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I welcome to South Africa those of you who have come from abroad. I also welcome all of you here, to this Conference.

Coal, when you come to think of it, is full of fascination. It conjures up a sense of mystique. Coal is a special part of the living history of our planet, the repository of sunlight and photosynthesis that occurred in our distant past. I say our past only in the sense that it took place on the planet we inhabit - for when that coal was being formed, we were not even a twinkle in the eye of the universe.

Multicellular animals appeared just before the Cambrian explosion 570 million years ago. That means that only the last one sixth of life's history on earth has included multicellular animals. The first ingredients of coal-plants, trees, and ferns, leaves, bark and branches - were laid down during the Carboniferous period 345 to 280 million years ago. All this happened 70 million years before the dinosaurs arrived. The last of them died out after the passing of another 140 million years, roughly when our faint forbears, the primates, were beginning to emerge from the shadows of evolution. Our first real ancestor, homo australopithecus, was a latecomer. He made his entrance 6 to 4 million years ago - just the other day.

Long before we emerged from our slumber then, our world was painstakingly stashing away nuggets of energy that would lie for aeons until discovered by the animals who developed a consciousness of existence. When we talk about coal, we are talking of destiny's deposits in the energy bank of the earth. What takes millennia and more to build up, takes a fraction of the time to use up. Once we learnt the combination and could unlock the natural vaults beneath our feet, it took a matter of only years for us to prospect, develop, mine, sell and consume the coal that took such ages to form.

Coal, so often dismissed as being a mundane, dirty, smelly and pollutive energy workhorse, is also a magical substance. Think of all the things that can be done with it, even apart from consuming it in fiery furnaces to produce electricity - a wonder in itself. Coal contributes to the production of gas, chemicals, ammonia, explosives, fertilisers, waxes, polyethylene and polypropylene for the plastics industry, PVC, anode coke for the aluminium industry, hexene and pentene, high-quality dyed fibres and water-treatment chemicals. The inert gas Xenon, used in sophisticated medical laser equipment - comes from coal. Coal is a source of synthetic fibres for the textile industry which use them to make shirts, jerseys and other items of clothing. Motor car tyres made from synthetic rubber are often derived from coal. The carbon dioxide gas that gives Coca Cola its fizz - comes from coal. The inert gas argon in your light bulbs - comes from coal. Many of the insecticides, pesticides and paints you apply - come from coal. When you take an aspirin, you are swallowing a processed piece of coal. Aspirin has phenol as a base - it comes from coal. The list is not exhaustive.

Of course, there are economic restraints which do not always make it possible to realise the potential of what lies locked up in a simple piece of coal. When the chips are down, the realities of the market determine its fate. That is why much of coal's potential is unrealised. Nevertheless, the point is still valid: looked at with insight, coal is a mystical substance, capable of infinite possibilities. We in South Africa are far advanced along this path thanks to the expertise of Sasol, but even then our initial reasons for setting out on that path were strategic rather than economic.

The coal that the world has used in the last 35 years, from 1960 to 1995, is equivalent to all the coal burnt up during the years from the time homo australopithecus hunted across the hills and plains with his primitive stone weapons, right up to 1960. Despite the occasional levelling off of world demand, coal consumption is one of the many indicators of the dizzying explosion of growth and activity of our contemporary world.

There are other equally startling indicators of this explosion. More people have been born since 1950 than during the whole preceding 4 to 6 million years. Those of us who started life at the mid-point of this century have lived through more babies being born than in the whole previous period of history. One is tempted to say that we are bumping up against nature's limits. But there was a time when many believed that if the motor car went faster than fifty miles an hour the driver and his passengers would die of excess air pressure and asphyxiation.

The world economy has expanded five times since the milestone year of 1950, due to the rising population and the more than doubled world average per capita income in the same period. Total international growth in output of goods and services in the ten years from 1984 to 1994 was more than four trillion United States dollars - four thousand times South Africa's GDP for that decade and more than all humanity's output in goods and services from Adam and Eve to 1950. Think of it: a greater world economic output achieved in the last ten years than in the six million years before. It hardly seems possible.

The dark side to this expansion is that the world's average annual per capita income of $ 4 000 is still below the United States poverty line. The income gap between rich and poor has been widening. In 1960, the richest 20% received 30 times more income than the poorest 20%. By 1991, only thirty years later, what I call the upper fifth were receiving 61 times more. The poorest fifth's share in 1960 was 2,3% of world income, the richest fifth's 70%; by 1991 the poor got 1,4% while the richest enjoyed 85%. The value of worldwide luxury goods sales exceeds the gross national products of two thirds of the world's countries. We must do everything in our power to reduce the enactment of this scenario in South Africa. The coal industry plays an important role in this regard.

