Conference Paper/Report

South Africa and the future of World Energy Resources

The article is based on papers presented at the Cape Town Symposium on energy. ‘Energy in Relation to Growth’ talks about the interrelationships between economic growth, energy requirements, raw material resources and depletion, food supplies, pollution and population as being very complex. ‘International Political Aspects of the World Energy Crisis’ looks at how up till now, world needs and demand for energy resources have been regulated by the free market mechanism which operated internationally in all the processes related to energy. ‘World Oil Supply and Demand’ says that it is only through technological advancement on issues like nuclear power, solar energy, electricity and the like, that present situation of uncertainty cab be permanently solved. ‘Coal: The Use and Conservation of Resources’ says that as a result of the energy crisis attention has been focused not only on the price of oil, but also on the reserve availabilities of both oil and coal. ‘The Future of Nuclear Energy: South Africa in Relation to World Developments’ speaks on how the oil problem has only served to add momentum to the rapidly increasingly orders for nuclear power plants. ‘Electric Power in Southern Africa’ divides into two themes, the Future of Thermal Generation of Electricity and the Development of Hydro-Electric Power. The article then concludes with two speeches. [Note: The graph on page 4, Figure 1 is not clear].