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City Press reports that the predicted loss of about 100,000 jobs in the coal sector over the next decade due to the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy has raised the spectre of ghost towns and destroyed communities, particularly in Mpumalanga.
Although these jobs will be balanced by the growth of the gas and renewable energy sector as SA shifts its energy mix in line with the new draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), the renewable energy projects will be predominantly situated in the Western and Northern Cape, far from the coal belts. The draft IRP sees the share of coal-generated electricity declining between 2020 to 2030 as coal power plants are decommissioned, while the share of renewables and gas increases. At the annual Windaba wind energy conference in Cape Town last week, Eskom shop steward for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Khangela Baloyi, said it was “clear” that jobs would be lost at Eskom and at the coal mines, as well as in transport and other sectors of the coal supply chain. He said the union accepted this, but a “just and fair transition” was needed for workers. He noted that jobs might be created in the renewable energy sector, “but are they the same quality as those in Eskom and the coal mines, and are they sustainable or just for the construction phase?” A further problem was that jobs would be “destroyed” in places such as the Komati or Hendrina power stations in Mpumalanga, while the jobs that were being created were in the Northern Cape. “What are you doing to the community where you destroyed jobs? There will be ghost towns with no economic activity,” Baloyi said.
Read the full original of the report Steve Kretzmann at City Press
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