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On-The-Air (19/06/2015)

safm19june2015

19th June 2015

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.  Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Kamwendo: Global giant Glencore is putting millions into education in South Africa’s coalfields.

Creamer: Yes, this London-, Hong Kong- and Johannesburg-listed company, which is a diversified miner, but also does a lot of coal mining and exporting, is doing a splendid job out in Mpumalanga, particularly for the Phola community. It found additional coal and spent R8-billion on a new coal-mine and now it has put up this spanking new school, R75-million worth. It is not just a secondary school, it is a pre-primary, primary and secondary school, all in one.

It was handed over to Angie Motshekga, who is the Basic Education Minister, and she was absolutely delighted with this. She mentioned in Zulu how this company has done everything for this school and that is part of a lot of things that people don’t understand with mining is that when you get your mining licence, you have got to commit to the government as to what you are going to do. Glencore, which is a big giant, committed to building a new school and that is part of the social labour plan. That has been handed over now.

Also, attached to this, is a fantastic mentoring programme, worth R2.7-million, which is not an ordinary mentoring programme. This is an international global mentoring programme with a video interface with mentors in North America, United States, Canada, who speak to these mentees on a regular basis and guide them in careers and all sorts of activities. You have got ‘net buddies’ linking up with a rural area in Phola with North America who mentor them.

Fantastic achievement there and I think it was great for the head of Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg, to come out himself, showing that he takes this very seriously. He said how important this was to have this new mine and new school and how these kids will be educated there. He said they could be his future engineers on the mine. So, that is a nice attitude to have.

Kamwendo: Global pressure against the use of fossil fuels could hasten the introduction of clean coal technologies.

Creamer: A massive build-up against fossil fuels. People are liking it to the campaign against apartheid on university campuses overseas. People are really fighting to get rid of the ill affects of coal, oil and gas, particularly coal. We see that one of the biggest fund managers in the world, the sovereign fund from Norway, divested out of fossil fuels last month.

This is the start of the divestment. What happens with divestments is that it makes the shares cheaper and people have less objections to jump in on cheaper shares, so it doesn't really stop anything. It indicates also the direction in which the world is moving. We saw the Pope’s encyclical this week really put a big emphasis on global warming and the part that fossil fuel was playing, how he said that the rich nations have to come and help pay their debt to the poorer nations now. We also had that coming through from Glencore during the hand over of the school during the interviews there saying that clean coal is possible. All the technology is there and its incumbent on the richer nations to assist now.

We dig the coal out of the ground, we pass it on to countries like India and China. There is the technology available to clean it up. The call now is for the richer nations to make sure that this happens. That will make a lot of sense, because we know this whole build-up from the fossil fuels began with the Industrial Revolution. Those developed countries have put all their bad emissions in and benefitted from the low-cost of coal. Now the developing countries need that lower energy cost and they should be assisted by the bigger countries like we saw yesterday in Canada, they opened a big clean coal testing facility, with the new carbon capture and storage approach.

A lot of effort is going into cleaning the coal and it is possible to have a win-win situation, because we know in South Africa we are so dependant on coal, 90% of our electricity comes from coal and 30% of our transport fuels from Sasol. We are very much part of this and hopefully the clean coal mentality will come through with the Pope even pushing for it now. The Pope also saying clean-up mining. The Pope is a chemical engineer and is saying the mercury that is used in gold processing, make sure we don't pollute. The same with copper processing, don’t put that sulphur problem into the environment.

Kamwendo: Jobless mining engineering graduates are pleading for a look in.

Creamer: The Society of Mining Engineering Students is really pleading for some sort of job inclusion at the moment, because we know that mining is cyclical. With mining down now, mining companies aren’t able to take on these people.

They are saying that mining is a very broad church. There are so many things along supply chain, let us get involved now so that when the upturn comes we have got the experience that we need. They are pleading as well for students looking for jobs, who can’t complete their degrees unless they do practical, but because of the state of the mining industry, these people aren’t taking on graduates to complete their degrees. They are pleading for that as well, and that comes from the Society of Mining Engineering Students. Smangaliso Musawenkosi particularly came across at the Junior Mining Conference to make sure that this message got through to the industry.

Also, he is being backed by Professor Emeritus Huw Phillips and Dr RE (Robbie) Robinson, who is saying that there is a lot of research that can be done. There is so much mining cluster activity that can take place, he has been pleading for this for a long time that he actually used the mine land where there is a lot of waste areas to do research. He is saying that he can also link this to agriculture because drip irrigation works fantastically on detoxified mine dumps

Kamwendo: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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