Follow us on twitter!News Flash 11 April 2011
BUSINESS DAY
Keaton to boost coal supply to Eskom
KEATON Energy will supply Eskom with a greater amount of coal over a longer period as it begins production of thermal coal next month, CEO Paul Miller said yesterday. Keaton, which already produces coal for use in smelters, will now supply 20,8-million tons of thermal coal to Eskom over 10 years, up from the original seven-year contract to supply 16,5-million tons 8/4/2011 Read More....
CoAL seeks legal advice after accusations
COAL of Africa Limited (CoAL) was seeking legal advice after a coalition of nongovernmental organisations accused it of "a shocking record of non-compliance" with environmental legislation, particularly the National Water Act. The Department of Mineral Resources last week awarded CoAL a water licence for its controversial proposed Vele Colliery near the Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site, meaning the only remaining hurdle to opening the coking mine is to address a compliance notice by the Department of Environmental Affairs. 8/4/2011 Read More....
BUSINESS REPORT
Transnet to reopen coal line
South Africa's freight logistics group Transnet will on Friday reopen the remaining line linking the coal mines with the Richards Bay export terminal closed last week after a derailment. 8/4/2011 Read More....
ENGINEERING NEWS
Low reserve margin makes maintenance difficult, raises risk of outages – Eskom CEO
As winter approached in South Africa, Eskom would be relying on its customers to use less of its product and be more energy efficient to improve the reserve margin, which would allow for more flexibility of maintenance. The peak forecast for 2011 was about 37 500 MW, which was a 2% increase on the 2010 peak demand. 8/4/2011 Read More....
NEWS24
Electricity supply tight, but no blackouts In a statement issued on Friday, Public Enterprises Minister Gigaba said: "The reality is that Eskom faces a challenge during the generation maintenance season up until mid-May 2011. There is not enough of a window to do the necessary levels of maintenance required to ensure that the winter peak electricity demand can be sustained." Minister Gigaba said that although Eskom has initiatives in place to ensure that there is an adequate reserve margin such as, imports from Cahora Bassa, municipal generation and accelerated demand side initiatives, the prevailing challenge will be the ability to provide adequate maintenance windows for Eskom's generation fleet.9/4/2011 Read More....
REUTERS
Shale gas stirs ecology fears in S.Africa's Karoo South Africa's Karoo, a vast arid wilderness, may contain gas reserves that could solve the country's energy problems -- but only through an extraction process called fracking that has greens seeing red.
The sprawling and ecologically sensitive region, home to rare species such as the mountain zebra and riverine rabbit, may hold vast deposits of natural gas in shale rock deep underground.
Once unobtainable, such reserves can now be exploited with new techniques and could serve as a badly needed energy source for Africa's largest economy, which is heavily reliant on coal. 8/4/2011 Read More....
THE ATLANTIC
Washington Energy Consensus Could Be Splintered by Shale Gas Carbon Footprint
By Alexis Madrigal Shale gas, a promising clean energy solution, faces a major challenge from a new study that concludes it may have a heavier greenhouse gas footprint than coal. But fracking, the nickname for hydraulic fracturing, the process by which inaccessible gas is made available, has always been a questionable environmental practice. Locals in areas where this particular type of resource extraction is occurring have sometimes called its "clean energy" status into question. 10/4/2011 Read More....
POWER-GEN WORLDWIDE
Cornell switches CHP plant from coal to gas
Cornell University’s central energy plant at its Ithaca, New York campus has burned the last coal to create electricity and heat for the campus, reports the Cornell Daily Sun. The Ithaca campus is now coal-free, in favour of natural gas being used in the CHP plant, following the success of the university’s ‘Moving Beyond Coal’ initiative. 11/4/2011 Read More....