These startling facts place the question of coal's role and its future in a certain world context. With economic production and world population increasing so rapidly, can coal be far behind?

Another important aspect of coal's world context is the recent stirrings on the Chinese landscape. As you know, mainland China is also a coal giant, one of the big three, with 11% of the world's coal reserves after the Commonwealth of Independent States and the United States, at 23% each. The United States and China between them produce and consume half the world's annual coal stock.

Nature decrees that there should not be a single world superpower for long. The next line-up could well be between these two mammoths, with Japan's economic might providing an interesting counterweight. The relatively genteel confrontation between Washington and Beijing over Chinese military exercises threatening the Republic of China is perhaps more than just a pointer to our possible future.

China's population more than doubled between 1950 and 1994. Their economy is expected to double its 1992 figure early in the next decade, if not sooner. Much like South Africa, coal is the source of 76% of the primary energy in China. In the United States it is 22%, in Japan 17%. If recent growth patterns continue, China's use of coal is expected to double in the next 16 years.

Whether it is coincidence or not I do not know, and it is not welcome news, but in urban areas of China, lung diseases are rising steeply. They are responsible for 26% of moralities and have become the leading cause of death in China. There is a fairly direct link between this phenomenon and the high sulphur and particulate content of China's cities, especially in the north where they burn coal for winter heating. There is an urgent message for South Africa here. In addition, the area in China affected by acid rain increased by 60 % between 1985 and 1993. This points again to the vital importance for the coal industry of urgently investing in clean coal technology.

South Africa derives just under three-quarters, 72%, of its primary energy from coal. Analysing the 72% one finds that 40% is applied to electricity generation, synfuels claim about 20%, while the remaining 12% goes mainly to commerce and industry. The rest of our primary energy comes from oil (15%), biomass (10%), gas, nuclear and hydro. South African coal is in the hands of the private sector. It is government's responsibility to ensure that this resource is optimally used in an environmentally constructive way and that the role of coal in the overall energy mix is in the country's best interests.

South Africa produces approximately 200 million tonnes of coal per year. About 55 million tonnes are exported. Policy options at present being considered within the context of the overall Energy Policy Review Process include expanding our coal database. For obvious reasons, it is not necessary for Government to await a White Paper before promoting efficient as well as clean coal technology. Our exports must not be choked by bottlenecks - whether due to the lack of port facilities or rolling stock or both. Richards Bay is the largest single terminal in the world and impressively efficient. But additional port facilities for the smaller exporter would boost our exports and spread the benefit. Arising out of the Policy Review Process we hope to have first a draft and then a final White Paper with a new Energy Policy, including coal, before the end of the year.

One of the most significant developments for coal in South Africa must be this country's ambitious and effective electrification drive. Over 90% of our electricity is generated by coal-fired power stations. For the present, any increase in electrification means almost automatically an increase in coal consumption.

Recent history shows that the extension of electricity connections has an extraordinary effect on economic development. The Industrial Revolution in Western Europe and North America was made possible by the unleashing of new forms of energy. The first practical electric light bulbs were developed during the 1870s. By 1900 - only thirty years later - electricity was in use all over the world. The booming East has had the same experience. In Korea, Taiwan and Japan, less than 50% of homes had electricity after the Second World War. Today all three countries have over 90% of their homes electrified.

Electricity is also the most effective way to bring about creative social change. It is one of the best and quickest means of improving the quality of life of a society. Experience elsewhere has shown that once connections are installed in homes, occupants seek the income necessary to enjoy the advantages offered by electrical appliances Electricity improves health (no smoke inhalation from heating; food is kept fresh) and education (lighting in schools, longer study hours, audio-visual aids, new technology), saving the state millions in health services and steadily creating wealth due to a better-educated population. Lives are made richer. Cultural pursuits flourish. As a bonus, population development tends to move towards more sustainable levels.

According to the National Electricity Regulator, 50% of South Africa's nine million households now have access to electricity, leaving some 4,5 million households still without. Before the electrification programme started in 1990, only a third of South African households enjoyed electricity. The RDP electrification programme is being carried out by Eskom, South Africa's parastatal electricity utility, and local authorities. Together they have achieved 1,5 million (16,5%) connections from January 1991 to December 1995. An additional programme for the electrification of 2,5 million rural homes over the next two decades, and of 16 000 schools and 2 000 clinics, is largely based on photovoltaic solar cells and will not impact on the coal industry.

By 2015, South Africa will probably have population of 70 million, with 15 million households - almost double those we have now. Even with this massive and ambitious electrification project, the objective of 90% or more domestic electrifications will not be easy to achieve. Enhanced technology and a slower population growth rate would improve this prospect.

The coal industry has a vital part to play in this programme that is so essential to the development of South Africans, especially those without electricity.

