Student Number : 9202134A - PhD thesis - School of Civil and Environmental Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / South Africa’s energy economy is dominated by coal, which produces relatively high emissions of greenhouse and noxious gases during combustion. This causes environmental problems that may lead to health risks that are cause for concern. In this thesis, various propositions are tested about whether in the Cape Metropolitan Area natural gas is a lower cost energy source than coal for generating base load power within a specified range of capacity factors under different scenarios. The problem being investigated is the uncertainty about the quantified effect that revenue from monetised carbon dioxide credits and inclusion of damage costs would have on the breakeven selling price of electricity, if natural gas were substituted for coal for generating base load power in the above Area. The research procedure entailed conceptualising and developing technical details of four power generation scenarios and reviewing various tools for cost-benefit analysis. Next, a Te- Con Techno-Economic Simulator model and screening curves were selected from a suite of potential tools. The power generation cost profiles for coal and natural gas were determined, followed by sensitivity analysis. The model was populated and used to compare the lifecycle economic performance of coal and natural gas technologies. Natural gas emerged as a lower cost energy source than coal for generating base load power within a specified range of capacity factors under all the scenarios. This thesis recommends the following: the introduction of tax holidays and favourable capital equipment depreciation regimes to stimulate natural gas exploration; the use of natural gas as an energy source to promote small-scale enterprises in communities contiguous to gas transmission pipelines; in addition, electricity prices should reflect damage costs in order to internalise externalities associated with power generation. The contribution to knowledge is the innovative way of financing the gas-fired power generation project by using the monetised carbon dioxide credits under the novel Clean Development Mechanism to redeem a bank and a shareholders’ loan. This could result in reducing the loan payment by 4.3 years, saving 38 % in interest payments and allow scarce finance available for project funding to be extended to other projects to the advantage of national economic development.

This doctoral thesis deals with the valuation of damage to buildings affected by floods. In its individual parts, it researches floods as a risk, focuses on the damage caused by this natural phenomenon and examines the methods used to assess the damages caused by floods. With the beginnings of human settlement, the vicinity of rivers has been inhabited for the many befits that watercourses bring. However, there are many dangers associated with this, especially the ones associated with the spillage of riverbeds – with floods. This phenomenon causes considerable damage to property, the environment or human health and lives. There are many measures to eliminate the risk of flooding, or at least mitigate its effects. This work further researches the mitigating of impacts – it examines the methods of determining the amount of damage to buildings caused by floods, looks for factors and parameters influencing the amount of damage and focuses on streamlining these methods. The aim of the thesis is to find a suitable methodology/model that can automate the calculation of the amount of damage, or in other words, to find a quick and at the same time sufficiently accurate solution to this problem. The main output of the thesis is the equation of the damage curve and a model for the amount of damage calculation based on the principle of damage curves using the hybrid genetic algorithm. Another output is a practical tool that works on the basis of the said algorithm and automatically calculates the amount of damage to the building when entering very basic information about the damaged object.