South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., already named as the world’s biggest sulfur dioxide emitter, has won approval to bypass pollution abatement equipment at one of its two biggest coal-fired power plants to allow it to restore generation capacity to the grid quicker.
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., already named as the world’s biggest sulfur dioxide emitter, has won approval to bypass pollution abatement equipment at one of its two biggest coal-fired power plants to allow it to restore generation capacity to the grid quicker.
Eskom will be allowed to temporarily bypass the so-called flue-gas desulfurization unit at the Kusile power plant, which cuts sulfur dioxide emissions by as much as 99% as it repairs the plant, which has been affected by a chimney collapse. Sulfur dioxide is linked to ailments ranging from asthma to heart attacks.
I am “aware of the health and associated impacts of exposure to sulfur dioxide emissions, particularly on communities in close proximity to coal-fired power stations,” Barbara Creecy, the environment minister, said in a statement on Wednesday. “In the light of the competing factors, I have been called on to make an extraordinarily difficult decision.”
The Centre for Environmental Rights has estimated that the 13 month period allowed of the exemption could lead to the premature deaths of 492 people. Eskom is the world’s biggest emitter of the pollutant, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said in 2021.
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