Nobody likes to get conned, and it happens to the best of us from time to time.

Hopping in a taxi without negotiating a price first, selling something online and then the money from the buyer never clears – these examples suck, but they don’t plunge the country into darkness.

We all pay for Eskom’s errors, though, and the poor quality coal that is supplied to them is a big problem.

MyBroadband on this so-called coal:

Cosatu General Secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali recently said rocks instead of coal were supplied to one of Eskom’s power stations, which caused damage to the burners.

This damage caused unplanned outages and electricity shortages which forced Eskom to implement load-shedding.

An Eskom engineer working at a power station confirmed that poor-quality coal which contains rocks caused serious damage to their equipment.

He added that in December, four of the six turbines at the power station he works at were seized up because of this problem.

“The piping that is supposed to transfer steam to the turbines from the boilers has ruptured due to the wrong grade of coal being used, that contains rocks that have exploded,” he said.

In another, more recent incident, suppliers arrived at Eskom’s Hendrina Power Station in Mpumalanga and tried to sell these:

I don’t pretend to know what quality coal should look like, but this ain’t it.

In an interview with SABC News, LontohCoal CEO Tshepo Kgadima explained the problem:

“That is not coal. That is a lump of crushed rock which cannot be milled and cannot combust under any circumstances,” said Kgadima.

He said these trucks were thankfully turned away, but added that it highlights the challenges which exist at Eskom’s power stations.

“How is it possible that the power plant operators do not know the geological conditions of the mines where they are supposed to get their coal from?” he asked.

I’d take a stab in the dark and say they do, but someone’s paid someone else a stack of money to make the problem go away.

You can see that interview SABC News interview with Kgadima below, with the coal / rock issue addressed from the 5:30 mark:

That other guy in the interview is energy expert Ted Blom, who has made his feelings on the Eskom mess well-known these past few weeks.

Good times.

[source:mybroadband]