of the transition.

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That's also the just element of the transition.

312
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Such huge changes will not come without resistance.

313
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:17,240
Absolutely.

314
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:18,240
What's happening politically?

315
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:24,120
Well, politically, you basically have two groups out of service to go to the one group

316
00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:27,160
which is jokingly known as the Green Taliban.

317
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:33,200
They are absolutely against anything except wind and solar and of course, batteries.

318
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:39,400
Now that's a nice pure position to have, but that's not how it's going to be for like

319
00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:40,400
a while.

320
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:44,240
So actually, we'll still use coal for a long time and we will probably have to look at

321
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,800
nuclear for base power as well.

322
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:49,400
And you cannot have renewables if you don't have gas.

323
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:55,280
The big thing about gas, as you know from your house or you know from a gas stove, it's

324
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:56,280
dispatchable.

325
00:22:56,280 --> 00:22:57,880
You can switch it on and off.

326
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,640
You cannot switch a coal-fired power station on and off.

327
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:04,480
You also cannot switch a nuclear power station on and off.

328
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:07,040
So you need dispatchable power.

329
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:08,580
It's part of your mix.

330
00:23:08,580 --> 00:23:16,280
So the idea that only wind, only solar, nothing else will serve so much energy needs is very

331
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:19,720
pure but it's a bit extreme.

332
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:26,200
And the people that are really far on that side have now gone so far as to lobby international

333
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:32,480
governments and the national philanthropists not to give any money to South Africa because

334
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,480
South Africa is not closing down coal completely.

335
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:37,960
So that's the one side of the political spectrum.

336
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,480
On the other side of the political spectrum, you have people with an interest in the coal

337
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:45,840
industry or just people with a political interest in coal.

338
00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:49,520
And they're saying that people will lose their jobs, which is quite right.

339
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Towns will die, which is quite right.

340
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And they have much more validity in their argument than the other side, I dare say.

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But industries decline.

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This country, the coal mining industry, declined and it's a shadow of what it was.

343
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:10,680
Agriculture has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs after the deregulation of agriculture

344
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:11,680
in 1996.

345
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,660
Telecom is a shadow of what it was.

346
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Many people have lost their jobs because technology has driven change.

347
00:24:19,460 --> 00:24:22,200
So industries change, that is how life is.

348
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,240
It's like the sun rising and setting.

349
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You can't stop that.

350
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,760
What you can do is to try and manage to fall out as well as possible.

351
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Now if you compare the Just Energy Transition Plan now with training centers of commodity

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and retraining people and creating new economic activity, you compare that to the way that

353
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we handled or not handled the decline of the coal mining industry or how we've not handled

354
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the decline of employment and agriculture or not handled the decline at the SOEs like

355
00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:00,920
telecom and trans-state and others, then this is much, much better than anything that we've

356
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,240
done in the past.

357
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,600
In the past, we've never really paid any attention.

358
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:10,680
We spoke about the social contract and social upliftment, but also all was said and done

359
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,920
much more than was actually said and done.

360
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:19,360
Compared with energy, there is a chance of managing the negative fallouts from the process

361
00:25:19,360 --> 00:25:20,360
more effectively.

362
00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:23,960
There will still be bodies in the street, might not mistake, but at least you can try

363
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,400
and minimize the bodies.

364
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,080
I'm going to just lift out three of your so-whats.

365
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:36,540
The first one, you say the catastrophe of load shedding is actually galvanizing the

366
00:25:36,540 --> 00:25:38,640
transition to green energy.

367
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:39,640
Expand in a minute.

368
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:46,400
Yeah, look, all of us who read history, people who are interested in large, must be struck

369
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,080
by the irony of what's going on here.

370
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:51,400
We're having really a catastrophe with load shedding.

371
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,680
I don't think anybody will disagree with that statement, but this catastrophe is also spurring

372
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,000
the country along to alternatives.

373
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:06,520
We had 100% electricity supply all the time coming from coal-fired power stations.

374
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,560
We would not have started the just transition.

375
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:15,320
We would have kept pumping out those 435 tons of carbon equivalent emissions every year,

376
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:20,680
and we would have had no commercial or political incentive to change.

377
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:26,600
Load shedding paradoxically, and what must be one of the biggest ironies in our history,

378
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:30,980
is actually pushing the country towards an energy transition.

379
00:26:30,980 --> 00:26:36,320
The fact that we now have a democracy and an open political society is also forcing

380
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,520
that transition to look at the just element.

