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On August 8th, an explosion took place in South Africa’s brand-new and largest coal-fired power plant.
It was forced to stop operation just a week after it initially began operating.
The state-owned power utility Eskom announced that an explosion occurred at the Medupi Power Station late in the evening for reasons that are still unknown.
Although there were reportedly no injuries, a total of seven employees had to be treated for shock.
“No injuries have been reported, and all employees and contractors have been accounted for. Emergency services attended to seven colleagues requiring treatment for shock,” Eskom said.
“Eskom will continue to provide support to the employees who might have been affected by the incident through its Employee Assistance Programme,” it said.
“Unit 4 was on a short-term outage (since August 6) when the incident occurred, and all work on the unit was suspended with immediate effect. This included the suspension of all permits to work on the plant until further notice.”
The power plant came online just one week ago, some 14 years after construction began, the delay due to multiple cost and deadline overruns.
“This explosion has resulted in extensive damage to the generator,” Eskom said.
“The incident occurred during the activity to displace hydrogen with carbon dioxide and air respectively, for the purposes of finding an external leak. Fortunately, no injuries were sustained by personnel who were on site during the unfortunate incidents.”
Eskom said that following a preliminary investigation, it appeared that while the activity was being performed, air was introduced into the generator when hydrogen was still present.
The power utility said the hydrogen was still present in sufficient quantities to create an explosive mixture, which ignited and resulted in the explosion.
“It also appears that there was a deviation from the procedure for carrying out this activity,” Eskom said.
“As such, Eskom has undertaken to place those employees who were responsible to manage and execute this work under precautionary suspension pending the conclusion of the major event investigation.”
Eskom said investigations were under way into the cause of the incident and to what extent it would affect the national electricity grid.
Medupi, which can generate up to 4,764 megawatts of electricity, is one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants and cost 122 billion rand ($8.3 billion).
The plant is expected to be in service for 50 years.
Despite global efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and invest in renewable energy sources, coal-rich South Africa continues to rely on the fossil fuel, which supplies 75% of the country’s energy supply.
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“…one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants…”
This might be a case of Hanlon’s Razor. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a result of eco-terrorism.
It wouldn’t surprise me that it was CIA sponsored terrorism.
Incompetence is a more likely cause.
Yes. The latest crop of South African engineers are none too bright.
Building another larger coal fired power station when countries are trying to close theirs down . South Africa and Israel worked together in the 1970’s on nuclear matters which lead to Israel getting the bomb . Surely they would be better off building a nuclear power plant and when that blew up ….
I don’t need you r ignorant horseshit jens especially when you DON’T UNDERSTAND what I say. I spent 5 years in Southern Africa so I don’t need to be told by you about Sth Africa. You are so dumb it beggars belief how it is possible you can breathe on your own. Now fuk off as you have not earned the right to comment to me. You are nothing but a snail crawling over a rock that needs to be stood on. Idiot. Liar , Troll and scum with no brain.
South Africa is waaay better now that the “White Ones” are gone
Dumber than a dumb jungle bunny.
When you work out a triple entendre come back and try again. Although it is written in English which is several grades above your pay level, You still won’t get it.
No it was Hitachi Japan who did design and built it to a large extent. The ANC was the main share holder in Hitachi South Africa. For years it was nobuilding anything – just bribery and corruption, and the tax payers money just landed up with the ANC… which is a Britsch Chatham house fake of a freedom movement…
Yep, controlled and on demand chaos. World-wide. It is no accident that all of Africa is in turmoil. If one looks behind the curtain, you will find Israel and the US, along with the other colonial caballists in the EU. Africa is once again the battleground for raw material and the west sees Chinese and Russian moves there as definite threats to their control. So, violence and war must ensue to destroy any peace. ISIS/Al Qaeda didn’t just magically appear over night. Chaos, the real goal.
That happens when resorting to affirmative action policies. Corruption, theft, native incompetence and of course, a native IQ 70. Today Eskom price of electricity is 4 times higher while producing less than in 1994, when it was part of the white people management. They were fired, they left, retired and a new generation of blacks took over, thinking that they could ever match the know-how, discipline and of course, higher IQ that left.