FFF: Non-renewable resources in Southern Africa

Southern Africa hosts most of the continent's largest coal and potential hydrocarbon resources. Coal can provide the region with much needed energy in the form of electricity and carbon-based liquid, gaseous and solid carbon- based chemicals, and all this at a far lower cost than materials imported from abroad. Such products would include products for the food, agriculture and metallurgical industries, to name but a few. However, the nature of the Gondwana type coal and the forms of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources have to be taken into account when considering the technologies employed to use them.