| Expert pours scorn on Walvis Bay coal-fired power plant |
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| Written by Staff Reporters | |
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An energy expert, W.A.Hundt of Namwoodgas, has expressed reservations about plans by NamPower to set up a coal-fired plant at Walvis Bay saying what the country needs is a nuclear plant and not a coal plant.
Hundt said the argument should not be about where to locate the power plant, but about not building the plant.
“We need power, we need to have a form of power that
does not pollute the planet any further, and we need energy that is
guaranteed to be available for a log time. A coal-fired PowerStation
does not meet any of these criteria. We need nuclear power and nothing
else. We are possibly in a unique position, through proper negotiations
to get a nuclear power plant for free,” he said in a paper forwarded to
the Economist this week.
Hundt argues that when you burn 100 tons of coal, in addition to 2 tons of sulphur, you form about 360 tons of carbon dioxide, all of which goes up the chimney. “When it reaches the upper atmosphere it starts to act rather like the glass in a greenhouse. The Sun’s rays hit the ground and the air warms up. The heat is trapped by the carbon dioxide, which is the “glass” and our planet gets a lot hotter than it should. Coal power stations are designed for a 40-year life cycle. For 40 years, immense amounts of CO2 and sulphur dioxide are released into the atmosphere. To prevent this, we should not even consider a coal-fired power plant. There are many, many alternatives,” he said. On the price of coal, he said coal is not stable, mining machinery is diesel driven, the transport from the coal mines in Newcastle to Durban is by diesel power, either by train or truck, or by electric train that derives electricity from coal-powered plants and the price of coal is also dependant on the cost of oil. “Then it will be loaded in Durban onto a ship and transported by diesel power to Namibia. As wages increase in SA and diesel gets more expensive the price of coal will increase,” he said. On marine resources, Hundt said the oyster industry would be destroyed. For example, in the first half of 2008, during unusual weather condition the sea temperature rose from 17 to 26 degree Celsius. N$45 million loss occurred when 18 million oysters died. 250 lost jobs in the oyster industry affected 1500 children, family members and dependants. |
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