Population Growth & Sustainable Development

Author: Dr Eureta Rosenberg

http://www.enviropaedia.com/

In the year 2000 the human inhabitants of Earth reached 6 billion. Now, in 2003, there are 6.1 billion of us. And not only is the world population increasing, the rate at which it is growing has also been increasing. The above table illustrates this, including the great acceleration over the past 200 years. It forces us to ask the sustainability question: What will happen if the human population continues on its current growth path?

Impacts
Growing populations are faced with the harsh reality of limited natural resources. The issue of water supply is a good example to demonstrate that unrestrained population growth is not sustainable. Consider this:

1. Water, like other natural resources, is not evenly distributed around the globe. The countries described as ‘developed’ or ‘industrialised’ have in general more abundant sources of water, or the technology to use water more efficiently.
2. The supply of fresh water is essentially fixed. While technical means are being explored to increase the supply of fresh water (such as Desalination) their impact is likely to be limited.
3. We are already consuming close to the planet’s limits. Worldwide, 54% of the annual available fresh water is already being used. This may seem to leave a lot to spare, but scientists have demonstrated that we need to leave a certain volume of water in rivers and other wetlands as an ecological ‘reserve’, in order to maintain their functional viability. When we use up this reserve, we destroy these ecosystems and reduce the overall available volume of water.
4. This level of use (54%) is based on unequal consumption: Around the world, some 1.1 billion people do not have access to fresh water, or consume less than the basic daily requirement
of 50 litres.
5. Population growth will also result in greater volumes of pollution. In developing countries, 90–95% of sewage and 70% of industrial waste are dumped into surface waters thus polluting the water supply. Water quality is also affected by chemical run-off from pesticides and fertilisers and acid rain from air pollution, requiring expensive, energy-intensive processes to clean it for human use. In a recent case in Brits, residents could not use council water because of pollution in the Hartbeespoort Dam. Pollution clearly decreases the volume (and increases the cost) of available water.

Now consider what will happen with the projected population growth. It is estimated that by the year 2025 the increased number of people on earth would use up 70% of the available fresh water. This is not taking into account the needs of those people who currently do not get enough. If consumption increased everywhere to current developed-country levels, we will be using 90% of available fresh water. The effects on ecosystems would be devastating. Springs, rivers and other wetlands as well as underground water sources would run dry; lakes and estuaries where fish stocks breed would be irreversibly damaged; the list of impacts is long.
A child born today in an industrialised country will consume more and pollute more in his or her lifetime than 30 to 50 children born in a developing country.
In 2000, 508 million people lived in 31 water-stressed or waterscarce countries. By the year 2050, this will have rocketed to 4.2 billion people living in countries that cannot meet the minimum requirement of 50 litres of water a day.
Water is not only a basic human need, without which we die. It is also the basis of health, food security and economic development. For individual families, lack of access to clean water is associated with unhygienic living conditions, already one of the biggest causes of deaths among infants. On a national and regional level, cash crops and other industries depend on water supplies. As water becomes scarcer, we see not only a decrease in the quality of life, but an increase in social conflict.
The same scenario will play out (and already does) for land and other non-renewable natural resources. These resources limit the number of people the earth can bear sustainably. This is why the rate at which the world population is growing, is such a serious ecological and social threat.

Demographics and trends
Just as the world’s natural resources are unequally distributed, the world population is also unequally distributed. High population numbers are associated with those regions where natural resources are generally more limited. Here the population increase is also the fastest, the consumption per person the lowest, and the negative impacts of growth most acutely felt.
At the current global population growth rate of 1.3%, there are 77 million more people living on this planet per year. Six countries alone are responsible for half of this growth: India (for 21%), China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
There has been a general decline in fertility in countries described as ‘developing’ (to an average of just under three children per woman – half of the 1969 figures), and the figure is expected to decrease further to 2.17 by 2045–2050.
But despite this trend, most of the projected growth in the world population will take place in developing countries. By 2050, 85% of the world population will be living in developing countries. (The comparative figure for industrialised countries is 1.6 children per woman.) The 49 ‘least-developed’ countries will almost triple in size. This level of growth will almost certainly have devastating effects for their environment and inhabitants, with rippling impacts on their neighbours and other countries to which people may migrate.
One of the effects of population growth can be seen in cities. As rural environments become less able to sustain people, an estimated 160 000 rural dwellers move to cities every day. This results in sprawling, densely populated urban areas under great social, economic and environmental stress.

The effects on people range from social friction (such as crime and xenophobia) to health impacts. Problems like traffic congestion and pollution are common: Air pollution levels in many fast-growing cities far exceed World Health Organisation guidelines, and is said to cause ill health and death for millions of people each year.
City surroundings are depleted through concentrated extraction of resources ranging from water to firewood; the conversion of farmland or wetlands for housing, roads and shopping centres; and the spill-over of pollution, which is often worsened by local governments failing to provide the necessary facilities for the swelling numbers.

The local situation
Do we have a problem in South Africa? Our population growth rate is slowing down – from 2.1% in 1975–2000, to a predicted 0.2% for 2000–2015. This figure takes deaths due to HIV/Aids into account. While HIV/Aids slows the growth rate (it would probably have been 1.4% in 2010 without HIV/Aids), the epidemic will probably not result in negative population growth (a smaller population). In 2000, our population was 43.3 million.
Is this a problem? Are there too many of us? For answers, we need to look towards the environmental resources, which must sustain us. In each locality, we need to consider whether that particular environment is able to support the people living in it. And critically, we need to ask whether current needs are being met adequately.
Our apartheid history has much to do with how the population has been distributed, and associated environmental degradation. In former Bantustan areas like KwaMhlanga and Transkei, too many people were forced to live in resource-poor areas with limited capacity to support their artificially high numbers. The effects on both the environment and people’s ability to sustain a livelihood were devastating. Looking for alternative livelihoods, many rural South Africans moved to cities, where the majority of us (56.9%) now live. Here informal settlements are expanding, often into sensitive or high-risk areas such as flood plains or waste dumps. Lacking resources, they contribute to environmental and health issues, e.g. pollution of ground water through untreated sewage. Local governments struggle to meet the demand for housing, water, sanitation, waste removal, transport and health services. Biodiversity is lost as remnants of indigenous vegetation are destroyed. Considering that the economic and ecological demands of our existing population are already straining the Earth’s capacity, and that many basic human needs are not yet met, can we afford to continue growing in numbers?

