Greenpeace Africa affirms Mpumalanga is a nitrogen dioxide air pollution hotspot

29th October 2018 By: Marleny Arnoldi - Deputy Editor Online

Greenpeace Africa states that analysis from satellite data between June 1 and August 31 shows that Mpumalanga is the world’s largest nitrogen dioxide air pollution hotspot across six continents.

The data points to coal and transport as the two principal sources of the nitrogen dioxide air pollution.

The data was produced by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 5P satellite.

“It has been reported before that the Witbank area has the world’s dirtiest air, and now this analysis of high-tech satellite data has revealed that Mpumalanga is the most pollutive hotspot for nitrogen dioxide emissions, confirming that South Africa has the most polluting cluster of coal-fired power stations in the world,” says Greenpeace climate and energy senior campaign manager Melita Steele.

Mpumalanga is home to 12 coal-fired power stations, with a total capacity of 32 GW, that are owned and operated by State-owned power utility Eskom.

The data further found that Johannesburg and Pretoria are also highly affected by nitrogen dioxide emissions in the air, which blow across from Mpumalanga.

Other nitrogen dioxide emission hotpots across the world include Germany and India, and nine coal power and industrial clusters in China. Cities such as Santiago, London, Paris, Dubai and Tehran also feature high in the ranking, owing to transport-related emissions.

Compared with many other countries, South Africa has relatively weak minimum emission standards (MES) that allow coal-fired power stations to emit up to ten times more nitrogen dioxide than is allowed in China or Japan.

Nonetheless, the majority of Eskom’s old and highly polluting coal-fired power stations do not comply with these MES.

In 2015, Eskom was granted a five-year postponement from complying with MES. In 2018, the utility again applied for postponements for nitrogen oxides for 16 of its 19 power plants (including 14 coal-fired power plants and two liquid fuel power plants.

“The government should set up an action plan with concrete steps, measures and deadlines to ensure that air pollution levels in high priority areas comply with existing regulations.

“This means that no new coal-fired power stations can be included in the national electricity plan, unit 5 and 6 of Kusile coal power plant in Mpumalanga must be cancelled and 50% of current coal-fired power stations need to be decommissioned by 2030 in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report,” said Steele.

Greenpeace and other environmentally focused nongovernmental organisations have, during recent public hearings into the draft Integrated Resource Plan 2018, expressed their opposition to the construction of a further two coal-fired power stations in South Africa.

The proposed Thabametsi and Khanyisa coal-fired power stations, which will be built and operated by independent power producers, have already been procured by the Department of Energy and will add 900 MW of coal-fired capacity.