The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries this month placed an advertisement for service providers to take a fresh look at greenhouse gas (GHG) emission guidelines and carbon space allocation in what could be a great boost for SA’s green-promoting platinum group metals (PGMs). A Mining Weekly report notes that SA is among the 15 largest emitters of GHGs, which cause environmental degradation. The use of SA’s superior sunshine and prime wind is seen as an economically viable alternative to generate clean renewable energy and thereby increase energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and create ‘green’ jobs concurrently. The advertisement, placed jointly with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), called for expression of interest from service providers in the review of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Performance Guidelines, which were developed to assist in the mitigation part of Climate Change Impact Assessments, as well as to review carbon space allocation processes to new entrants into the market. With the help of SA’s locally mined PGMs, the sun and wind can be harnessed to produce clean hydrogen, with the help of electrolysers that also use PGMs as catalysts. Clean electricity can, in turn, be generated from the hydrogen, with the help of PGM-catalysed fuel cells.

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