South Africa’s environmental fouls

It seems like its all anyone is talking about: the world cup, well, not wanting to be outdone ENVIRONMENT takes to the football pitch to bring you a show all about South Africa looking at its climate change fouls and goals and the carbon heavy competition currently taking place.

ENVIRONMENT

By Eve IRVINE

Every week, a private plane from South Africa’s power company Eskom brings Roman Crookes here. Crookes is the head of the Medupi project - a 900 hectare new Coal Plant - the 4th largest in the world. Medupi already employs 10,000 people and within five years it will produce 4800 megawatts of energy - the equivalent of 5 nuclear reactors “There is a nationalistic pride among people here. Well add something like 10% to the national grid of Eskom when this power station is fully constructed. So we fully understand the challenged we’ve been set. We cannot fail because if we fail, South Africa will fail. And we cannot allow that to take place,” notes Mr Crookes.

Specialists have predicted an energy crisis by 2012. In this race against time, Medupi got the go-ahead despite the pollution it is certain to cause. Its design may use less water than other coal plants, but will increase South Africa’s carbon emissions by 7%. The 3 billion dollar project is funded by a loan from the World Bank, something that has outraged many environmentalists as while the new plant may be cleaner than current options but the energy provider will still emit 25 million tonnes of CO2 every year. With the World Bank loan comes a credit for developing renewable energy. Plans for a solar plant have been discussed for years. “Its been sitting on the boards agenda for 10 years and Eskom has never committed the money towards building that plant. I think that we need to fast track that as a matter or urgency,” says Lance Greyling, Member of Parliament, Independent Democrats.

South Africa ranks 11th in global carbon emissions, and energy derived from coal is a bit part of the problem. But for the government, there is no other option in the short term. “South Africa’s energy largely drives from coal. We know. We have learned lessons sufficient enough for us to understand the problems and how we are going to mitigate them,” says Collins Chabane, Minister in the presidency.

Critics of the Medupi plant also say that the energy produced will go mainly to industrial users not to local communities who desperately need it. In the township of Soweto, just outside Johannesburg, supplies are so stretched and prices of electricity so high that power cuts are common. One group of electricians believe that people have the right to power and so illegally re-connect some 40 homes every week.

The current electrical grid has not kept pace with development. The main plants are coal operated. In 2008 Eksom used 129 million tons of coal - and consumption is rising. To the chagrin of environmental groups South Africa has considered increasing its nuclear energy production but the idea's been put on the back burner after Eskom deemed it too costly.

Finally, ENVIRONMENT looks at the carbon footprint of the 2010 World Cup which is estimated to be around 2.75 million tonnes. That's nine times higher than the last World Cup in Germany, and twice as high as the Beijing Olympics. Simple geography has played a part, as has the green grass.

South African indigenous grass, kikuyu, is yellowish in colour and so authorities decided that it was not photogenic enough for the World Cup. Thus, they shipped in acres of European ryegrass from the UK in time for the matches. This turf requires more watering, more fertilizer and more general upkeep than its African equivalent all of which means that the green green grass of the Green Point stadium is a major contributor to 2010s World Cup carbon footprint.

It all started long before kick-off with yellow cards being awarded to construction, travel and the broadcasting of the games.

Unlike previous World Cup hosts, South Africa had to build most of their stadiums from scratch. The cement industry's one of the worst environmental offenders with a ton of C02 released for every ton of cement made.

Most of the teams playing in the cup have travelled thousands of miles to be there coming from Europe, the Americas and Asia. Not to mention the hoards of spectators making the trip to cheer on their team. What’s more, travel from one stadium to another in South Africa also takes in coach, rail and short-haul flights.

And there are even a couple of penalties from the armchair spectators. New ranges of plasma or 3D televisions were brought out in time for the tournament and on average; the manufacture of a new TV set will create 1 and a half tonnes of carbon gases.

But its not all bad news: the tournament prompted the construction of a high-speed rail network to get fans around the country on public transport. And there’s been a program of urban tree planting in Johannesburg to offset emissions. Despite these efforts however this years' World Cup is the least eco-friendly yet.

Mairead Dundas

Presenter

07/05/2012 - ENVIRONMENT

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