Training vital in balancing coal jobs and energy mix
• SA faces a tough road ahead as one of the country’s biggest sectors undergoes changes in the way electricity is generated
The coal mining industry is changing across the world as countries prioritise clean energy to limit environmental effects. But in SA, coal remains an integral part of the economy and industry.
While trade unions are agitating for a conversation about the future of the industry following the government’s adoption of an energy mix approach in line with the Integrated Energy Plan, the focus on the inclusion of nuclear has deviated attention from coal.
In a 2015 report, Statistics SA said while calls to decrease the world’s dependence on coal were well-intended, SA would need to consider the implications of going the same route.
The country is one of the world’s top 10 producers of coal. In 2014, the sector produced 260-million tonnes of coal with a value exceeding R100bn, accounting for 17% of the estimated 400,000 jobs in mining.
“Measured at current prices, coal is now king,” said the Stats SA report.
Without coal, Eskom’s power-generating capacity would be crippled; 92% of SA’s power generation is based on indigenous coal production, according to the International Energy Agency.
However, the fact that coal is more profitable than gold has consequences for more than just Eskom or independent power producers.
Unions are up in arms about the threat to jobs in the industry and are demanding the government drafts a plan for when technology usurps humans in the sector.
In 2016, China — the world’s biggest consumer of energy — announced it would be reducing its dependency on coal as it tackled its choking air pollution.
The country has developed clean coal technologies and has steadily shut down older, low-efficiency and highemission plants.
But in SA, freight trucks and trains carrying large loads of coal are a permanent feature on the landscape.
Witbank in Mpumalanga is among the most polluted places in the world, as a result of its main economic activity, coal mining.
The South African Coal Roadmap, which explored SA’s security of supply under different scenarios while considering the effect of climate change, concluded that the country could not afford early retirement of its power stations.
Coal reserves are estimated at 53-billion tonnes, which could amount to 200 years of supply.
As demonstrated a few months ago, when truckers descended on Pretoria in protest against what they called “looming job losses” as a result of independent power producers, there is palpable tension about the way forward. The truckers were contracted by Eskom to transport coal.
Greenpeace Africa campaigner Nhlanhla Sibisi said the protest highlighted concerns about the upskilling of miners and truckers as envisioned in the National Development Plan.
“Decarbonising the electricity sector would change the job market drastically.
“However, a just transition away from coal to a low-carbon economy is possible without job losses, as is feared by the protesters, if the government keeps its promise to invest in reorienting the skills of our labour force,” he said at the time.
National Union of Mineworkers president Piet Matosa told delegates at a central committee meeting in June that Eskom’s threats that it would close five power stations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would provide business to independent power producers at a high cost for workers.
“This is a threat to our jobs. The suspension of a decision to close five coal power stations is welcome. But we know that suspension is not elimination, but only a pause,” he said.
“We demand that this ends completely and we should make this call as the central committee. Eskom must be in the hands of the state on behalf of the people of SA. Energy or power generation is a state competency. Finish and klaar!”
In a document entitled Energy Mix Choices and the Protection of Workers’ Interests in SA presented at the central committee meeting, the union proposed that instead of replacing coal-fired power generation, SA should rather focus on technological investment.
“But from the onset, one has to be mindful of who owns the clean technology that a country like SA can use in its coal power stations,” the document said. It raised questions such as: “Under what conditions will this technology be acquired? Will it not create a dependency situation that could be used in the future to disadvantage the country’s developmental aspirations?”
The Chamber of Mines does not have the answers either. Its senior executive for employment relations, Elize Strydom, says the process of securing future employment for workers in the coal industry is “very complicated”.
“I suspect we will have to work with the Seta [sector education and training authority] for the mining industry to think about what we will do in the event that we can’t upskill, reskill or multiskill,” she says.
“We should even talk to other Setas. If we are going to go the modernisation route, we have to look at developing new machinery, which we want to have done in SA.
“That means it’s a shift to manufacturing, but you can go back to mining employees to say maybe we can upskill them to maintain those machines.
“The machines will be mining, but they will need to be produced and maintained.
“Maybe there will be a greater merger of mining employees into manufacturing or vice versa. That could be a challenge because manufacturing is also going through challenges,” she says.