Coal and Energy in South Africa

Lochner Marais is Professor of Development Studies in the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State. His research integrates themes of housing policy, health and mining communities. Philippe Burger, an economist by training, is currently the Pro Vice-Chancellor: Poverty, Inequality and Economic Development and Vice-Dean at the University of the Free State. Maléne Campbell is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State Stuart Denoon-Stevens is Lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State Deidré Van Rooyen is Programme Director for Development Studies and a researcher in the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

• Mining and mining towns: a conceptual frameworkWhat is a just transition?Mine closure in the coal industry: global and national perspectivesHousehold welfare in EmalahleniWork and life satisfaction of mining employeesInformal settlements in the mining contextCoal and water: Exploiting one precious natural resource at the expense of another?The health impacts of coal mining and coal-based energySustainability reporting by collieriesResidents’ perceptions of coal mining and energy generationBoom or bust for Emalahleni businesses?Socio-economic dynamics of the informal economyA more resilient policy approach to spatial fragmentationPlanning in the dark‘The mines must fix the potholes’: A desperate communityMunicipal financesIs a just transition possible?

This volume was an eye opener. The authors in this work of genuinely thorough scholarship skillfully use their South African mining story to develop bigger arguments about the complexity of transitioning away from a dominant resource economy. While the dramatic history of South Africa and its outsized mining sector is unique, the set of questions which arise is not. The town they focus on is still booming, but other communities already experience post-mining life, and, as the editors say, 'nobody plans for decline'. Planning for decline is especially hard when coping with growth requires all attention of local government, when post-apartheid elites want to finally benefit, and business people do not see an end to the boom. Envisioning what a transition would look like, and preparing for this, is hard. Turning such vision into a strategy is even harder. If we want such a transition to be more than economic survival, and more than avoiding environmental catastrophe, i.e. if we strive for fairness in the process and prosperous communities as a result, then the dimensions of the challenge are hard to overestimate. As the authors note, the reverberations of unregulated and unanticipated closure after a boom can span generations. Neo-liberal ideologies and mining companies anxious to avoid responsibility for communities they used to control, as well as workers desperately in need of opportunities, do not prevent the search for a just transition, however. The analyses in this book reveal, beyond complexity and despair, many signs of hope and pathways to brighter post-mining futures.