381
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,840
Something that we didn't do in the decline of gold mining, we didn't do in agriculture.

382
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:46,040
The other examples I've mentioned.

383
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:50,440
I think we are in that sense quite lucky that we have to do the transition.

384
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:55,360
We forced to do it, but the fact that we have a democracy is helping us to do it in a more

385
00:26:55,360 --> 00:26:57,760
just way.

386
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,240
I also want to make the point lead to that.

387
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:05,680
You've got that, so Patrick has got a long political commitment to climate, to the whole

388
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:07,520
climate change process.

389
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:12,840
The World Summit on Sustainable Development was held here in Johannesburg.

390
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,000
One of the COP meetings were held in Durban.

391
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:19,600
We've agreed to do originally to the Kyoto Protocol.

392
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:25,440
When that collapsed after the US were drawn, we agreed to Paris, Trump took the US out

393
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:26,660
of Paris.

394
00:27:26,660 --> 00:27:32,360
We stayed, and we were committed to the process all the way through.

395
00:27:32,360 --> 00:27:38,000
It is not true or not correct that we've now suddenly woken up and signed onto this.

396
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,560
I think that's an important perspective to bring.

397
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,640
One of the so what's is the long political commitment.

398
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:48,200
This is merely a practical outflow of that commitment.

399
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:53,960
The other point you make that I think is really important for people to note is that this

400
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,960
is not simple and it's not going to happen overnight.

401
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:57,960
Absolutely.

402
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:04,040
This Just Energy Plan covers only the first five years of a process that will run the

403
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:05,040
2050.

404
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,960
There will be a multiple transition.

405
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:09,960
It's not just one.

406
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:15,320
Kumati will transition, Kharutphule will transition, ISKCON will transition, but the whole country

407
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:16,840
over time will transition.

408
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:18,960
The auto industry will transition.

409
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,880
The logistics industry will transition with hydrogen and so on.

410
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,380
It's several transitions.

411
00:28:25,380 --> 00:28:27,480
It will come over a multitude of years.

412
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:29,880
It's not going to be an overnight story.

413
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:36,160
It will cost many, many multi-families to pay for all this.

414
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:37,160
It's an old new ballgame.

415
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:43,400
It's a country we will have to learn and we will learn to adjust to it and to play according

416
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,360
to a new set of new set of roles.

417
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:49,560
The run of ISKCON?

418
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:54,840
One can be provocative and say ISKCON will decline and you can say it's finished in

419
00:28:54,840 --> 00:29:00,400
Tlar, that's not necessarily the case, but it certainly will have a much diminished hope.

420
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,000
That is the whole purpose of the changes going on.

421
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:04,800
That's the whole outcome.

422
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:10,800
Where we had five years ago, 10 years ago, a monopoly supplier of electricity that belonged

423
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:16,200
to the state, you will move to a competitive market in electricity belonging to private

424
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,680
sector players, certainly on the generation side.

425
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:24,440
If you take Transmission out of ISKCON as well, then it will not be left with very much

426
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,840
it to become a shadow of its former self.

427
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,520
But I think what is important here, I've written about this and we've covered it, that what's

428
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:37,400
important here is that we must distinguish between ISKCON and electricity.

429
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:44,520
Even if we say for purposes of the argument that ISKCON is kaput, it's finished in Tlar,

430
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:49,960
that doesn't mean that electricity is finished in Tlar, in spite of the kind of load shifting.

431
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:55,480
Especially because so much more money is going into new generating capacity in new technologies.

432
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:57,520
And that's where the future of electricity will come from.

433
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,280
So draw a distinction between ISKCON and electricity.

434
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,080
They are increasingly not the same.

435
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,400
Thank you very much.

436
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:11,040
This draws a picture of a quite different future.

437
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:17,360
Sounds almost like the Industrial Revolution, where steam came into the picture and changed

438
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:18,360
everything.

439
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,400
I think that's a very fair comparison.

440
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:26,120
We like to talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution as technology and digital and so

441
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:28,240
on, and that's of course correct.

442
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:34,560
But the Green Revolution is certainly also going to be an Industrial Revolution of enormous

443
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:36,440
magnitude.

444
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:42,700
And technology of course will help with that.

445
00:30:42,700 --> 00:30:45,240
Thank you for listening to the So What Podcast.

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00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:50,300
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00:30:50,300 --> 00:30:54,440
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448
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