Is it at all possible to develop technologies where this God-given polycyclic coal structure can be retained instead of being burnt? Could this be of any benefit to mankind?. The answer to these questions is YES. Apart from the examples I have already given, research sponsored by the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs has led to the development of a process of rapid controlled oxidative coal conversion, which is essentially a reverse of the coalification process which took place over millions of years.

This environment-friendly coal-rejuvenation process, at present being demonstrated in a pilot plant with a 2 500 kilogram daily coal throughput, leads to the formation of coal-derived products which have the following advantages:

improved soil and stimulation of plant growth;
improved water infiltration rate;
improved water retention - vital for arid and semi-arid countries like South Africa;
improved soil aeration - essential for healthy plant growth;
reduced soil compaction and crust formation thereby allowing better water and nutrient penetration;
reduced soil erosion;
reduced dust formation and therefore air pollution;
better fertiliser retention leading to more mileage from less fertiliser - it is not leached from the soil;
improved availability of macro- and trace elements in soils;
stimulated macro- and micro-organism growth;
enhanced structural and chemical soil qualities;
improved root disease control;
converts poor and depleted soils into healthy soils.

The product is destined to play an important role in agriculture and in mine dump rehabilitation by making grass cover possible on inhospitable soils.

The research not only assists in resolving environmental problems from mining but also creates new applications, and therefore improved market opportunities, for coal. It will also make an important contribution to job creation.

Coal's environmental problems are not a recent development. During the reign of Edward the First (1272-1301) the 'noisome smell and thick air caused by burning cole' caused considerable annoyance to the prelates, nobles, and landed gentry. A proclamation was therefore issued forbidding the use of coal. In the seventeenth century English ships transported coal to the European mainland. The people of the major towns of France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany strongly objected to the use of coal.

When I last addressed a Coaltrans Conference, in Hamburg on 24 October 1994, I spoke of pollution and global warming. I want to repeat what I said then:

"If coal is to hold its own in the future, it will have to find ways of overcoming its stigma as an anti-social personality which poses a threat to the environment. Coal is for the most part an acceptable, even popular, energy source. It is one of the 'big three' in the world, which together provide about 88% of commercialised energy. Coal is about 30% of this. It is accessible, efficiently and relatively cleanly exploitable, transportable, convertible into other energy forms and an excellent feedstock for plastics and chemicals.

"Unfortunately, coal does have delinquent tendencies which contribute to acid deposition, urban air pollution and global warming. The recent one third reduction in the United States of sulphur dioxide emissions despite a 50% increase in their use of coal sets a highly commendable example to all of us. After all, if we are to continue buying and selling coal we will only be able to do so if we can rehabilitate the negative aspects of coal's personality which I have mentioned.

"It is gratifying to me to know that South African coal has a relatively lower carbon and higher hydrogen content which, on combustion, produces less carbon dioxide for the same amount of energy than coals with higher carbon contents. South African coals are therefore less unfriendly to the global environment.

"We cannot discuss coal without facing the ominous problem of global warming. We require more money to finance more effective research. Coal producers and users world-wide must become more effectively involved in a centralised effort to pool the world's test brains to find solutions to this problem. We hear a lot about "promising, gratifying progress", "a lot of research being done", "serious attention being given" and "in-depth studies being made". But this is not enough. The time for clich,s is past. The degradation of our planet cannot be allowed to continue at its present rate without stronger environmental protection measures being taken. We need more action, not more talk. We need a sense of urgency. Since known coal resources are five times those of oil, the long-term future of coal is vital to the energy future of the world. Suppliers and consumers owe it to the world to make coal environmentally acceptable.

After gold and platinum, coal exports form an important part of our foreign exchange earnings. Coal will continue to dominate South Africa's energy scene for many years. Its significant contribution to this country's well-being and its service to those who live here is readily acknowledged. South Africa would be a great deal poorer without its coal and those who work with it.

I spare one last thought for those who have died in the cause of coal. Only two days ago we experienced a tragic accident at Tshikondeni Coal Mine when 10 miners perished trying to rescue a colleague who was trapped in an underground coal-cutting machine known as a 'continuous miner'. In the Biblical phrase, they laid down their lives for their friend. Three miners are seriously injured in hospital, three are less serious at the mine. The trapped operator was found still alive in his cab and last reports were that he was 'walking around'. He made it after all. This tragedy makes it all the more important that we put the new Mine Health and Safety Bill on the statute books as a matter of the utmost urgency. This we should be able to do within about eight weeks.

I also think of today's coal miner at the pit face, assisted though he may be by modern machinery. I leave you with the Swiss novelist Blaise Cendrars' vivid description of coal mining. He said that to write was "to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes." I wish you well in your deliberations.

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