Influence of coal-particle size on emissions using the top-lit updraft ignition method

Despite the Government’s intervention of an intensive electrification program in South Africa, which has resulted in more than 87% of households being connected to the grid, a majority of low-income households still depend on solid fuel (coal and wood) as a primary source of energy, especially on the central Highveld. In informal settlements, combustion of coal is done in inefficient self-fabricated braziers, colloquially known as imbaulas. Emissions from domestic coal combustion result in elevated household and ambient air pollution levels that often exceed national air quality limits. Continued dependence on coal combustion exposes households to copious amounts of health-damaging pollutants. Despite the health significance of coal-burning emissions from informal braziers, there is still a dearth of emissions data from these devices. Consequently, evaluating the emission characteristics of these devices and to determine the resultant emission factors is needed. The effects of ignition methods and ventilation rates on particulate and gaseous emission from coal-burning braziers are reported in literature. However, to date there are no studies carried out to investigate the influence of the size of coal pieces on brazier emission performance. In this paper, we report on controlled combustion experiments carried out to investigate systematically, influences of coal particle size on gaseous and condensed matter (smoke) emissions from informal residential coal combustion braziers. Results presented are averages of three identical burn-cycles of duration three hours or fuel burn-out, whichever was the soonest

Why do you hate me so much? An exploration of religious freedom from the perspective of African religion(s)

The advent of the 1996 constitution and the promotion of freedom of religion gave space to previously discriminated religious traditions to flourish. There have been a number of revivals of aspects of African Traditional Religion. The Bill of Rights guarantees Religious Freedom but tends to limit it to Freedom of belief. People have every right to believe and practice as long as their practice is in line with the law. This paper is a reflection on the difficulties posed by the notion of Religious Freedom as contained in the 1996 South African constitution for practitioners of African Indigenous Religions and other minority religions. In a case that captured the imagination of the legal fraternity, Gareth Prince, a practicing Rastafarian, was prevented from joining the Bar of the Western Cape because of a prior conviction of being caught in possession of dagga, an illegal substance. He argued that he used cannabis as part of his religious observance. Justice Ngcobo, in his judgement dismissing the case, made it very clear that ‘the right to freedom of religion is not absolute’. In other words, religious practices need to fall within the provisions of the law of the land. At the core of our argument is that the intellectual and cultural resources that were mobilised in writing the South African constitution failed to reflect on the religious practices of indigenous people and other minority religions

The African indigenous churches' spiritual resources for democracy and social cohesion

This article outlines resources possessed by the African indigenous churches (AICs) that help them engage with the democratic dispensation and could be used to foster social cohesion in South Africa. It starts off with the premise that social cohesion is that which holds the nation together. The South African rainbow-nation narrative tended to focus on tolerance and there cognition of diversity as strength. Tolerance does not address the fundamental issues that would facilitate cohesion. The idea of cultural justice as advocated by Chirevo Kwenda is seen as the most useful tool to move forward. Cultural justice ensures that all citizens are able to draw on their cultural resources without any fear of being discriminated against. The AICs have an assortment of resources at their disposal that are drawn from African religion,Christianity and Western culture. These resources enable AIC members to appreciate being African and Christian, as well as being South African

Does Deindustrialisation Cause Social Polarisation in Global Cities?

The social polarisation hypothesis argues that deindustrialisation causes thepolarisation of the occupational structure, which in turn causes the income polarisation of the employed workforce of global cities. A central argument is that social polarisation occurs because the service sector is more polarised in occupational and income terms than the manufacturing sector that it replaces. However, the results of many studies suggest that deindustrialisation has not resulted in social polarisation. Instead, deindustrialisation has produced a professionalised occupational structure alongside high levels of unemployment. The results of this study of the Johannesburg region confirm that deindustrialisation results in professionalisation rather than polarisation. We then proceed to examine this outcome by analysing the statistical relationship between economic restructuring and the changing occupational structure. Our results suggest that changes in the overall occupational structure were caused by changes within each economic sector rather than by the growth of service sector employment and the decline of manufacturing sector employment