PALI LEHOHLA | Put a magnet to contaminated coal, Eskom, or would that be throwing rocks?

Complex systems require complex solutions, a fundamental law of cybernetics. Eskom is a complex system and simple systems of force cannot deliver results. Complexity is understood through decomposition, not simplicity. The latter complicates, while decomposition enlightens by enabling one to understand the nature and manifestation of a problem. How does the complex problem of Eskom, especially its rock-infested coal-supply system, relate to South Africa’s backdoor shopping culture, one that has outlived apartheid and seems to resonate with the rock-filled coal culture at the power utility?

Wepener in the Free State was a fascinating town. You would cross Van Rooyen’s border gate from Qibing in Lesotho and be impressed by rare delights — motorised transport out of Qibing village's peasantry routines, seeing a train and having a rare opportunity to buy fish and chips. Of course, the cost of these would be terrible treatment at the border from the black passport control officer. But the camel’s back would finally be broken when you received that horrible “why are you here?” treatment from a white shopkeeper. As if to take revenge because of this, black sales assistants would entice you into trading that would be dangerous if caught, but an additional 20 cents would enable you to buy fish and chips — a good incentive. Why are the rocks in coal similar to shopping in Wepener?

Once I was sent to Wepener to buy nails and wood and was confronted by a black assistant who told me that instead of buying nails I should buy corn, which would turn into nails when I left the shop. I was intrigued. But it was dangerous and I resisted. However, after performing the magic and giving me a price, the difference was huge and the lure of fish and chips huge. The assistant would take the goods to the counter, pay for them, then hand them to me. A pound of nails would be weighed, then the sales person would add to this 3kg of corn, making the nails disappear. At the counter, the assistant paid for the corn at about a fifth of the price of the nails, then ushered you out of the shop where you would square him up with a fee at half the price of the nails. It made perfect free-market economic sense. Both of you win and you have money for fish and chips, compensating sufficiently for the “why are you here?” vuil kyk from the white shopkeeper.

Of course, if the shopkeeper was smart, he would use the corn sales figures and disappearance of nails to design a fraud detection system. A magnet would be dangled outside the bag of corn and if it stuck to it, one would ask, “What type of corn is this?” But instead of thinking of data management, the shopkeeper would resort to a vuil kyk as the means of intelligence and crime detection. Obviously, having been terrorised at the border, this would deter you from any monkey business.

This is how the rock-filled coal in a brown bag works. The crisis seems to be the same as the border post terror and vuil kyk. I'll explain, but before we explore the similarities, let's think about the incentives.

Should the rocks in coal prove not to be incentivised by revenue for truckers and/or coal mines ... then the related question might point to a different incentive and we should delve into the political economy of energy in the heavily contested renewable-fossils threat polarities

In the case of nails turned to corn, the motive was financial for the black assistant and the buyer, who in most cases would be black, but I am sure whites were in cahoots too. Now in the case of rocks mixed with coal, what is the incentive for the trucker in mixing the two? I can only imagine one — any speculation would be way above my pay grade — yet it is so rudimentarily stupid that I have to pinch myself when I recognise this. However, let me explore my stupidity.

First, where do these rocks come from? Are they trucked from somewhere to then be mixed with coal for the trucker to offload into a fire-powered station? This seems too farfetched. Physically and economically, it doesn't seem feasible. Are the rocks coming in as a by-product of production which then have to be separated from the coal? This seems possible and presents an attractive proposition. Let me momentarily settle on this hypothesis. Then my stupid mind asks how these rocks are identified and separated from the coal? I presume there is a straightforward procedure, so what would be the incentive for a trucker to load both? Obviously, selling rocks generates revenue without costs. So the motivation do to so is huge, whatever the consequences to the power station, yet no truckers are pinned down. For the risk-reward ratio to tilt towards the latter would require the trucker to deliver a quantity that enables this. Before I conclude the point on risk-reward ratios, I need to understand how the rocks are identified from coal. By colour, thermal properties, how hard they are? I have no answers, but I presume at pre-screening they are identified. If they are identified only by thermal and hardness qualities, the gates of control would come too late in the game and the systems would continuously break. This leaves me with the reasonably rational conclusion that they are identified by other properties rather than these. So we are left with an equation of risk-reward conduct and identification systems.

This suggests the rocks should be large and a truck with such a load easily identifiable and searched for such content. A second checkpoint would be to introduce delivery of coal in batches, with their conveyance to thermal systems time-controlled. This would isolate batches with rocks and allow them to be traced back to delivery trucks. Then those truckers who delivered them could be subjected to a thorough pre-audit of coal delivered. Furthermore, this batch-management could identify suppliers who might be colluding with truckers. If such collusion is widespread, it will become evident and remedial action could be taken.

However, should the rocks prove not to be incentivised by revenue for truckers and/or coal mines where the rock content is so insignificantly low as to deliver such revenue streams, yet potent enough to choke turbines, then the question of rocks in coal might point to a different incentive and we should then delve into the political economy of energy in the heavily contested renewable-fossils threat polarities.

My thinking is if trucks and mines deliver rock-filled coal, Eskom should put in place a  delivery system that's managed by time of load onto the coal conveyor belt and simulated by time in the thermal system. That way Eskom could narrow down the culprits. The data collected would point to whether this is widespread malice or confined to specific mine and/or truck operators. Then the necessary steps could be taken. Whether the undermining of our national energy security is caused by trucks-cum-mine operators for profit or by the rush to the bottom in spirited debates between coal and renewable fundamentalists, no amount of border control maltreatment of Qibing residents crossing into Wepener by immigration officers or a vuil kyk by a white shopkeeper on black shoppers is intimidating enough to stop buying the magical corn that turns into nails. Only data systems can direct us to solutions. The contemplated state of disaster is not such and cannot deliver insights. It can only complicate, unresolvably, a complex system. A simple magnet would have resolved the magical corn that turned into nails problem, just as a coal-burning control system by time analysis can deliver deep insights needed for this malice.

Dr Pali Lehohla is the director of the Economic Modelling Academy, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.