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| Fig. 1: South Africa coal production and export in exajoules from 2011 to 2021 from Table. 1. [1] (Image source: J. Ibrahim) |
South Africa is one of the largest producers and exporters of coal in the world and is heavily reliant on coal for energy and trade. The country's plentiful coal deposits are easier and cheaper to mine than many other nation's deposits and many other forms of energy are inaccessible to the nation.[2]
Between 2011 and 2021 South Africa produced an average of 5.98 exajoules worth of coal equivalent to around 204 million tonnes of coal. While coal production remained consistently above 5.9 exajoules between 2011 and 2019 , production declined nearly 8% in the two years after. Additionally coal export experienced a sharp decline in 2019 from 3.30 exajoules worth of coal in 2018 to less than half, 1.4 exajoules, in 2019. Export remained low in 2020 and 2021. Decline in production and export in recent years can be explained by many factors including reduced operations due to poorly maintained mining and transport infrastructure, green energy initiatives and related environmental concerns influencing environmental and energy policies[2], and the COVID 19 pandemic.
South Africa's current reliance on coal is problematic not only due to potential exhausting of discovered mines and environmental damage due to mining but also due to the dependence of South Africans on this sector for employment. As coal mining operations inevitably decline within the next century due to green energy initiatives and low coal supply many South Africans will find themselves out of work. In 2015 it was reported that a total of 77.8 thousand people were employed from coal mining operations in South Africa and it is projected that by 2045 employment could get as low as 21.4 thousand people.[3] Keeping unemployment low is key to the economic well being of a nation and while phasing out coal is critical to a green and sustainable future, factors like employment related to mining industries must be kept in mind.
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| Table 1: South Africa coal production, export, and YOY change in production between 2011 and 2021. [1] |
© Jawad Ibrahim. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022," Britsh Petroleum, June 2022.
[2] S. Ratshomo and R. Nambahe, "2019 South African Energy Sector Report," Department of Energy, Republic of South Africa, 2019.
[3] C. Strambo, J. Burton and A. Atteridge, "The End of Coal? Planning a Just Transition in South Africa," Stockholm Environment Institute, February 2019 .