Solutions
If we want to achieve a sustainable relationship between natural resources, development and human numbers, we need to consider the fact that many people still do not get a big enough slice of the cake, as well as the reality that the Earth’s cake is of a limited size. As we saw from the water example, natural resources are essentially fixed, and taking strain under the demands of consumption and growing populations.
Yes, we can produce more food and we should distribute resources more fairly and efficiently around the globe. This, along with reducing over-consumption and discarding discriminatory economics, can alleviate a great deal of hunger and hardship (see Topic ECONOMICS). Technological advances towards energyefficient and resource-light production can reduce resource use and pollution, but these steps will not reverse the impact of the population explosion. Something must be done to slow down population growth – but what?
The greatest threat to sustainable development is consumption; consumption is linked to unsustainable production and overconsumption among the consumer classes in both the north and south, and to population growth, particularly in the south. Different camps fight about who has the greater environmental impact – the rich over-consumers or the poor populationgrowers. The fight may just defer responsibility, however, because BOTH over-consumption and over-population must be addressed, if we are to achieve ecological sustainability and social justice – and we cannot deal with them as separate issues. The answer is not as simple as ‘family planning’ or reducing the number of pregnancies. We need to understand what will make family planning and fertility control possible and likely, from a social point of view, and how these factors can be addressed.
Most agencies involved in population development advocate a multi-faceted and integrated approach. They point out that high population growth rates are associated with poverty, environmental degradation, limited opportunities and unequal power relations. High fertility is still a feature of rural life in many areas, even when the rationale for having large families (needing many hands for harvesting, for example) are no longer valid.
In these situations women often do not have the power to choose the size and spacing of their family. Addressing these vicious cycles requires an integrated approach, in which family planning goes hand in hand with increasing women’s rights and their ability to exercise them, reducing poverty, protecting the environment and increasing livelihood options. These goals are all interrelated and cannot be separated from economic models and over-consumption (see Topic Poverty Alleviation).

Social development that empowers women and girls will support family planning. This would include:

1. Cultural, legal, political and economic changes that acknowledge women’s rights as equal citizens; such changes are frequently resisted in overt or subtle ways, but while the resistance is often said to be based on ‘culture’, it may reflect short-term interests rather than fundamental values.
2. Legal and community protection against sexual harassment and violence.
3. Education (in many parts of the world it is still unusual for girls to be educated).
4. Establishing women’s right to own land (many women farm without the ability to make decisions about the management of the land).
5. Reproductive health care (UN agencies lack funds to provide fertility control to all the people requiring it).
6. Adequate general health and social support, so that each child born can be treated with the necessary care and respect.
7. Reducing social strife and conflict so that life is no longer treated as ‘cheap’ anywhere on Earth.

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Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency

Author: Glynn Morris ~ Agama Energy (Pty) Ltd


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All of us use energy services in our daily lives. Many of these are based on grid electricity, which is essentially clean and convenient at the point of use in your home or office. However, grid electricity is only one form of energy and it has some rather significant disadvantages – one of which is that in South Africa it is derived from non-renewable and environmentally problematic sources of energy such as coal. And, as it turns out, our coal has particularly high local and global environmental impacts, being one of the dirtiest coals in the world.

Advantages of conventional grid electricity:
> Convenience
> Low cost – to the consumer
> It is clean at the point of use
> Reliability
> Wide range of interchangeable appliances available – both new and secondhand
> Status and a sense of modernity.

Disadvantages of conventional grid electricity:
> High consumption of non-renewable resources such as coal, uranium and gas
> High use of water in a water poor country (each unit of electricity generated consumes 1.25 litres of water)
> Health and safety issues relating to coal/uranium mining and gas/oil drilling and refining
> Land use issues relating to coal/uranium mining
> Damaging environmental effects of emissions – greenhouse gases and particulates
> Waste disposal issues relating to ash (from coal) and nuclear waste
> Visual impacts of overhead transmission lines across the country and
distribution lines in towns
> Centralisation of control and the associated dependencies.

What are the alternatives?

Implicit in the question is the awareness that there are different options – other than electricity from Eskom or a local authority – i.e. you actually do have a choice. Secondly, it implies that each option is better or worse than others depending on the criteria – such as cost, convenience, environmental impacts, etc. Modern Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficient Options are technically mature, commercially established, readily accessible and they are more or less just as expensive (or cheap) as the conventional option of grid.

Typical renewable energy and energy efficiency options include:
> Natural lighting of your building, by allowing sunlight to enter the structure in a controlled and pleasant manner
> Solar heating of your building by orientation and better placement and shading of windows • Solar water heating
> Solar and/or wind generated electricity (whether connected to the grid or not).

Some of the benefits include:
> Energy savings – you can save energy, and hence natural resources,
which benefits everyone.
> Financial savings – by using less energy (energy efficiency) and substitution of one form of (non-renewable and expensive) energy to a another (renewable or cheaper) form.
> Reduced consumption of our natural resources.
> Operational security – renewable energy systems can be designed to provide better reliability than conventional grid systems, such as power for telecommunications, navigational beacons, etc.
> Diversity of supply – diversification of supply means there is less risk of experiencing a total loss of power, due to the sole source of energy (electricity) going down for some reason.
> Reduced or deferred infrastructure costs – including generation, transmission, distribution and maintenance.
> Environmental benefits – renewable energy systems do not degrade the environment to the same extent as nonrenewable systems.
> Social benefits – increased employment opportunities through manufacture, installation and operation of renewable energy systems.

The South African government has developed and published its energy policy in the form of the White Paper on Energy Policy of the Republic of South Africa (December 1998) and a White Paper on Renewable Energy (November 2003). These policy documents officially endorse and recommend the greater use of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

What can you do to begin the process of shifting away from the use of non-renewable energy – Where does one start?
It is always difficult to start on a new path, but one of the benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency is that you can start small and transform your energy utilization patterns and energy service systems slowly and within the constraints of your budget. The more you implement changes, the more monthly disposable income will become available (from the savings you make) for further investments in your energy transformation.

