Staggering death, financial toll of SA’s coal-fired power stations

R33 BILLION a year. That’s the staggering monetised cost of death and disease each year from air pollution emitted by Eskom’s fleet of 14 coal-fired power stations.

This is according to a first estimate of the health impacts and related social costs of emissions from existing coalfired power stations, by Dr Mike Holland, a UK researcher.

His assessment, commissioned by groundWork, an environmental lobby group for its submissions on the Integrated Resource Plan Base Case and the draft Integrated Energy Plan, by the Department of Energy, finds that Eskom’s coal fleet results in 2 239 attributable deaths a year.

“The fact remains that a large number of epidemiological studies have found links between mortality and air pollution, and reducing pollution would benefit the health of the population substantially,” says Holland, in his report.

The figure of R33bn “is made up of impacts in terms of early death, chronic bronchitis, hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular disease and a variety of minor conditions leading to restrictions on daily activity, including lost productivity”.

These costs accumulate year on year, “which is clearly of great concern for plants that have lifetimes in the region of several decades”.

Both groundWork and the CER believe the health costs could be far higher as Holland’s study does not include the impact of the coal mines that feed Eskom’s power station, or several other leading pollutants.

The CER says that Holland’s study shows how “air pollution most affects those whose underlying health condition is worst, and hence that any improvement in air quality will most benefit those who are most disadvantaged”.

“This is a prime example of the environmental injustice which is prevalent in many parts of South Africa.

“The critical thing is that the figures are alarming, but it’s the tip of the iceberg,” says Bobby Peek, who heads groundWork.

“We haven’t considered HIV/Aids, TB, malnutrition, people that have other illnesses and how it will relate to the health impacts of air pollution.

“If we do, we’re sure we’ll get more much drastic and alarming figures in the population. That’s the big concern.”

A previous 2014 report on the health impacts and social costs of Eskom’s coal- fired power stations concluded that atmospheric emissions from those stations “are currently causing an estimated 2 200 premature deaths per year, because of exposure to fine particulate matter ( PM2.5) pegging the economic cost to society at around R33bn a year.

This included premature deaths from PM2.5 exposure and costs from the neurotoxic effects of mercury on children.

Holland has been quantifying the impacts of air pollution from power systems since 1990 for the European Commission, as well as governments in the UK, France and China.

“Results demonstrate that air pollution has a broad spectrum of effects on health, including mortality and cardiovascular and respiratory illness.”

His analysis, he points out, is “intended to inform the current debate on energy policy in South Africa by providing a means of accounting for the external costs of power generation from coal”.

Evidence that “air pollution at levels found in South Africa” has a serious adverse impact on health is substantial, “with the epidemiological literature on the subject running to many thousands of papers.”

PICTURE: EPA An Eskom coal-fired power station near Joburg.