Jacqueline Mackenzie
BusinessLIVE
Acid mine drainage 'part of bigger problem'
Acid mine drainage is just a small part of a much bigger problem and SA is facing a water predicament, delegates to the South African Water and Energy Forum were told this week.
Professor Tony Turton, the vice-president of the International Water Resource Association (IWRA), said an element of this predicament was energy, as SA was investing in Eskom with insufficient water to sustain it. Yet he noted that moves to recycle 1.7 times the usage of water would have significant economic benefits - as the economy grows it will need more water and if there is not more water, jobs will not be able to be created."Built in [to this] is the assumption that we will solve the problem as we go along," he said. He predicted that peak coal would happen in 2020 - in the current duration of the Eskom build.
He said this opened up the debate on alternative energy sources - including thorium as a nuclear option. There would be a trade-off between water, energy and food security.
He noted that peaks were game changers and post-peak pressures drove us into increased risk. He said 2007 was the global peak for oil, and food prices tracked the oil price - and food is all about energy and water. With peak oil and peak water, came food insecurity, he said.
The global peak oil coincided with the global economic recession and the gold-based economy had been carrying SA. Turton noted, however, that for the mining industry, environmental constraints were relevant and there were development constraints due to environmental issues. Revenue from mining was not going to be enough to pay for development, he noted.
He said a recent report from Touchstone Resources showed that the biggest single impact from acid mine drainage was not flooding, but the loss of investor confidence. And this was being fuelled by a lack of information.
He added that when all four mining basins on the Witwatersrand decanted they would contribute 3% to the Vaal River, but would increase salts (which acid mine drainage produces in large quantities) by 25% and the Orange River basin would close. Turton warned that SA's agricultural capacity would be severely affected and job losses would be exacerbated.
"For the first time in our history we are seeing environmental constraints to our economic development," he added.
He said, however, that the development of alternative energy resources would not be without opposition, citing the speed at which opposition had emerged to the proposed shale gas exploration in the Karoo.
"Alternative energy resources will not come without vigorous opposition," he said.
He noted the areas in which SA's coal deposits occured coincided with the country's best agricultural land and this meant that SA's energy addiction to coal was destroying the national agricultural capacity.
He said platinum might be the new engine of growth - but it also required masses of water. The extraction process was energy constrained because of the depth of deposits.
He added that land reform had unintended consequences, with the potential loss of food security.
Turton warned that the post gold peak was going to be a difficult time for SA as it approached a water-energy-food nexus crisis.
He said that people from the various interest groups needed to get together to speak to each other and maverick thinking was required.
"The logic used for the game has changed forever."
He added that partnerships between institutions, academics and scientists had to be nurtured and new partnerships between government and industry were needed.
He said there would be risks. Water prices were likely to increase quite dramatically - at least threefold in the short to medium term. There would also be increases in the price of energy, more stringent requirements for water permits, particularly for the big users of water, increases of costs of waste discharge.
There would also be a reduction in the assurance of supply, increased labour unrest due to persistent unemployment and loss of investor confidence with talk of nationalisation. There would also be increased pressure on CEOs to report all water-related risks to institutional investors.
Turton concluded that future energy solutions would be constrained by water. "We still have a lot of coal in the ground, whether we can get it out without impacting our water is another story. We need vigorous debate on the new energy mix to include renewables but also nuclear.
"We need to recycle our total national water source 1.7 times by 2035 and we will have full employment," he said.
He said SA needed to think about managing water as a flux, rather than a stock. In essence this meant that the foundation of the new economy would be recycling in a way that was safe by removing endocrine disrupting chemicals and heavy metals.
This meant that water of a different quality and price would be used for different purposes at different places in the national economy, he concluded.
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