glassy jobs

A new nonprofit organisation in South Africa aims to increase the glass recycling rate from 20% to 50% within five years, and in the process create informal jobs. South Africa currenlty retrieves only 140 000 tons of all glass containers for recycling annually, with 550 000 tons going to landfill. In comparison, Holland recycles 90%, Australia 50%, Britain 45% and Brazil 40%. The Glass Recycling Company hopes to create 4000 informal jobs in the first year.

[Source: Cape Argus, 8 Dec 2006.]

small shifts in South Africa's power generation

South Africa emits almost half of Africa's GHG emissions, and electricity supplier Eskom is responsible for half of South Africa's contribution. Eskom is now planning to establish a 100 MW commercial wind farm on the west coast, with 50 turbines covering 5 sq km. An environmental impact assessment is to be conducted in 2007.

The national government may impose renewable energy obligations or targets on Eskom, which has also started a demand-side management programme to defer commissioning of new large-scale plant, aiming to save 4255 MW of generation capacity over 25 years.

And the Department of Minerals and Energy is issuing a tender for independent power producers to provide 1000 MW of new capacity by the end of 2008.

South Africa's white paper on energy recognises that renewable energy sources are not limited to small-scale and remote applications, and have significant medium and long term commercial potential. The government has set the following 10-year target for renewables:

100 000 GWh renewable energy contribution to final energy consumption by 2013, to be produced mainly from biomass, wind, solar and small-scale hydro. The renewable energy is to be utilised for power generation and non-electric technologies such as solar water heating and bio-fuels. This is approximately 4% (1667 MW) of the estimated electricity demand (41539 MW) by 2013.

Still, Eskom has a mandate to invest R93 billion in the generation, transmission and distribution sectors over the next five years. The country will continue to rely heavily on coal and nuclear generation.

[Source: Terms of Reference to Conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment and Compile an Environmental Management Plan for the Proposed Wind Energy Facility in the Western Cape.]

water, water everywhere

The Cape Times reported on 1 December:

Between 38% and 53% of Cape Town's water is 'lost' every year somewhere between the supply dams and our taps... [the authorities] don't know where the missing water is going.

Considering current rates of use and government's targetted economic growth of at least 6%, water supply in the Western Cape will soon be a serious challenge. 95% of the rivers that feed into the water management regions of the province are in an ecologically critical condition. There are no more opportunities to build dams, so the only remaining supply options are desalination of seawater and tapping the Table Mountain aquifer (estimated to hold 66 billion cubic metres). Using the aquifer is cheaper than desalination, but recharge rates are unknown, so this may not be a sustainable solution.