Introducing energy efficiency measures
Before looking at the ways in which you can transform your use of conventional grid energy, it is important to remember that, in terms of more sustainable energy efficiency practices, there is nothing that can beat the benefits of reducing your need for energy in the first place, through energy conservation and energy efficiency. Any activity which reduces the demand for energy saves our natural resources and also reduces wastes and emissions. Even homes or businesses, which currently use renewable energy, really do benefit from energy conservation and energy efficiency.
> Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs in lights which are used more than three hours per day.
> Install a timer switch and insulation on your geyser or convert your geyser to an instantaneous water heater (with no heat losses from stored water).
> Draught-proofing your building to reduce uncontrolled heat losses through air movement.
> Insulate your building.
> Maintain good fridge habits, including keeping the door seal in good condition; keeping your fridge 75% full all the time, with water bottles, to minimise the amount of warm air that enters the fridge to replace cooled air which ‘falls’ out when you open the door.

Introducing renewable energy systems
The key to the most cost-effective use of renewable energy systems is the matching of the energy services that you require with the capacities and characteristics of available technologies and systems. This is really true for any technology – computers, cars, music systems, etc.
Assess your real energy service needs (after having reduced the consumption of your existing energy supplies to more realistic levels, through energy efficiency measures and increased use of more efficient electrical appliances as above).
> Substitute or expand your range of energy supplies to utilise these more effectively, e.g. using solar cooking or bottled gas for cooking rather than electricity.
> Start to increase your overall use of renewable energy to reduce your use (and dependence) on non-renewable energy supplies.
> Monitor (and then manage) your consumption and the costs of this consumption (including social and environmental costs if you feel up to it) on an ongoing basis.

For access to information and suppliers, the best place to start is by contacting the Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa (as listed in the Enviropaedia.com Directory (www.enviropaedia.com).

The initial questions that you should enquire about include:
> The initial costs of supply and installation
> The operating and maintenance requirements
(even renewable energy systems need to be maintained)
> The levels of service which are offered
> The implications of upgrading (or downgrading) as your needs change
> The costs of ongoing maintenance
> The quality assurance for the equipment and for the installation contractor.

We hope you enjoy the experience of taking responsibility for your own energy service needs. Start small and play. The risks are small by comparison with entrusting your (and the Earth’s) future to others. Stand up to the fact that one third of all known species on Earth will have been wiped out by 2050, due primarily to global warming as a result of our current practices.

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Deep Ecology

Author: Tatjana van Bormann ~ Londolozi Communications

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Rediscovering abundant living
The Deep Ecology worldview asks that we do some deep thinking about who we are and what our role is on the planet. The term was coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1972 and defines an ecocentric environmental worldview. As it has its roots in philosophical traditions, the Deep Ecology view challenges us to explore further, not to accept the current status quo but to dig deep into essential questions of life, to extend our thinking beyond our own egos and recognise that we are part of the great interdependent community of life on the planet. Once we have deeply questioned our own beliefs, Deep Ecology then asks that we align our actions to those beliefs.

Celebrated author Fritjof Capra, who articulated the Web of Life concept in his book of the same name, has said that Deep Ecology is the place where ‘science, philosophy, and spirituality meet’.

Basic beliefs
In 1984, the concept of Deep Ecology was further developed with the drawing up of a list of eight beliefs, which now underpin a major philosophical and ethical movement. Briefly, the tenets, as written by Arne Naess and George Sessions, are as follows:

1. The wellbeing and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realisation of these values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity, except to satisfy vital needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires such a decrease.
5. Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must thus be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from what it is at present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating quality (dwelling in situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation, directly or indirectly, to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.

Lifestyle guidelines
Arne Naess went a step further and defined some lifestyle adjustments for those who ascribe to deep ecology principles. These include:

1. Appreciating all forms of life
2. Protecting or restoring local ecosystems
3. Using simple means
4. Consuming less
5. Satisfying vital needs rather than desires
6. Attempting to live in nature and promoting community
7. Appreciating ethnic and cultural differences
8. Working to improve the standard of living for the world’s poor
9. Working to eliminate injustice to humans or other species
10. Acting non-violently.

(Source: G Tyler Miller Jnr, Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections and Solutions (10th Ed.), Wadsworth Publishing Co.)

Deep Ecology is synonymous with the concept of ‘think like a mountain,’ which means thinking beyond the self so that the wellbeing of the Earth becomes inherent in every action. It is also essentially a view that believes that ‘simple in means is rich in ends’. This thinking is, on first reading, immediately attractive, questioning our mode of existence, voluntarily reducing material comforts in order to rediscover abundant living through an existence that is in harmony with the planet. Deep Ecology is a radical concept, requiring adherents to embrace a complete shift in their approach to living. It is nevertheless a profoundly hopeful philosophy. In a time when the media put out a steady stream of planetary doom and gloom, Deep Ecology promotes solutions and a means of addressing current environmental crises.

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Nuclear Energy ~ The 'Anti' Position

Author: Olivia Andrews ~ Earthlife Africa

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The nuclear industry wants a new lease of life in South Africa. Currently there is one nuclear power reactor, Koeberg, situated near Cape Town, which contributes about 6% to South Africa’s total energy supply. Low-level waste from Koeberg is dumped at Vaalputs in the Northern Cape; waste from the weapons programme is stored at Pelindaba, near Pretoria. Eskom plans to build a Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR), a version of a reactor that was abandoned overseas and has never been successfully commercialised. The demonstration plant will be built at Koeberg, and if this is successful at least another 10 reactors will be built around South Africa. Eskom plans to build, use and sell over 200 reactors to create a potential export business. This will mean more waste buried at Vaalputs and hundreds of trucks carrying radioactive materials on our roads.

What follows are 10 reasons why nuclear power is not a solution for our country.

1. Health impacts
There is no such thing as a ‘safe’ dose of radiation. There is a growing body of evidence that low doses may actually be more dangerous, as they may mutate cells more easily than high doses, which can kill the cell. There is no debate as to whether radiation kills, maims, causes mutations, is cumulative, causes leukaemia cancers and respiratory illness, and attacks the immune system (with children, pregnant women and the elderly the most vulnerable).

