Falcon told the Fossil Fuel Foundation’s Clean-Coal Indaba, in Johannesburg, that the implementation of newer, cleaner coal technologies was now crucial, given the additional impetus of increasing environ- mental pressures both in South Africa and abroad.

He said that clean-coal technology in South Africa could not only be about greenhouse-gas emissions and carbon capture and storage, but also had to be about the full life cycle of coal, from resource and reserve analysis to extraction, bene- ficiation, power generation, coal-to-liquids, metallurgical uses and environmental protection.

Water was of particular concern in all these aspects, owing to the fact that water was without doubt South Africa’s most valuable mineral.

“Being so short of water presents severe challenges in all areas of coal production and use,” Falcon said.

South Africa exported its high-grade, low-ash coal and used the lower grades domestically.

South Africa used coal of a nature and grade not generally used elsewhere in the world, which brought even further challenges to coal use.

“South Africa is a coal-based economy and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future,” Falcon emphasised.

To watch a video in which Wits Coal Research Group consulting engineer Lionel Falcon outlines to CMTV the crucial need for coal to clean up its act owing to South Africa’s uniquely heavy dependence on the much-maligned energy mineral, click here.

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