ENVIRONMENT
SA plans to stuff its carbon in a deep hole near Kosi Bay
SA is getting ready to start dumping its growing cloud of climate-changing carbon gas emissions, writes Tony Carnie
In a remote corner of northern KwaZulu-Natal close to the Mozambique border, SA is getting ready to start dumping its growing cloud of climate-changing carbon gas emissions. The plan is to dig an underground well in the sandy rock formations south of Kosi Bay and Tembe Elephant Reserve and inject an initial 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the earth — in the hope that the gas will stay there, locked up forever. To save on drilling costs, the hole would have to be at least 800m deep, though it might go down to about 2km to locate a suitable rock formation. If the pilot project is successful, the experiment would be repeated on a grander scale in the seabed somewhere between Durban and Richards Bay — allowing Eskom and other large industrial operations to carry on burning coal and other fossil fuels for decades. The plans were confirmed at a conference in Durban in October, organised by the Department of Energy and South African Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage. Noel Kamrajh,...
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