To access this article on-line: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=633521

For van Leeuwen's report: www.stormsmith.nl/report20050803/Chap_2.pdf

Although it is the country’s worst greenhouse gas emitter, Eskom’s hands are tied as it is forced to use coal to meet SA’s soaring demand for energy. Abdul Milazi reports

Power utility Eskom is battling to balance SA’s energy security and adhere to global warming requirements.

This emerged as the company was named the country’s worst greenhouse gas emitter in a global Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) report released at the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) this week.

The report follows a voluntary survey of the JSE’s top 40 companies, with Eskom volunteering to make submissions even though it is not listed on the bourse.

By its own admission, Eskom said in its 2007 annual report that it emitted 208.9-million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and that emissions have been increasing over the last decade due to the dominance of coal in its energy mix and increasing demand for electricity.

On Friday the power utility announced that it was considering issuing an international bond in the first quarter of next year, and may target the US, to raise money for its planned infrastructure roll-out.

“We would like to do something in international markets in the first quarter of the next calendar year,” said Caroline Henry, general manager for treasury at Eskom.

The company said the cost of upgrading existing infrastructure and building new power plants to meet soaring electricity demand may double to R300- billion over five years.

With the government expected to spend more than R800- billion in its own infrastructure expansion, demand for electricity is expected to escalate — which prompted Eskom to propose tariff increases of between 18% and 20% a year over the next five years.

For the environment, it will mean that the company will burn more coal, pushing up its carbon emissions even more.

Eskom currently accounts for 40.54% of SA’s total emission of 133-million tons of CO2. It is followed by oil company Sasol mining groups BHP Billiton and Anglo American.

Brewer SABMiller has the least carbon emission of the companies surveyed, at 1.05%.

An Eskom spokesman said although its CO2 emission levels would increase in the short to medium term, the company was committed to continually assessing alternative options to retard that rate of increase — and ultimately to decrease levels — by reducing the use of coal in the energy mix.

“Our goal is to reduce coal to 70% of the mix by 2025 and even further beyond that. Our capital expansion plan provides a significant opportunity to change our energy mix and this can be achieved by increases in the nuclear, gas, renewables and hydro components. Plans include increasing the nuclear component by up to 20000MW by 2025 and an increase in the renewables component to at least 1600MW by 2025,” the spokesman said.

In his latest nuclear report last month, Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen, senior scientist at the Netherlands-based Ceedata Consultancy, said nuclear power systems were not an option as they produced more carbon dioxide than fossil-fuelled power stations.

“More uranium ore has to be processed each year to feed one nuclear power plant than the annual coal tonnage of coal consumed by a coal-fired power plant to generate the same amount of electricity,” he said.

Once started, a nuclear reactor generates unavoidable and very large amounts of radioactive waste, posing immeasurable risks to man and society, he said.

Africa is responsible for about 3% of global emissions and SA about 1.6%, compared with the US (22.2%) and China (18.4%).

“Clearly, Eskom’s emission profile is far from ideal, but we have to balance our obligation to provide electricity to meet the country’s immediate needs without compromising the needs of future generations,” Eskom said.

BHP Billiton said it was committed to invest 300-million over the next five years on low emissions technology.

‘‘We started measuring greenhouse gas emissions from our global controlled operations in 1993 and publicly reported our emissions data since then,” the company told the CDP.

Environmental team manager at Sasol, Fred Goede, said the company had already developed new technology to convert dangerous greenhouse gas into harmless nitrogen and oxygen.

He said the nitrous oxide abatement project would earn the company significant income when it sold carbon credits on the Chicago and European climate exchanges, the world’s two markets for carbon credits.

Carbon credits are a tradable permit scheme, aimed at providing a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by giving them a monetary value.

According to the CDP, about 1.6 billion ton s of CO2 worth 29-billion were traded last year.

Goede said Sasol was the first company in the world to start a project to convert nitrous oxide into harmless gases.

He said the company expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to about a million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

**SA’s top CO2 emitters**

Eskom

Sasol

BHP Billiton

Ango American

Sappi

Anglo Platinum

Harmorny Gold

Anglo Gold Ashanti

Impala Platinum

SABMiller