The only disagreement is about what is legally considered an allowable dose. Between 1940 and 1950 the American, British and Canadian scientists who developed the atomic bomb laid down the first ‘safe’ levels of radiation: 150mSv per annum. The ‘safe’ level of exposure has been continually adjusted downwards as more research into the dangers is done. By 1990 the annual acceptable level of exposure in South Africa was reduced to 20mSv for occupational exposure and 1mSv for the general public. (This limit is 10 times higher than the limit laid down by the European Committee on Radiation Risk.)

Even if all fossil-fuel-generated electricity was replaced with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically viable uranium to fuel reactors for three to four years. To run one reactor, 440 000 tons of rock need to be mined, yielding 33 tons of uranium. Uranium mining is responsible for the greatest proportion of healthrelated damages of nuclear power. There seems little doubt that communities living near nuclear plants are at risk. Before South Africa begins to build new reactors, epidemiological studies of communities around Koeberg, Vaalputs and Pelindaba need to be carried out. In the USA, the numbers of radiation induced illnesses dropped after some plants were closed down.

2. Waste
There is no responsible way to ‘dispose’ of radioactive waste and it remains the biggest problem of the nuclear industry worldwide, remaining dangerous for at least 240 000 years (equivalent to 10 000 generations). There is no plan in place for the long-term storage or any final disposal site for radioactive waste anywhere in the world. How, then, is the expansion of the nuclear industry going ahead without addressing the current problems of waste storage? In the USA, the costs for locating a suitable site for the storage of high-level waste are running at $8 billion and no solution has been found.

The proposed PBMR uses fuel in the form of balls made from uranium coated with graphite as opposed to the rods used in the present reactor at Koeberg. The reactor will create about 35 tons of radioactive waste per year, a much larger volume than other designs. Over the 40-year life span of one PBMR, 4.7 million balls will be used and will need to be disposed of.

Low-level nuclear-waste storage sites are built in rural areas far way from densely populated areas. Can it be justified to expose someone to risk because they are living in a rural area? At Vaalputs, there is a community living within 24 kilometres of the site. Nuclear waste is a responsibility for hundreds of thousands of years and it will be future generations who will bear the health and financial costs. The best solution is not to produce any in the first place.

3. Economics
The proposed PBMR has cost R2 billion for the development stage; the demonstration phase is expected to cost another R11.3 billion. This could rise to as much as R25 billion if one were to include decommissioning costs. It is the South African taxpayers and electricity consumers who will bear the costs. The demonstration phase will make a loss rather than aprofit. The cost of electricity will only be brought down to competitive levels once 32 reactors have been built – a very unlikely scenario, given that not a single order has been placed to date. The PBMR business plan is based around large economies of scale requiring many customers and reactors. Estimated costs of the demonstration plant increased fivefold from R2 billion in 1999 to R10 billion in 2004. Media reports now estimate the costs to be R14 billion.

Nuclear power is expensive electricity. All states in the USA with nuclear power charge, on average, 25% more for their electricity. The economics are speculative and costs are escalating.

The cost of nuclear power doesn’t stop once plant construction is completed. Nuclear plants need to be decommissioned after their (approximate) 40-year life span. Toxic spent fuel produced from nuclear reactors needs to be stored safely for thousands of years before it is harmless, which has enormous cost, health and social implications. Nuclear power takes money away from clean alternatives and soaks up funding that should be used to develop proven clean, renewable sources of energy – wind, water and solar energy – which are all suitable for bulk baseload industrial generation.

4. Climate change
Global climate change poses a serious crisis. In South Africa, 74% of energy comes from coal so finding cleaner energy sources is a big challenge. Nuclear industries are exploiting concerns over global warming by misrepresenting nuclear power as a carbon-free electricity source and global climate saviour. However, the entire fuel chain of nuclear energy is extremely energy intensive and dirty. The nuclear fuel cycle releases CO2 during mining, fuel production, transport, plant construction and decommissioning, as well as for waste management far into the future. Uranium enrichment is one of the most energy-intensive industrial operations and, as demand for uranium grows and lower-grade ores are used, so CO2 emissions are expected to rise. Some debated research even shows that nuclear power generates less energy than it uses in the entire fuel chain over its lifetime. Climate change may change the market for nuclear energy, but it will not make uneconomic technology economic. Promoting one environmental disaster to solve another catastrophe is illogical.

5. World Market
The PBMR business plan is based on large economies of scale and requires high volumes of export. Who is going to buy this technology? Internationally respected analysts have shown that the worldwide market for nuclear power grew at less than 1% per annum over the last 10 years. The market for Renewable Energy is growing in leaps and bounds, between 25% and 45% per annum. It is strange that such supposed cutting-edge technology as the PBMR is failing to attract foreign investment. Since Excelon and Areva have pulled out there have been no new investors. British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) is the only remaining investor and is in debt for £48 billion to the UK government for costly clean-up operations. The South African Industrial Development Corporation has diluted its shareholding from 25% to 12.5%, and Eskom is on record as saying that they, too, will be diluting their share in PBMR Pty Ltd, and wait to see if they wish to purchase.

6. Public input
Public money is being spent without any public accountability. The High Court found the Environmental Impact Assessment process to be fatally flawed when Earthlife Africa took the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism to court. The submissions made by Earthlife and other appellants were not even looked at by the decision-maker. The PBMR is being substantially funded by public money, yet the economic feasibility study is not in the public domain. Why should tax payers be funding the project but not have a chance to comment on the feasibility report? Even the World Bank will no longer fund nuclear programmes of any kind.

7. Transporting radioactive materials
Just for the proposed 10 PBMRs (as opposed to the proposed 216 units) there will be approximately one vehicle carrying radioactive materials every second day and approximately seven carrying chemicals every working day for 40 years between Durban, Cape Town and Pelindaba. This could grow to nine radioactive and 145 chemical trucks every day at full production. The container carrying the enriched uranium would cause a catastrophic radioactive incident if it fell more than nine metres into water. The impact will last for generations. Enriched uranium will be transported as a fine black powder, which is both difficult to manage and has similar toxicity (besides radiation) to heavy metals.

