Aluminium smelter in the Eastern Cape January 16, 2007
Posted by Andreas in "The Economy", Coega, Environment, South Africa.30 comments
At the end of last year, the Canadian-based multinational aluminium company Alcan announced that it would start construction of a R19.5 billion aluminium smelter at the Coega International Development Zone (IDZ) outside Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape in 2008.
The factory, the fourth aluminium smelter in the region (after Bayside and Hillside, both in Richardsbay, and Mozal in Mozambique), will occupy a total of 120 hectares of land, produce 720 000 tonnes of aluminium per year and create some 1000 direct jobs and 200-300 subcontractors’ jobs once operational.
Reactions in the corporate press and from business were predictably favourable, lauding the “unprecedented” economic growth that the smelter will trigger in the impoverished Eastern Cape.
This is all good news, right!? Well, on coming across the initial reports I was sceptical and decided to look at the issues a little more closely…
For starters, Coega is an Industrial Development Zone (IDZ). In essence what that means is that it is a newly created industrial and commercial area which the South African government established to attract foreign investors by bending over backwards in all sorts of ways.
According to the official website, the benefits of investing at Coega include:
- competitive skilled labour costs,
- over 90 [government] grants and incentives,
- purpose-built, world-class infrastructure,
- integration with South Africa’s newest deep-water port [called Ngqura] ,
- future plans for an international airport, and
- among world’s cheapest electric power.
It turns out that converting bauxite (aluminium ore) into aluminium metal is the most energy-intensive industrial process in the world, that aluminium producers use more electricity than any other industry and are significant contributors to global warming and environmental pollution and degradation. (I plagiarised most of the information on this topic from an excellent booklet called Foiling the Aluminium Industry, produced by the International Rivers Network).
Aluminium metal is produced in three stages, all of which have serious negative environmental and social impacts. First bauxite ore is mined, which is then refined into aluminium oxide or alumina, which is itself smelted to produce ingots of aluminium metal.
Three giant companies (Alcoa, Alcan and Rusal) produce more than one-third of the world’s aluminium. There has been a trend in recent years for aluminium processing plants and particularly smelters to move from the traditional industrial centres of the US, Europe and Japan to countries in the developing world where electricity prices are cheap and workers are paid low salaries. The establishment of the smelter at Coega certainly has to be seen within this broader context.
Since the plant at Coega will be a smelter, I will focus on the potential impact of that part of the three-stage process and ignore bauxite mining and refining here. The main concerns about aluminium smelters are as follows:
- Enormous energy consumption. Nearly all of the electricity consumed in the aluminium production chain is in the smelting process (estimated global average: 15.2-15.7 MWh per ton). In Mozambique, less than 10% of the population has access to electricity while the Mozal smelter devours four times the amount of electricity consumed by all other uses in the country. Escom recently signed an agreement with Alcan to supply the Coega smelter with electricity for 25 years.
- Pollution and environmental destruction. Aluminium smelting results in polluting gaseous emissions (including hydrogen fluoride, alumina, carbon monoxide, volatile organics and sulfur dioxide) and solid wastes (particulate fluorides and particularly significant volumes of toxic spent smelting pot linings contaminated with fluorides and cyanide). In Canada, toxic run-off from aluminium smelters has been blamed for exceedingly high rates of cancer among beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River. Aluminium smelting emits significant amounts of green-house gases, including CO2 (principally from burning of fossil fuels during electricity generation), methane and perfluorocarbons (very long-lived atmospheric pollutants that are several thousand times more potent greenhouse gases than CO2).
- Health risks. Workers at aluminium smelters are subject to the effects of fluoride poisoning with symptoms including osteosclerosis, sinus trouble, perforation of the nasal septum, chest pains, thyroid disorders, anemia, dizziness, weakness, respiratory disorders, nausea and increased susceptibility to various cancers.
Looking at all of these potential impacts, the prospect of an aluminium smelter in Coega is certainly much less attractive than the powers that be would have us believe.
Personally, I think it’s a downright disaster on a number of levels, but unless there is massive popular dissent, the promise of multi-million rand profits will no doubt outweigh the health of workers and the environment in the cost-benefit-analysis of those in power.
US bombs Cape Town January 12, 2007
Posted by Andreas in Cape Town, South Africa.1 comment so far
Just read this in The Cape Nowhere News:
Cape Town, South Africa – The United State’s war on terror reached South African shores today when three strategic locations in Cape Town were hit and destroyed by American intercontinental missiles aimed at killing Osama bin Laden just before noon today.
At approximately 11.47 am local time, rockets slammed into the five-star Mount Nelson Hotel in Gardens, the Palm Tree Mosque in the historic Bokaap district and Cavendish Square shopping centre in Claremont.
Herbert Huclehoober of the US embassy in Cape Town read out a joint Pentagon and White House statement at a press conference an hour after the attack: “United States Armed Forces, on the basis of firm intelligence information suggesting that Mr. Bin Laden is currently holidaying in the Cape, launched Operation Witblits at approximately 9:00 GMT this morning.”
“Three laser-guided Chicken-hawk intercontinental missiles, launched from the US destroyer J Edgar Hoover stationed off the East African coast, successfully accomplished their mission of neutralising suspected ‘terrorist’ targets.”
It is as yet unclear if Mr. Bin Laden, who was suspected to be somewhere in the Western Cape was killed in the attack. Mr. Huclehoober emphasised that the United States government regretted, as usual, any ‘collateral damage’ resulting from the anti-terrorist action.
