Eskom given permission to skirt pollution regulations

JOHANNESBURG - Exempting the Kusile power station from sulphur dioxide emission limits might add power to the grid in the short term but it could have deadly consequences in the long term.

This week the Environment Minister gave Eskom permission to apply to be exempted from national air quality regulations.

This would be to restore lost generation capacity while a damaged chimney undergoes repairs.

But Brandon Abdinor, from the Centre for Environmental Rights, says sulphur emissions cause over 2-thousand deaths a year, and the exemption would only further marginalise communities.

READ: Steenhuisen: Kusile a monument of corruption 

Abdinor said: "The upshot of it is that we're going to have Kusile now dumping unabated sulfur dioxide which causes a massive health risk.

"I mean already the communities around these power stations have been marginalised for decades.

"We know that up to 2,200 deaths per year from these plants occur and countless lost hours, emergency room visits for asthma to the cost of around R42-billion a year to the economy," he said.

"So we really need to be careful that the proper assessments do get done, that this this in fact the cost benefit analysis of this measure does bear out that it's the right thing to do."

"At the end of the day we all want a stable electricity supply but we also want one that doesn't kill people and make them sick and we want one that's affordable so we need to question how much money we keep pouring in to this coal-fired power generation system that's actually at this point in time letting us down, causing deaths, causing sickness and obviously leading to climate change harms as well."