8. Jobs
Renewable Energy can create up to 27 times more jobs than the proposed PBMR and requires less imported expertise. Eskom’s job estimates for the PBMR are based on achieving a substantial number of export sales – about 20 per year – and are highly speculative. However, a detailed examination of the world market shows that few nations are likely to order new nuclear plants. Currently, the only local content of the proposed reactor would be some steel tanks and construction work. Renewable Energy, such as wind, is already at about 60% local content, and increasing.

9. Renewable Energy (RE)
South Africa is rich in wind, solar and ocean RE resources. In the USA, wind is already cheaper than coal, especially when the health impacts are included. In addition to wind, there are many other RE options, including wave (a few kilometres of coastline could supply Cape Town), photovoltaic, solar thermal, bio-mass, microhydro, etc. A mix of these technologies can easily provide all of the energy requirements for South Africa. Studies have shown clear evidence that there are sufficient RE resources in South Africa to provide for 13% of electrical demand by 2020, and easily 70% or more by 2050. RE is clean, sustainable, efficient and safe. Energy Efficiency (EE) provides/releases more capacity for serving new customers while cutting overall costs. Estimates are that we could easily save up to 30% of current capacity (about 12 900 MW, about 100 PBMRs) and utilise it for development, be it for communities or for business. This will also allow us time to grow our local RE-manufacturing capabilities. South Africa’s short-term electricity needs cannot be fulfilled by the PBMR due to time delays – the first commercial unit will only be completed by 2014.

10. Nuclear weapons proliferation
Any extension of the nuclear industry increases risks of nuclear weapons proliferation, particularly when involving international movement of materials. Spent fuel can contain weapons-grade plutonium, which is simple to extract. The documentation provided by the proponents shows that all that would be needed would be a crushing device, and boiling it in nitric acid to retrieve the uranium. Enriched uranium is already being traded illegally. Furthermore, nuclear power stations and spent-fuel facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Conclusion
Immediate action is needed to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. Demand-side management, RE and energy-efficient technologies – not nuclear – are proven and viable solutions. Africa is not a dumping site for nuclear waste or a testing ground for unsafe nuclear technology. It is unjustifiable to use public funds to sponsor nuclear plants that are a threat to the environment and people. South Africa needs environmentally responsible development that will lead to an improvement in the quality of people’s lives and will lead to truly sustainable development – economically, socially and environmentally.

Nuclear Energy: The 'Pro' Position

Author: John Walmesley

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The emotional appeal of renewable energy is very strong. Windmills spinning on remote windy shores, solar farms hidden in the vastness of the Northern Cape, wave generators rising and falling with the Atlantic swell. Free energy. An end to ugly coalfired power stations, no more CO2, no more acid rain. No more nukes. It all seems so obvious. Why don’t they just get on with it? In many well-meaning minds, the desire to believe in such a scenario is overwhelming. Such minds filter out and reject any evidence suggesting that it may all be a pipe-dream. The reality is that, particularly in South Africa and certainly at this time, renewables are not a feasible source of bulk electrical energy.

In campaigning for a corner of the market, renewable energy enthusiasts are doing us a disservice. Eskom is already struggling to meet peak demand. Rather soon it will struggle even to meet the base-load requirement. In the next 30 to 40 years, we must build twice as many power stations as there are now operating. All today’s power stations will have to be replaced and load growth will have doubled the output required. That is the daunting reality. There is room for all. Of course we should economise. Of course we should use renewables wherever possible. Solar water heaters should go on every roof. If done magically overnight that would at least give us a couple of years breathing space – but it is not going to happen magically overnight. Strident insistence that renewables are an alternative to coal or nuclear power is clouding the main issue and delaying hard decisions already overdue.

Nuclear power has been with us for 50 years. The debate has been with us for almost as long. Protagonists on both sides repeat themselves ad nauseam. Nobody’s opinion is changed and the public is left wary, even alarmed, and no wiser than before. What really is the case for nuclear?

Renewables simply cannot do the job

The case is straightforward. There is no acceptable alternative. It goes against the grain to knock renewable energy but, for reasons outlined below, it is obvious that renewables are not a viable source of bulk energy in this country at this time. That leaves nuclear energy and, in the South African context, coal – and few would now argue that we can go on indefinitely adding to the 140 million tons we already burn each year. Rather, we should be seeking ways to reduce it. Like all major technologies for power generation, nuclear has its downside, in fact several. Because renewables cannot do the job and because coal is no longer environmentally acceptable, these have to be addressed. The most frequently voiced concerns are discussed below.

The need for a back-up generation

The critical problem with the best developed renewable sources, namely wind and solar power, is availability. Solar units with steerable reflectors may give useful energy for perhaps nine hours per day, wind (on average) for rather less. A windmill designed to give 1800 kilowatts (kW) in a good wind of, say, 14 metres per second (m/s), will drop to only 200kW at 4m/s. Windmills turning in a light wind are barely generating. Even in Demark, a 1000kW windmill will generate on average only 250kW, 25% capacity. Eskom’s three windmills at Klipheuwel, north of Cape Town, have so far managed 17%. Therefore, if solar or wind power is to be used on a significant scale, either a way must be found to store the power overnight (or for periods of calm or light wind) or back-up power stations must be built. Since South Africa appears to have run out of viable pumpedstorage sites, we have no option but to go for back-up power stations, either coal-fired or nuclear.

Coal-fired and nuclear power stations, however, can be run virtually continuously. Since they must be built, if only for backup, why then go to the expense of building the wind or solar installations in the first place? It can easily be shown that the coal or nuclear fuel saved while the wind or solar units are operating nowhere nearly covers the cost of building them.

Denmark

The situation in Denmark illustrates the problem. West Denmark, that excessively windy bit that sticks up into the North Sea, leads the world with over 12% wind power, one windmill for every 600 people. But Denmark has a nice reciprocal arrangement with Norway. When the wind is blowing strongly, power from Denmark is used to pump water into high reservoirs in Norway. When the wind drops, Norway sends hydro-power back to Denmark. When that degree of back-up will no longer suffice, Denmark imports power from Sweden or Germany, much of it nuclear.

