Resumo

BLIGNAUT, James. Climate change: The opportunity cost of Medupi and Kusile power stations. J. energy South. Afr. [online]. 2012, vol.23, n.4, pp.67-75. ISSN 2413-3051.

Eskom has embarked on the construction of two coal-fired power stations (Medupi and Kusile) that use a new dry-cooling process with flue gas desulphurisation (FGD). While the introduction of these new technologies does have meaningful environmental benefits beyond the conventional coal-fired power stations, they still emit greenhouse gasses. The question at stake here is what is the opportunity cost, viewed from a climate change perspective, of these two new power stations? This question is answered by considering the carbon footprint of the two power stations and a range of unit values for CO₂. From this analysis, it is evident that the most likely range of the opportunity cost is between R6.3 billion and R10.7 billion per year. This converts to a damage cost of between R0.10 and R0.17/kWh when assuming a net combined generation capacity of 8 677 MW and a load factor of 85%.

Palavras-chave : climate change; Medupi; Kusile; opportunity cost.

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