SHOOT: It took South Africa's president a while to understand that HIV causes AIDS [perhaps Mbeki still needs convincing]. His belief, as I recall, was based on the rumor that poverty causes AIDS. Underground coal gasification is a similar rumor. There is no such thing as 'clean coal' technology. It's as absurd a notion as a clean cigarette.
REUTERS: Lennon said Eskom was designing a 42-megawatt pilot plant to test a technology to gasify deep coal deposits underground and feed the gas into a combined cycle gas turbine. It then plans to scale up the project to a 2,100 MW plant.
"A full-scale (2,100 MW) plant, everything going well, could be running around 2015-16," he said.
SHOOT: Good luck with that. Much better to invest in nuclear. It has hazards, yes, but at least it's based on tried and tested technology, and it's renewable. Why are we still building coal powered plants, the most polluting of the lot?
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's power utility Eskom expects to move more rapidly next year into renewable energy from solar and wind sources and to also tap cleaner coal technologies to reduce its carbon footprint, an official said.
Eskom relies on coal for 90 percent of its power generation, but has vowed to invest in renewable energy and more efficient coal technologies to help improve the carbon record of South Africa, now the world's 12th largest polluter.
While South Africa will depend on coal for some time to come, Eskom plans to replace old plants, which it will start decomissioning from 2025, with more efficient technologies to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions, now at 230 million tonnes.
Eskom has long been investing in cheap and reliable plants based on coal, but Lennon said the cost of a kilowatt hour from underground coal gasification could be as cheap or even cheaper. Continued...
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clipped from af.reuters.com
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