The great South African biofuel delusion January 10, 2007
Posted by Andreas in Environment, News, South Africa, Sustainable Living.4 comments
Biofuels (bio-ethanol, made from crops such as maize and sugar cane and biodiesel, made from oil seed crops like sunflowers) have been getting increasing amounts of news coverage in recent years. These alternatives to conventional petrol and diesel are being touted as green solutions to many of our environmental problems.
And it’s not just environmental activists who are enamoured, growing numbers of celebrities like Daryl Hannah and Willie Nelson are enthusiastic pundits, too.
A careful and honest look at the realities of large-scale biofuel production will, however, make it quite obvious that they are not the answer to our problems.
The South African cabinet has just approved a draft biofuel strategy which opens the way for the establishment of a multi-billion rand biofuel industry in the country. The benefits: 55 000 new jobs and a reduction in the country’s dependence on imported oil and its carbon emissions.
According to a report by Melanie Gosling in yesterday’s Cape Times (which you won’t be able to read on-line unless you are a subscriber, @#&*%##@!) :
The strategy is also likely to see under-used land in the economically depressed former homelands being developed to grow crops for the biofuel industry…
The strategy proposes that there be a mandatory inclusion of 4.5% of biofuels in road transport fuel by 2013. This will mean an additional 1.3 million hectares of land will be needed to produce grain [700 000 hectares] and oilseeds [600 00 hectares] to supply the biofuel industry.
Sounds good at a first glance, right? Ja, but has anybody done the maths on this proposal? I suspect they have, but are too greedy to tell us (yes, I did say multi-billion rand industry earlier).
Even a back of the envelope calculation reveals the lunacy of believing that biofuels are the answer to our problems:
The “additional 1.3 million hectares of land” required to produce enough biofuels to make up a mere 4.5% of the country’s transport fuel would mean a doubling (approximately) of the total area currently under permanent cultivation in South Africa, a water-poor country which already uses almost half of its water for agriculture.
South Africa has some 15 million hectares of arable land (about 12.1% of its total area). Even if all of this arable land were to be used for biofuel production, it would still only generate just over half of the transport fuel that we consume (oh, and yes, we’d have to import all of our food).
I’m not, of course, the first person to be critical of mass-produced biofuels (read contributions by George Monbiot and David Pimentel). Biodiesel produced from recycled vegetable oil is a viable option, and I’m still keen to brew it for my own use, but it will only provide the proverbial drop in the ocean.
The bottom line is that we, as a society, as a civilisation, are oil addicts in a state of utter denial. What is required is that we ween ourselves off the stuff as quickly and as completely as possible, or we’ll soon find ourselves down Shit Street in a pedalo (to paraphrase James Howard Kunstler).
Back on the hamster wheel January 8, 2007
Posted by Andreas in Life, Work.1 comment so far
I hate the first day back at work after a holiday, especially after as fantastic a holiday as I’ve just had. We spent as much time at the beach, in the forrest and in the park as we could, avoiding the tourists whenever possible. Blissful, life affirming and invigorating.
Sitting down in front of my computer at work this morning and being confronted with all of the crap I so happily left behind me before Christmas precipitated a feeling of emptiness I still haven’t managed to shake.
It’s a shame that we have to sacrifice so much of our energy and spirit at the bloody altar of wage slavery. Right now I feel bitter that after way to short a reprieve I’m right back in the rat-race. Back to square one.
I guess I’ll get over feeling shitty soon enough, but this is definitely not a lifestyle (sic) I want for the rest of my life!
Getting out of this dead-end will be a major personal project for the next while. Not quite sure how to do it yet, but for starters, I bet keeping on doing as many of the brilliant things we did during these holidays will help to shore up my spirits.
Book Review: Endgame by Derrick Jensen January 2, 2007
Posted by Andreas in Book Reviews.1 comment so far
My rating: 8 out of 10 – challenging, radical, controversial and inspiring.
Derrick Jensen’s massive two volume book Engame is all about the demise of industrial civilisation. Not only does Jensen believe this to be inevitable, he thinks it’s desirable and he encourages all of us to make it a reality as soon as possible.
Jensen is an anarcho-primitivist, in fact he’s a leading light (if anarchists can be said to have leading lights…) of this controversial, but increasingly popular fringe of the diverse anarchist community. “What commentary of any real relevance could be coming from a fringe of the farthest left?” I hear you ask. A considerable amount, actually, which probably explains its growing popularity.
The basic premise of the books is that industrial civilisation as we know it today and as it has been in existence on this planet for the last several thousand years is founded on the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources and is therefore, by definition, unsustainable and what’s more, incompatible with life on earth.
The two volumes, subtitled The Problem of Civilization and Resistance respectively, are a great introduction to the key concepts currently in vogue among the radical green left and even if you don’t consider yourself a part of that scene, you will still find Endgame to make compelling reading. Jensen takes on the liberal environmentalist establishment and pushes many of its arguments to their logical, if often extreme, conclusion. The reader is constantly forced to confront and evaluate fundamental issues in her or his own life philosophy.
At a combined total of over 900 pages and considering the weighty subject matter, this is not exactly easy fair, but Jensen’s conversational style, his use of many personal anecdotes and his own brand of irreverent humor make it surprisingly readable. Sure, it is long and there is some repetition, but I never found it dull.
If you are a Jensen fan, this is a must-read synthesis of his philosophy. If you have not come across this author before, but are concerned about environmental matters and worried about were civilisation is headed, this monumental work provides an unusual but powerful alternative perspective. A great read!
