Skip to main content

Why a Huge New Coal Plant in South Africa?

MedupiSod There are certain press releases one doesn’t expect to see these days. This one from South Africa’s leading electric utility Eskom would be fairly high on the list:

Eskom has begun the process of building a new coal-fired power station, the first of its kind in twenty years. The Medupi Power Station, which means “rain that soaks parched lands” symbolizes economic relief to the area where it will be constructed, and was formerly known as Project Alpha and Project Charlie.

At least it won’t be acid rain that soaks those parched lands, but still, it seems rather late in the calendar for a large scale coal-based project. And this is a big plant, comprising six units with 4,788 MW installed capacity between them.

Naturally, we were a bit curious about where the money came from for the project:

The World Bank yesterday [April 8] approved a $3.75 billion loan to help South Africa build one of the world's largest coal-fired power plants, a decision long expected but bitterly fought from the streets of Durban to the halls of the U.S. Congress.

This demonstrates to some degree the difficulties that developing nations have with the Copenhagen Accord or the Kyoto Protocol, as demonstrated during Copenhagen when a group of such nations walked out of negotiations. (They returned later.)

Some poorer nations have taken the position that because the industrialized world is responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions already in the atmosphere — in effect exhausting the environment’s capacity to cope with carbon — rich nations must pay “damages” or “reparations”. These payments presumably would be used by emerging economies to cope with the climate changes that already are devastating some of them, and to increase their standards of living while minimizing their emissions.

It isn’t that they don’t want to participate, it’s that these countries – many of them former colonies – can feel the future slipping away from them as they modernize:

In many ways the Medupi debate underscored the broader struggle to determine what responsibilities fast-growing countries should take on in the effort to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. South Africa and others like China and India insist their economies must be allowed to grow as industrialized nations did, and note that coal remains the cheapest and most abundant fuel source available.

Does this mean that South Africa is dealing in bad faith? Well, consider:

While the [World] Bank has continued to monitor developments in the field of nuclear energy, the loan to Italy for the nuclear plant on the Gargliano river [in 1964] remains its only loan for that form of energy.

Now, South Africa might have tried to secure a loan from another entity, but really, if the World Bank is going to offer loans for energy projects, playing renewables short (the same loan to South Africa allows for 100 MW each of solar and wind capacity) and nuclear as non-existent seems awfully retrograde. This has been noted by French President Nicholas Sarkozy:

Sarkozy said the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other such institutions should make a "wholehearted commitment" to fund civilian nuclear energy programs.

"It is a scandal that international organizations today do not finance nuclear projects," he said. "The current situation means that countries are condemned to rely on more costly energy that causes greater pollution."

“Condemned.” That’s pretty harsh, but not injudicious.

Slight correction: MW for megawatts – an oops. Thanks to Seth in the comments.

“Breaking sod,” as they say, at Medupi.

Comments

gmax137 said…
Just for comparison, I looked up the US generation for coal (I quickly found 2006 numbers at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html): 1.99 billion MW-hrs per year. If the Eskom unit operated continuously, it would make 42 million MW hours a year. That's about one-fiftieth of the yearly US generation from coal.

Who do you think you're kidding? And I live here in the USA.
Seth said…
Hi Mark,

You may want to correct the minor error of mW --> MW. I have a feeling that their new plant will produce more than 4.7 watts of power...
SteveK9 said…
Need another comment from Sarkozy, specifically regarding this decision by the World Bank.
crf said…
The richest countries (mostly democracies) control the world bank.

That the world bank has not been able to come up with financing mechanisms for large scale clean energy is because of you and me. Developing countries cannot justify supporting the extra debt to develop more capital-intense clean energy: the world bank should explicitly provide support for this.

Developing world countries are not going to be able to easily self-finance their power infrastructure. (Even wealthy countries seem to have trouble.) There is an urgent need to put into place financing for energy projects that emit little carbon dioxide.

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin