Kusile coal power plant South Africa

The Kusile coal fired power plant project is located in the province of Mpumalanga, in South Africa. With 4800MW, it will be one of the largest power plants of its kind in the world - and one of the largest industrial point sources of greenhouse gas emissions. This project continues to promote outdated, heavily polluting and harmful fossil fuel technology.

As of April 2011, the construction of the six-unit Kusile is about 21% complete and running a month ahead of a revised schedule, with no further delays expected. The company has said they are learning from their experience with Medupi to push the construction of Kusile even faster than expected. The R121-billion project, with an initial cost estimate of R81-billion, is expected to reach full capacity by the end of 2018.

Due to power shortages, in 2007 the South-African state-owned electricity company Eskom awarded contracts to build two identical coal-fired power plants. Known as Medupi and Kusile, each plant would have a generating gross capacity of around 4,800 MW.

The combined output of the plants would represent about 25% of South Africa's power generation capacity.  Both plants are currently under construction. The Medupi power plant is more advanced in terms of construction and finance.

The first unit of Kusile is planned for commissioning by 2013, and the other 5 units will follow with an approximate 8 months' intervals, with the last unit planned to be commissioned at the end of October 2016. The source of the coal will be supplied by Anglo Coal South Africa, part of mining group Anglo American.

South Africa has abundant renewable energy resources, including onshore and offshore wind and solar power. These have been assessed by the Government, as part of the development of its climate policies.

Combined with energy efficiency measures and more decentralised energy provision, these resources offer the potential for South Africa to transition towards a low carbon power sector and economy, with appropriate financial support from developed countries.

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The Government has recently introduced a feed-in tariff system designed to promote renewable energy generation. This policy is, however, at odds with the vision for power generation promoted by Eskom. It is considered a ‘fig leaf’ in South Africa, and most Research&Development is still being directed to coal (e.g. futile Carbon Capture and Storage schemes) and nuclear.

That is why the building of Kusile must immediately stop. All financial institutions involved have to stop immediately the financial services they contracted with Eskom as long they are used to build the Kusile power station. Banks should declare a moratorium in financing new coal-fired power plants as an urgent climate protection measure. Capital should instead be directed at energy efficiency and renewable energy financing opportunities.

Eskom should  engage in serious demand-side management, beginning by phasing out electricity to smelters that have little linkage with the South African economy and that are capital- rather than jobs-intensive.

Concrete plans should be made for a ‘just transition’, so as to provide alternative, well-paid ‘green jobs’ – e.g. in subsidised thermal-solar geysers for every house – to those workers who are employed at the smelters. At the same time, the special purchase agreements should be disclosed to the public and opened for renegotiation.

The freed up energy should be redistributed to provide for a much larger ‘lifeline’ supply of universal Free Basic Electricity – with a rising block tariff to encourage conservation to improve spinning margins which will buy time for a switch into renewable energy technologies. By not expanding its coal/nuclear facilities and instead redistributing the electricity capacity it has, and by simultaneously switching to renewable sources, Eskom can survive the financial and electricity access crises, and help the world solve the climate crisis. At present it’s Africa’s main contributor to both crises.

Kusile will Create Local Population Displacement & Economic Harm :

• The plant will require the relocation of 27-43 families (around 300 people). With the aid of the Expropriation Act Eskom can determine “appropriate” compensation value for the land required for the project. In a particularly cynical and Orwellian fashion the EIA suggests leasing back expropriated land to displaced farmers as a “mitigation measure” to reduce economic impact associated with the project.
• Less than 50% of the economic benefit of this project will be accrued to South Africa as more than half of project financing will be spent on imported equipment and the hiring of foreign specialists. Currently, the poor in South Africa consume less than 5% of grid connected power, in contrast to the 38 largest corporations that consume 40%. In reality, the poor are paying far more per kilowatt for their electricity than export-oriented metals and mining industries that overwhelmingly benefit from these projects while repatriating the vast bulk of their profits abroad.

Kusile will Significantly Contribute to Climate Change : The annual Green House Gas (GHG) equivalent emissions for this single project – 36.8 million tons - would increase South African energy sector emissions by 12.8% and the country’s total contribution to climate change by 9.7%. This despite the fact that South Africa already has the distinction of being amongst the top global greenhouse gas emitters per capita, and its energy sector is twenty times more CO2 intensive per unit of per capita GDP than even the USA’s. Despite the immensity of its climate impacts, the EIA dedicated less than 1 page of a 174 page document to the subject with no mitigation measures proposed. Financing of such a project is clearly not an appropriate choice for any lender's low carbon policy.

Kusile will also Lead to High Pollution and Health Impacts :

• Sulphur Dioxide – According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, SO2 contributes to serious cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses such as asthma and heart disease, and can cause premature death. The project EIA demonstrates that the current ambient background Sulphur levels already far exceed permitted levels. The project  therefore will only serve to add to these dangerously high levels rendering the area unable to comply with internationally recognized limits for toxic sulphur emissions.
• “The exceedances [of existing sources] were a factor of 6 times above hourly SO2 limits, for more than 200 hours per year; and 20 to 30 days per year…making it challenging for cumulative concentrations to be within limits regardless of the site selected, the stack height or the SO2 control efficiency implemented… even for the best case scenario, exceedances still increased by some 30% above the future base case scenario…Impacts on human health as a result of the additional emissions of SO2 are therefore deemed to have a high significance.”
• Toxic Fly Ash – Fly ash from coal burning contains heavy metals and other toxics such as arsenic, uranium, and mercury, which can cause cancer, and neurological and developmental disorders. Approximately 1,000 ha of land would be required to accommodate a toxic above ground fly ash dump for the life of the coal fired power station i.e. 40 – 50 years. This dump “could have direct and indirect impacts on the aquatic environment…The impact would have a high magnitude and long term duration…accordingly a high significance impact is anticipated.”
• Nitrogen Oxides – NOx can mix with other compounds to produce volatile substances and causes or worsens respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses such as emphysema, bronchitis, and heart disease, increasing hospital emissions and premature death. Despite the fact that this is a major pollutant produced from burning coal, the project completely avoids addressing specific mitigation measures for NOx pollution saying they are “…not considered in any further detail.”
• Contaminated Water Supplies - The plant will require a supply of 17 metric tons of coal per year, which will stimulate demand for new environmentally harmful mines. This in turn will have an adverse impact on water quality and peoples’ health. Much of South Africa's coal is surface-mined poor quality coal, with high ash and sulphur content, which will require washing before being burned in the plant, thus adding burden on scarce water supply as well as causing more pollution.