South Africa is said to have no further pumped-storage sites for storing power overnight. Neither is there alternative technology for doing so in sight. We have no wealthy neighbours from whom significant quantities of energy can as yet be imported. Neither are there other forms of renewable energy that can provide the necessary back-up. Wave and tide energy are in their infancy and may or may not become economically feasible. Growing biomass to burn consumes vast areas of fertile, watered land. Let the research go on, but we need power now. The only options are coal and nuclear fission and, very expensively for ‘peak-lopping’, gas. If it is accepted that burning even more coal is no longer environmentally acceptable, there remains only the nuclear option.

Objections to nuclear energy

Many concerns are raised by the anti-nuclear lobby – and felt by the general public. Some are rational and demand careful consideration and action. Some are irrational, often stemming from exaggerated fear of radiation assiduously fostered by our small but vocal anti-nuclear movement.

In this connection, it is important to appreciate the role of the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR). Thirty-one countries operate nuclear power stations. Each one has established a national nuclear safety authority, a watch-dog organisation. Based largely on the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) concerning exposure to ionising radiation, the national bodies establish national safety criteria and monitor operators of nuclear facilities to ensure compliance. The South African nuclear safety authority, the NNR, employs some 60 engineers and scientists working out of offices in Centurion. Eight NNR ‘inspectors’ are currently stationed at Koeberg. In assessing the proposed ‘pebble-bed’ reactor, the NNR is supported by TÜV (Rheinland), a German State licensing authority, and by the British National Nuclear Corporation (NNC).

Issues of concern are listed below, hopefully in order of importance – as perceived by the public. Each warrants a lecture in its own right to substantiate the summary statements made, but that is not feasible in this short article.

Radioactive waste

Low-level waste is buried in carefully designed and sealed trenches at Vaalputs in Namaqualand. There is no possibility of injury to the local population. High-level waste (HLW) consists of spent nuclear fuel or fission products extracted from spent fuel. Its initially extreme ‘toxicity’, unlike the toxicity of chemical waste, diminishes with time at first quickly, but eventually very slowly. Certain isotopes, like most naturally occurring radioisotopes, remain mildly radioactive for millions of years. After a ‘cooling off’ period of some 50 years (which accounts for the lack of urgency in developing national repositories) HLW will be sealed for several thousand years in corrosion-resistant containers. The containers will be sealed into tunnels driven deep into crystalline rock, salt or clay formations carefully selected for zero or minimal groundwater movement. Today’s analyses show that any radiation exposure to groundwater users in the far distant future will be negligible. The waste disposal ‘problem’ is more an issue of public acceptance than of technical difficulty.

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) 165 MWe

The nuclear fuel (452 000 ‘pebbles’ is contained in the reactor pressure valve shown on the left (in red). High-pressure helium gas is heated from 500 to 900 degrees Celsius in passing downwards through the pebble bed. The gas expands through the outlet duct (yellow) to drive the turbine and generator (brown). The gas is then cooled, recompressed and passed back into the pressure valve.Under no circumstances can the ceramic fuel pebbles become hot enough to melt or otherwise to release significant radioactivity: hence the phrase ‘inherent safety’. The reactor pressure vessel is protected from external impact by two metres of reinforced concrete forming the ‘citadel’ (blue). The citadel is surrounded by a building (not shown) itself protected bya further metre of reinforced concrete.

Nuclear accidents

The safety of power reactors, like that of passenger airliners, improves with time. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident (in which no one was hurt) was a wake-up call to the nuclear industry. Major safety improvements were made in what are now called Generation II reactors such as those at Koeberg. They now constitute a tiny risk to the surrounding public well below the NNR criterion limit and far below risks otherwise accepted by the public in daily life. Chernobyl, in 1986, although not technically relevant, was a further shock. Generation III reactors now starting to be built are significantly safer still. In the PBMR pebble-bed reactor, the first of the Generation IV reactors, the risk of a major nuclear accident is eliminated completely.

Nuclear weapons proliferation

Reactors such as Koeberg and the PBMR are in no way associated with weapons. Neither the new nor the spent fuel can be used to make effective ‘explosive devices’. South Africa has shown, however, that given time a country with reasonably sophisticated nuclear technology can, if not subject to international inspection and, if necessary, political intervention, develop that technology to create weapons. This is an urgent and important issue for the world community.

Transport of radioactive materials

Of all objections raised to nuclear energy, the risk associated with nuclear transport is the most over-stated. Since 1971, the world has seen over 20 000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel covering over 30 million kilometres. There have, of course, been ‘incidents’ but never a situation involving over-exposure to radiation.

Radioactive effluents and cancer clusters

Liquid and airborne effluents from nuclear power stations are tightly controlled to very low limits. The environment around all such facilities is continuously monitored. Claims by the anti-nuclear organisations of nearby cancer clusters due to radiation are systematically refuted by local and national health authorities.

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Check this log tomorrow for the 'Anti' position!

Economics of the Environment

Economics of the Environment
Author: Prof James Blignaut ~ University of Pretoria, Director of Jabenzi, Beatus and affiliated to Green Growth Strategies



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Making two systems talk as one
The subject of Economics deals with the system of activities between producers and consumers. As in all systems, the outcome of this interactive process propels the system in a direction based on the flow of information through the system. The subject of Ecology, on the other hand, deals with the system of activities between various species and their habitats. As is in the case of Economics, the outcome of this interactive process propels the ecosystem dynamics based on the flow of information through this system. Both Economics and Ecology are hence self-organising systems that act and react to various information prompts. This implies that the future trajectory of both systems is therefore informed by what happened in the past. The agents of change (consumers and producers in Economics and species and habitats in Ecology) take note of what is happening within their respective systems and adapt to the changes. In adapting they are positioning themselves towards some future ideal.

It is most important within the context of sustainable development, however to understand that the Economic and Ecological systems do not function separately. On the contrary, they are imbedded within each other. Producers and consumers are not machines, and are therefore part of the ecosystem. Likewise, ecosystems provide resources and services to the economy and act as a wastebasket as well. So, ecosystems are also a part of the economy!

The biggest threat to the realisation of the sustainable development ideal is not in determining and understanding how Economics and Ecology as individual systems function, but how they operate as a single embedded system. Diagram 1 below shows this interaction in an extremely elementary way.

Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Development

Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Development
Author: Dr Eureta Rosenberg
Taken from http://www.enviropaedia.com/





What is the most important thing we can do with land – set it aside for nature conservation, or invite poor people to build homes and grow food? What is more important – reducing plastic-bag pollution or protecting jobs in the plastics industry? Saving wetlands or saving people? I hope you find these questions difficult, for they are non-choices, really. There is no need to choose between people and the environment. And yet there is a common belief that we need to address poverty first, before we can think about the environment. Actually, looking after the environment and looking after destitute people go hand in hand – a point that the idea of sustainable development is meant to convey.

What will help the poor?

Not presuming to speak on behalf of ‘poor’ people, I will restrict my comments to the links between poverty alleviation and environmental care. My aim is to illustrate the folly of pitting these two concerns against each other.
Approximately 18 million South Africans (45% of the population) live in poor households that earn less than R352 per adult per month. Power relations in poor households tend to be characterised by violence, fear, food insecurity, exploitative work and other pathologies. Three of every five South African children grow up in poor households. (Human Development Report for South Africa, UNDP, 2000)

1. Alleviate poverty through environmental protection
The poorer we are, the harder environmental issues hit us. Desperate for employment, poor people suffer the most unhealthy work environments. Without much choice as to where to live, they are more exposed to disasters such as floods and fire, and to toxic dumps, and polluted air and water. As their quality of life declines and their health deteriorates, these environmental issues render them even less able to make a living.
Land degradation and the loss of biodiversity affect poor people most, as they often depend directly on natural resources (for firewood, food and building material). When environmental degradation destroys opportunities for development in one area, those who have the financial means to do so can still move on to greener pastures. Being poor means having nowhere better to go.
It is thus in the interest of poor people that laws protecting environmental quality and safety are enforced, and that they have access to the law when their right to a healthy environment is violated. The common natural resources on which rural people depend should be protected by laws for sustainable use. Far from being ‘anti-development’, environmental policies can actually be used to protect the health and livelihoods of poor people, and increase their political and economic power.
But look – someone disagrees. There he is, collecting bait in the Knysna lagoon. His spade has once again been confiscated by the authorities, and he received another fine he cannot pay. He disagrees that environmental laws work for the poor. Hey, lady, he says, this is my only means of survival, and Conservation is taking it away!
But he and millions of others in the same boat should not be in the position of having too few livelihood options in the first place. Relaxing the environmental laws will not solve their problem. It will only provide a short reprieve – and soon afterwards a resource may be destroyed forever, thus affecting the livelihoods of many others in the future.

2. Strengthening livelihood strategies and increasing options
Those with few livelihood options often feel forced to exhaust even the few resources to which they do have access. Examples include overgrazing the land, hunting out the wildlife around ever-growing settlements, collecting muti plants to sell until none are left. This creates vicious cycles. When people can no longer survive on depleted land, they move into shacks in towns and cities, where the chances of a better life are also bleak.
Caring for natural resources so that they can be used indefinitely (sustainably) is an important way of increasing people’s livelihood options. Care means protection and restoration. If we protect the soil and increase its fertility, remove alien invasive plants and re-establish indigenous vegetation, we thus help people to make a living off the land – through farming, crafts and tourism – for generations to come. By protecting estuaries, where many marine species breed, we protect people’s ability to earn a living from the sea – sustainably. Renewing urban landscapes can help people grow food at home, and work and relax in safe and pleasant surroundings – indefinitely.
A livelihoods-centred perspective informed the ANC’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The RDP puts people first, not profits. This is not the case with export-led and growth-oriented economic strategies, especially when these fail to take care of the ecosystems on which livelihoods are based. Current economics identify growth per capita as development, ignoring the way in which growth often depletes natural and social capital in order to produce money capital.
For the poor, boosting livelihood strategies and options makes a greater difference than the profits of economic growth, which by and large fail to trickle down to them from the consumer class. Some growth strategies can actually harm poor people. The livelihoods of millions of people around the world are threatened by exploitative ‘developments’ that benefit those who are already powerful. Logging, the extraction of minerals and oil, big dams – all displace people from where they had been able to derive a livelihood, onto barren lands and into city slums and menial labour. India’s Green Revolution was infamous for increasing the profits of a minority of richer farmers while devastating those people with more limited means or social status.

3. Basic incomes
An income does not always improve quality of life, but it can help. Economic growth in South Africa has failed to address the vast inequality in incomes, and government recently responded by increasing grants to the poorest 20% of households. Social grants are thus supplementing (or substituting for) the trickling down of wealth through economic growth. A Basic Income Grant has been recommended in order to alleviate hardship. This could also relieve the over-harvesting of natural resources in some areas.
Conservation of the natural environment is being increasingly recognised as a source of income for both government and communities. Over a period of five years, the Table Mountain National Park contributed a total of R377 million to South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product through employment and contracts. In just one year, the Park added more than R15 million of visitor fees to the tourism economy. Nature-based tourism is now the fastest-growing industry in the world travel business. The departments of Water Affairs and Forestry, Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and Agriculture recognised the successful marriage one could make between labour intensive conservation activities and poverty relief. The result was three environmental restoration programmes: Working for Water, Working for Wetlands and Land Care. Working for Water removes alien invasive trees; Working for Wetlands rehabilitates wetlands; and Land Care aims to prevent and reverse rural land degradation. Several conservation activities in the country’s National Parks also make use of poverty-relief funds. These initiatives all employ destitute people. As a solution to poverty, they unfortunately tend to lack sustainability, except where entrepreneurial skills and long-term opportunities are simultaneously developed.
Sustainable efforts to improve the land help people to secure their livelihoods while generating an income. In examples from Uganda, low-input agriculture helps the owners of small plots to farm with nature, using environmentally friendly pesticides and fertilisers that cost little. Not only do these farmers have food security, they can export their produce to new markets for organic produce, fetching a 20% higher price. Securing subsistence is an important form of sustainable development for the poor, a point that is overlooked by advocates of a move away from subsistence to commercial activities.

