Eskom’s Suffocating Stranglehold


The province also ranked third in the world for the even deadlier sulphur dioxide, emitted by Eskom’s aging coal fleet.
This is according to two Greenpeace studies, based on a full year’s satellite data analysis. Greenpeace was previously criticized by scientists, including Professor Rebecca Garland from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, for making this claim based on three months’ “seasonal” data.

Both nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide can have devastating impacts on human health resulting in respiratory conditions, lung and heart disease.“The net result is approximately 2000 premature deaths a year, 1600 in Mpumalanga and just over 400 in Gauteng,” says Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst for Greenpeace’s Global Air Pollution unit.
Air pollution
Nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide react to form particulate matter, fine particles about three percent of the diameter of a human hair. “Tiny but deadly,” says Myllyvirta, “these microscopic particles enter through your lungs into your bloodstream travelling through the body into your vital organs.”
Air pollution is officially classified by the World Health Organisation as a carcinogen and a leading cause of cancer.“There are many lived examples of the impacts on communities living around these power plants in Mpumalanga,” says Nhlanhla Sibisi, Greenpeace’s Climate and Energy Consultant.
The most vulnerable are children and residents with weakened immune systems, people living with TB and HIV and the elderly find their systems compromised by poor air quality. “Anecdotally, if you speak to the doctors who practice around the power stations they are seeing noticeable increases in asthma and respiratory diseases,” claims Sibisi.
According to Myllyvirta, “based on Eskom’s own emissions data, their emissions exceed the industrial emissions of every Chinese province.”
Eskom minimum standards set by the Department of Environment Affairs allows them to emit a staggering 20 times more sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere than permitted in China and the European Union.
Despite the fact that these standards are lax by global standards, Eskom has applied for long term postponements of these minimum emission standards. “This will essentially give Eskom a licence to kill,” says Melita Steele Greenpeace’s Senior Climate and Energy Campaign Manager.
Emission standards
In 2015, Eskom asked the National Air Quality officer for a five-year postponement to meet the minimum emission standards and to retrofit their aging power plants with scrubbers to manage emissions. Now Steele alleges they have asked for a new round of postponements delaying implementation by another five years. “They are holding us hostage, saying it costs too much,” says Steele.
Should Eskom be granted this postponement, South Africans will bear the brunt of it, says Myllyvirta. His study shows that the impact over the lifespan of the existing power stations will see 16 000 premature deaths due to increased lower respiratory tract infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischaemic heart disease, lung cancer, strokes and even diabetes.
“In the areas worst affected by air pollution, like Mpumalanga and Gauteng, our study shows a reduction in life expectancy of three years,” claims Myllyvirta.
Potentially fatal effects
Non-compliance would also see a projected 13 000kg of mercury deposited into the air with potentially harmful and even potentially fatal effects on the nervous, digestive and immune systems, lungs and kidneys.
Greenpeace is calling for the power utility to urgently look at ramping up their drive for renewable energy and transitioning workers in the province into this sector. If they don’t start now the outlook for these communities is bleak.
“China was able to reduce emissions by a third in just four years,” says Myllyvirta. “It is possible if there is a concerted effort.” Eskom did not respond to questions sent to them requesting clarity on how they plan to deal with this situation going forward.
“Ultimately, the difference between complying and not complying is 16 000 South Africans lives. There’s no question in my mind that Eskom is violating our constitutional right to a healthy environment,” concludes Steele. – Health-e News.
Author
-
Health-e News is South Africa's dedicated health news service and home to OurHealth citizen journalism. Follow us on Twitter @HealtheNews
View all posts
Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Unless otherwise noted, you can republish our articles for free under a Creative Commons license. Here’s what you need to know:
-
You have to credit Health-e News. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication.” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by Health-e News.” You must link the word “Health-e News” to the original URL of the story.
-
You must include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up link.
-
If you use canonical metadata, please use the Health-e News URL. For more information about canonical metadata, click here.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week”)
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. Health-e News understands that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarise or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
-
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. You can find us on Twitter @HealthENews, Instagram @healthenews, and Facebook Health-e News Service.
You can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the Creative Commons logo on our stories. You’ll find it with the other share buttons.
If you have any other questions, contact info@health-e.org.za.
Eskom’s Suffocating Stranglehold
by Health-e News, Health-e News
March 22, 2019
MOST READ
EDITOR'S PICKS
Related


Stories From The Ground: Teen mum juggling school and a baby set to write matric finals

Stories from the ground: A mother’s journey towards beating breast cancer


Stories From The Ground: Teen mum juggling school and a baby set to write matric finals
