Destruction of the Highveld: Part 2 – Burning Coal
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Part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - a - The Destruction of the Highveld Burning Coal The groundWork Report 2017 The Destruction of the Highveld Part 2: Burning Coal Written by David Hallowes and Victor Munnik November 2017 ISBN 978-0-620-77610-3 Published by groundWork P O Box 2375, Pietermaritzburg, 3200, South Africa Tel: +27 (0)33 342 5662 Fax: +27 (0)33 342 5665 e-mail: [email protected] Web: www.groundwork.org.za Cover Credit: Simon Waller Layout and cover design by Boutique Books Printed and bound by Arrow Print, Pietermaritzburg Contents Foreword ......................................................................................................................3 Burning Coal – A brief introduction ....................................................................7 1 Nowhere to run to ............................................................................................... 11 Fires, explosions and leaks............................................................................................15 Metal in the hood ..............................................................................................................20 Metal work ...........................................................................................................................24 Chemicals in the hood .....................................................................................................28 Class war ...............................................................................................................................31 2 Dirty air .................................................................................................................. 36 Breathing is not a choice ................................................................................................38 ....................................54 Tall stacks and looping plumes ...................................................................................58 ‘AdequateThe worst control’possible ............................................................................................................. place for coal fired power stations 72 3 Corporate Highveld ...........................................................................................105 Eskom .................................................................................................................................. 106 Sasol ..................................................................................................................................... 132 Metals .................................................................................................................................. 147 Future energy .................................................................................................................. 170 4 Reinventing the future .....................................................................................180 Prospects for labour ...................................................................................................... 181 Climate ................................................................................................................................ 183 Just transition .................................................................................................................. 190 References ...............................................................................................................199 Part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - 1 - Acronyms AER Atmospheric Emissions Licence APPA Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act of 1965 AQA Air Quality Act of 2004 AQMP Air Quality Management Plan BEE Black Economic Empowerment BIG Basic Income Grant BLIPP Coal Base Load Independent Power Producer BTEX Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl benzene and Xylene CAPCO CO2 Carbon dioxide DEA Chief Department Air Pollution of Environmental Control Officer Affairs DoE Department of Energy DTI Department of Trade and Industry ESP Electrostatic Precipitator FFP Fabric Filter Plant FGD Flue Gas Desulphurisation Gt Gigatonne (a million tonnes) HPA Highveld Priority Area IPCC International Panel on Climate Change IRP Integrated Resource Plan LNB Low NOx Burners MEC Minerals-Energy Complex MES Minimum Emission Standards Ml Megalitre (a million litres) MW Megawatt PM10 Coarse particulates PM2.5 Fine particulates PV Photovoltaic NOx Oxides of nitrogen O3 Ozone RE Renewable Energy REIPPPP Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme SO2 Sulphur dioxide TB Tuberculosis VOC Volatile Organic Compounds - 2 - groundWork - The Destruction of the Highveld Foreword Foreword We need to understand and speak with the periphery of the periphery. – Dr Patrick Maesela, Member of the Portfolio Committee on Health, 8 th September 2017. On the 8th with ensuring of September that people 2017, live for healthy the first lives time in ever,South community Africa. To peopletheir credit, from membersthe coalfields of the of Southportfolio Africa committees spoke with on thosehealth in and political environment leadership came tasked to a power stations are responsible for more than 2 200 deaths a year and how it ismeeting impacting with upon community the country people to tothe hear tune evidence of R30 billion of how a Eskom’syear. The coal-fired meeting was shunned by the portfolio committees on economic development, energy, mineral resources, water and agriculture. At this gathering we were urged to listen to those who are the poorest, as the creation of wealth for a few also produces poverty for many. Listening to those made poor is critical. Having open and honest conversations with people on the periphery in Mpumalanga is what this report seeks to feed into. It is also important how The groundWork Reports speak to the urgent issues of the day. Last year’s report was The Destruction of the Highveld Part 1: Digging Coal. Together with reports and investigations by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, the Centre for Environmental Rights and the South African Human Rights Commission, it spoke to the true nature of coal mining. It showed that there has to be a community-led dialogue on life after coal because governance is failing, the brutality of mining is evident and the promises of wealth for people are false. The groundWork Reports are also known as the Part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - 3 - Foreword Accountability back in 2002, we pride ourselves on taking up the thorny issues ofState the of day. Environmental Justice Reports and, since our first report on Corporate This year’s is no different. In 2015 we put detailed thought into the decision to focus on coal on the Highveld. In the last two years, Eskom and the colliers have been in the news regularly. The violent extraction of resources by the political and corporate elite has been juxtaposed with the impoverishment of the majority of South Africans. This report focuses on the burning of coal and it comes out as a time when various reports by government and NGOs show that air pollution governance is failing in Mpumalanga and other hotspots in South Africa. It is clear from Part 1 that the mining houses have taken good land and have left a barren mess. This report shows how the coal burning industries on the Highveld have a toxic impact on people. People have no choice but to breathe. And they have no choice but to take on dangerous and toxic work – if they can get it. In the world made by coal, metals, chemicals and electric power, government has failed to deliver on the promises made in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution. It is abundantly clear that coal is not pulling people out of poverty. Capitalism is now destroying work. The heyday of the labour intensive industrial revolution – with mass employment, pollution and ill health – is over. We are now entering the era of automated extraction, mass pollution and mass ill health – yes, we have kept those. And the solution to this is not technical, but political, where people understand what coal does to their lands and bodies and then work the desperation of that need. Life after coal is about the social justice slogan ‘anotherthrough theworld question is necessary’. of what It life is going after tocoal be is. a longThere road is no that quick demands fix, despite some of us to give more than we take. It demands a just transition that calls for democratic and patient processes, that includes all and not only the elite. It demands justice for, as long as there is “injustice somewhere, there can’t be - 4 - groundWork - The Destruction of the Highveld Foreword peace anywhere”.1 The coal economy is violent. It causes conflict. Peace is nowhereAs you will to beread, found there in the is coalfieldsmuch evidence of South that Africa. the world is in chaos. The planetary system that we rely on for survival is becoming extremely dangerous editing and layout, hurricane after hurricane has devastated several Caribbean islandsas it responds and parts to the of violencethe United of extraction.States. Sadly, Since as environmental this publication justice went forwriters final we are often thought of as doomsayers, but we cannot keep up with the catastrophic impacts of climate change. Global leaders are again getting ready to hold another ‘Conference of the Parties’ (CoP) on climate change. But this is a leadership that will not take the bold decisions that are needed to secure a just transition to a changed economic and political system. We now have much evidence on the situation in South Africa to show that coal is killing us.