4. Improving basic services
Providing basic services is a huge task, not only because of the apartheid backlog but also the rapidly growing population. Struggling to deliver, government seeks to hand over the responsibility through various forms of privatisation. But privatising common natural resources such as water and energy has proven to be to the disadvantage of the poor. Around the world, privatisation has pushed up costs of services, despite promises that it won’t. The privatisation of Telkom saw increases in the price of local phone calls, while international calls became cheaper, to the advantage of wealthier customers.
However, providing services to the millions of still disadvantaged South Africans can present government and service providers with a great opportunity. We could become a world leader in sustainable development if we built new infrastructure in a resource-light, pollution-light manner and invested in public transport; grey-water recycling; waterless sewage; low-energy housing… to name a few. Such innovations also create new job opportunities.

5. Meaningful jobs
There was a time when economic growth meant more jobs – when growth was built on mining and other labour-intensive industries. Increasingly, economic growth is generated by industries, which are not labour intensive, either because they are mechanised or because they require small numbers of highly skilled people to run them. Creating jobs by investing in industry is a capital-intensive process and industrial jobs grow at a slow rate – slower than populations and the numbers of unemployed. And, in a free-trade regime, businesses need to be competitive, and industrial developments cannot be competitive and job-intensive at the same time.
For these very reasons, the world economy is now characterised by jobless growth, and South Africa’s strategy of seeking world market integration has not supported job creation. There have been 800 000 job losses between 1995 and 2000, and the number of unemployed people increased from 1.9 million in 1995 to 4.2 million in 2002. Better-than-predicted growth in the more recent past had little impact on unemployment.
Government recommends self-employment in the informal sector. In the process, we also look towards the environment for employment opportunities. Indeed, conserving nature and places of natural and cultural significance does create jobs, either directly in conservation or indirectly but more extensively, through ecotourism. This is why we increasingly understand conservation to be a form of development. Jobs can also be created by ‘greener’ lifestyles (e.g. making durable shopping bags), greener production (such as producing renewable energy technology), better waste management (e.g. jobs in the recycling industry) and environmental restoration (e.g. alien-clearing contractors). These kinds of activities require both high- and low-skill work.
Protecting the environment can also lead to temporary job losses, for example when a polluting business is closed down. However, if that business starts a more sustainable enterprise, jobs will be recreated. Failing to look after the environment, on the other hand, leads to long-term job losses – for example, when a fishing industry collapses.

6. Economic reforms
Efforts to alleviate poverty will not be successful without a complete overhaul of the economic systems that have maintained poverty for so long. We are using outdated economic models that lead to the redundancy of people, and poverty thrives (see Topic ECONOMICS).
Campaigns to alleviate poverty often call for international assistance. However, the track record of donor aid suggests that it may benefit governments more than it benefits the poor. Donors can use aid to reinforce their assumed supremacy and create positions and markets for their own citizens; recipient governments have been known to expand their consumer class and secure their own power base, under the banner of poverty eradication.
A more equal relationship between nations would be fostered by facilitating fair trade. This means scrapping the trade barriers that rich countries have erected against imports from poorer countries, while they ask for the liberalisation of poorer countries’ markets. Economists estimate that reducing unfair trade barriers could allow southern countries to generate $130 billion a year, roughly three times the sum total of the official development aid assistance.

7. Alleviating affluence
Poor people need to consume more environmental resources. What are the implications for the Earth? Not good, if they were to consume at the same rate as the ‘consumer class’. The environmental footprint of a wealthy person is far greater than that of a poor person. Even when we multiply the number of poor, we still find that a mere 20% of the population – the wealthy – is responsible for the bulk of the world’s consumption and pollution.
The global environmental resources are finite and unequally divided. To obtain more resource rights for the low-consumers, the over-consumption of the affluent must be reduced. The idea is to have both convergence (of the consumption of the poor, towards a more sustaining livelihood) and contraction (of the consumption of the rich, towards more sustainable lifestyles).
In practice, this means choosing a development path that is both pro-environmental and pro-poor, and de-linking economic growth from an increase in resource use, and social progress from economic growth. For individuals, it means that as our incomes grow, we should find ways other than excessive consumption to fulfil our personal ambitions and social needs (see Topic Consumerism).
It is a matter of promoting both ecology and equity, proving the point with which we started out – that poverty alleviation and environmental care go hand in hand.

8. Acknowledging rights
Poverty is about a lack of power. Poverty alleviation should thus also address situations in which some people have few opportunities to exercise their rights. Rather than thinking of the poor as needy persons awaiting hand-outs, recognise their basic rights to common resources.
‘Existing macroeconomic policies [in South Africa] leave existing power relations intact and reinforce the subordinate position of women and poor people.’ (Human Development Report for South Africa, UNDP, 2000)
South Africa’s democracy brought equal rights, but not yet equal access. Historical inequalities remain largely untouched by current economic policy, including black empowerment strategies. Unemployment figures are higher among women, and womenheaded households are more likely to suffer from poverty.

9. Slowing down population growth
Most measures to alleviate poverty will be easier if the exponential growth in human numbers slows down (see Topic Population).

10. Education and capacity-building
Education and training must help the unemployed, under-employed and youth at risk to move from being unskilled or redundant in one kind of economy to contribute productively to a new economy based on social justice and ecological sustainability. Equally important is capacity-building for government departments, which must deliver on poverty reduction and development. Policies such as the Integrated Rural Development Programme are well intentioned, but lack substance, particularly on sustainable development. Rather than recognising the many links between environment and poverty alleviation illustrated here, ‘environment’ is either ignored or tacked on to development policies and initiatives – when in fact it is at the heart of sustainable measures to alleviate poverty.

What you can do?

Three years ago, at the Millennium Summit, 189 countries pledged to pursue an ambitious global poverty fighting agenda embodied in a set of eight Millennium Development Goals. The first Goal is to halve extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015. The Goals have been broken down into a list of targets that are specific, practical and realistic. They are technically feasible and financially affordable. But without social mobilisation, we will not progress from concept to achievement. A movement is needed to create awareness, trigger policy reforms, mobilise resources, and motivate actions to meet the goals, both globally and locally. The world cannot remain neutral... Doing nothing is not an option. Each of us can make a difference.
From an address by The UNDP Administrator, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October 2003

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