Part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - a

1 part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - a - The Destruction of the HighveldBurning CoalThe groundWork report 2017 The Destruction of the Highveld part 2: Burning CoalWritten by David Hallowes and Victor MunnikNovember 2017 ISBN 978-0-620-77610-3 Published by groundWorkP O Box 2375, Pietermaritzburg, 3200, South AfricaTel: +27 (0)33 342 5662 Fax: +27 (0)33 342 5665e-mail: Credit: Simon WallerLayout and cover design by Boutique BooksPrinted and bound by Arrow Print, Pietermaritzburg part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - 1 - ContentsForeword.

2 3 Burning Coal A brief introduction ..71 Nowhere to run to ..11 Fires, explosions and in the hood ..20 Metal work ..24 Chemicals in the hood ..28 Class war ..312 Dirty air ..36 Breathing is not a choice ..38 The worst possible place for coal fired power stations ..54 Tall stacks and looping plumes ..58 Adequate control ..723 Corporate Highveld ..105 Eskom ..106 Sasol ..132 Metals ..147 Future energy ..1704 Reinventing the future ..180 Prospects for labour ..181 Climate ..183 Just transition ..190 References ..199- 2 - groundWork - The Destruction of the HighveldAcronymsAER Atmospheric Emissions LicenceAPPA Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Act of 1965 AQA Air Quality Act of 2004 AQMP Air Quality Management PlanBEE Black Economic EmpowermentBIG Basic Income GrantBLIPP Coal Base Load Independent Power ProducerBTEX Benzene, Toluene.

3 Ethyl benzene and XyleneCAPCO Chief Air Pollution Control OfficerCO2 Carbon dioxideDEA Department of Environmental AffairsDoE Department of EnergyDTI Department of Trade and IndustryESP Electrostatic PrecipitatorFFP Fabric Filter PlantFGD Flue Gas DesulphurisationGt Gigatonne (a million tonnes)HPA Highveld Priority AreaIPCC International Panel on Climate ChangeIRP Integrated Resource PlanLNB Low NOx BurnersMEC Minerals-Energy ComplexMES Minimum Emission StandardsMl Megalitre (a million litres)MW MegawattPM10 Coarse Fine particulatesPV PhotovoltaicNOx Oxides of nitrogenO3 OzoneRE Renewable EnergyREIPPPP Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme SO2 Sulphur dioxideTB TuberculosisVOC Volatile Organic CompoundsForeword part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - 3 - ForewordWe need to understand and speak with the periphery of the periphery.

4 Dr Patrick Maesela, Member of the Portfolio Committee on Health, 8th September the 8th of September 2017, for the first time ever, community people from the coalfields of South Africa spoke with those in political leadership tasked with ensuring that people live healthy lives in South Africa. To their credit, members of the portfolio committees on health and environment came to a meeting with community people to hear evidence of how Eskom s coal-fired power stations are responsible for more than 2 200 deaths a year and how it is impacting upon the country to the tune of R30 billion a year.

5 The meeting was shunned by the portfolio committees on economic development, energy, mineral resources, water and 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 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.

6 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 Foreword- 4 - groundWork - The Destruction of the HighveldState of Environmental Justice Reports and, since our first report on Corporate Accountability back in 2002, we pride ourselves on taking up the thorny issues of the year s is no different.

7 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 is clear from part 1 that the mining houses have taken good land and have left a barren mess.

8 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 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.

9 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 through the question of what life after coal is. There is no quick fix, despite the desperation of that need. Life after coal is about the social justice slogan another world is necessary . It is going to be a long road that demands 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.

10 It demands justice for, as long as there is injustice somewhere, there can t be Foreword part 2: Burning Coal - groundWork - 5 -peace anywhere .1 The coal economy is violent. It causes conflict. Peace is nowhere to be found in the coalfields of South you will read, there is much evidence that the world is in chaos. The planetary system that we rely on for survival is becoming extremely dangerous as it responds to the violence of extraction. Since this publication went for final editing and layout, hurricane after hurricane has devastated several Caribbean islands and parts of the United States.