The untapped paradox of water and energy in South Africa

Image: Hartebeesport Dam in March 2009 by Kristina Gubic

Driving over the Hartebeesport Dam wall in March this year I couldn't help being struck by a wave of irony. Thousands of litres of water were pulsing over the dam wall - untapped, on its way to who knows where.

I was on my way to visit a rural community just 15 kilometres away from the dam that has been experiencing water shortages for several years. At the heart of Modderspruit's frustration is a supply line that sees water from the Hartebeesport Dam being taken on a 100 kilometre detour before trickling into the village. One sensible engineer could remedy this in a heartbeat, yet a group of dozens of officials at several municipalities continue to debate the solution while people from the community risk their lives daily crossing the N4 toll road to fetch water from a working borehole.

With several issues like climate change, a looming energy crisis and lack of water delivery to millions of South Africans in rural parts of the country, all colliding in my brain, I mused over the absence of a turbine on the dam wall that might harness the power generating capacity of the flow and help dilute our current dirty coal dominated energy mix.

Hydro power remains one of the cleanest forms of energy available to us. As the Gauteng rainy season has swelled over recent years - no doubt due to climate change - I wondered why has this avenue has not yet being explored? There is a real opportunity here to exploit a burgeoning environmental disaster and capture its megalithic flow for good. There are several opencast mines in the region of Brits and Rustenberg - who are no doubt massive energy consumers - and who all have an incentive from Eskom to reduce their energy demand on the grid and surely with some corporate collaboration, funding a feasibility study and the necessary technology would be a piece of cake?

Back in Modderspruit, as I stood talking to a women clad in an ANC campaign t-shirt, retelling the horrors of how those not nimble enough to haul their 25 litre drum of water back across the busy N4 without incident, I cast my own hopeful vote for a new government that will after 15 years stop blaming the legacy of Apartheid for the infrastrcuture backlog and just get on with the job.