Eskom under fire at the WEF

Dar es Salaam – Eskom’s building of coal-fired power stations came under fire on Thursday in an interactive discussion on climate change at the 20th World Economic Forum (WEF) in Dar es Salaam.

John McCall MacBain, founder of Pamoja Capital in Switzerland, told the audience and Dr Steve Lennon, MD of Eskom’s corporate services division, that Africa must not build more coal power stations and that the continent should avoid making the same mistakes as the West.

Eskom is at present building two power stations in Limpopo, Medupi and Kusile, and though these power stations will use substantially less water thanks to dry-cooling technology, they will use coal to generate electricity.

“We challenge Eskom to think again,” MacBain said to Lennon, who was also part of the discussion panel.

Lennon said in reply that Africa cannot neglect its local energy requirements in an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint.

“To generate electricity on a sustainable basis, we need large coal plants, large hydroelectric plants and large solar plants,” he said. “We cannot restrict ourselves to a single source of energy.”

“Everyone knows what coal does,” MacBain replied.

Ethiopia’s President Meles Zenawi then said though he agreed that renewable sources of energy should be sought for Africa, it would take a long time for this to become a reality in every country on the continent.

“South Africa cannot wait 10 years for a solution to its power crisis,” he said.

“Reducing a carbon footprint can’t be achieved at the cost of the battle against poverty. Whatever Eskom does [with coal-powered generation] isn’t nearly comparable with what countries like the US and China do.”