CANE - Coalition Against Nuclear Energy South Africa

THE DRAFT NUCLEAR ENERGY STRATEGY:
LAST CHANCE FOR DISSENT
Mike Kantey

On 22 August 2007, the Portfolio Committee on Minerals and Energy in the South African Parliament received an “Update” by the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) and the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA). During this session, the Draft Nuclear Energy Policy and Strategy for the Republic of South Africa was presented, a strategy which had been already “approved by Cabinet” on 8 August 2007.

The minutes of this Portfolio Committee briefing (provided by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group), the Draft Strategy Document itself, and from attending  various “Key Stakeholder” meetings, demonstrate clearly that the present South African Government is determined to pursue a full-scale nuclear industry expansion programme in South Africa, with or without popular understanding or popular consent.

It therefore raises — not for the first time - serious issues with regard to the practice of open democracy and public participation in national policy formation.

First, however, the public needs to know what has happened on the nuclear energy front.
1. DME Chief Director, Tseliso Maqubela, says that we must commit to “one hundred years” of a nuclear industry, according to the Minutes of the above Briefing.

2. The Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) failed its first Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, but has started again with a larger output of 165MWe, because the earlier design was found to be uneconomic, anyway. The revised design therefore remains completely untested and unlikely to proceed beyond a R20-billion demonstration unit at Koeberg — despite Eskom’s “order” of 24 units — because there are no buyers anywhere in the world.

3. A more likely scenario will be Eskom’s purchase of five packs of Westinghouse AP1000 Pressurised Water Reactors (PWRs), similar to those at Koeberg. The recent, separate EIA meetings were supposed to determine the suitability of five coastal sites for PWRs, the same as those “chosen” under the Apartheid regime in 1986: are: Brazil and Schulpfontein in Namaqualand; Koeberg; Bantamsklip; and Thyspunt.

4. A Record of Decision has already been granted for fuel fabrication for the PBMR in Pelindaba, while the latest National Radioactive Waste Policy Document of 2005 includes a commitment to reprocessing spent fuel.

The biggest drive right now, however, is to gain support for the one missing piece of the nuclear fuel production chain: uranium enrichment, the very thing that has everyone hopping up and down about Iran.

In Parliament it was claimed that, because South Africa has “an abundance” of uranium, we needed to “beneficiate” the mineral, instead of selling it abroad as a raw product and that “Investing in the beneficiation of uranium would yield huge rewards for the country.” No justification, no business case, and no bankable feasibility study were presented in support of this assertion.

What we see, therefore, is a full house of nuclear options, all amounting to a massive injection of cash into the bank accounts of three beneficiaries: the PBMR (Pty) Ltd, in which Eskom is the major shareholder; Eskom itself, through its ambitious nuclear power-station programme (a projected 20 000 MW); and NECSA, for nuclear enrichment, PBMR fuel fabrication, reprocessing and radioactive waste management
Massive sums of money have been bandied about. Previously, in an Environmental and Tourism Portfolio Committee Meeting (19 October 2004), a Mr Matjila from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) had stated that “the cost of replacing Koeberg would be approximately R30 billion and the cost of decommissioning, including waste disposal, was around R16 billion.”

Assuming that the DEAT official was correct (and we will never know because Government does not like to give out accurate costs without a fight or a lawsuit), then - on available evidence — we can expect another five Koebergs at R30 billion each; an odd R20 billion each for uranium enrichment and fuel fabrication; and another R16 billion for decommissioning and waste disposal. Add another unsubstantiated R14 billion for a white-elephant PBMR demonstration unit, and we can round off the package to R220 billion.

Now we know why Eskom has suddenly asked for electricity prices to be increased by 18% in 2008, and 17% in 2009. According to a report by Mariaan Olivier, “the increase in prices stemmed from the gap … between Eskom’s current tariff at 18c/kWh and the cost of new production of 36c/kWh.” (Engineering News, 20 Aug 2007) Olivier goes on to report that electricity prices increases had already been set by a NERSA Multi-Year Price Determination, allowing only for a 5,1% increase for 2005/6, 5,9% for 2006/7, and 6,2% for 2008/9.

It follows, therefore, that - not only are we expected to pay for this R220-billion nuclear programme from our normal tax contributions - we are also going to pay for the nuclear industry through a three-fold increase in electricity bills.

Having understood the range and scope of the nuclear ambitions in South Africa, therefore, we need to examine very thoroughly how we got to this extraordinary moment in South African history and what part we are expected to play in determining energy policy.

Mr Maqubela in his appearance before the Portfolio Committee is quite comfortable with the assertion that “The [1998 Energy] White Paper made provision for nuclear energy but it was tentative and informed by conditions prevalent at that time, which included anti-nuclear sentiment.”
The Chief Director is alluding, of course, to the 1994 ANC Policy Conference on Nuclear Power, which was not wildly in favour of the nuclear industry. Indeed, one of the partners of the Tripartite Alliance, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) went on to condemn the expansion of the nuclear industry outright in a Resolution passed at their 2003 Congress. Since their 2006 Congress came and went without any Amendment being proposed, one assumes that such a Resolution still stands.

Thus we have a situation where - as far as can be determined - only the current President and his Cabinet (notably Alec Irwin and the Minister of Minerals & Energy) are in favour of nuclear energy, supported by a small gang of bureaucrats. As far as “public participation” is concerned, we are reduced to spectators, where the agendas, the speakers, and the topics are all determined by the proponents. Eskom’s idea of participatory democracy is a two-hour presentation in a highly centralized (but inaccessible) location with about twenty minutes of Q&A, where we are asked to “choose” between dirty, expensive coal and clean, affordable uranium.

During the Portfolio Committee briefing of 22 August 2007, Adv Hendrik Schmidt of the Democratic Alliance (DA) noted that “there was a difference between an awareness campaign and public consultation. One should bear in mind that there were communities who were not in favour of the nuclear programme. He said that if Cabinet’s decision would override the views of the public, it would be a dangerous road to follow.”
Mr Maqubela’s response is so truly alarming that it ought to be published in full:

” … the [Draft Nuclear Energy Strategy] document had been approved for public comment. The Department would make copies available to the public. It would also be published in the Government Gazette for sixty days. This process could however not be dragged out due to commercial imperatives. Investments in regeneration need to be made, as there was a need for a new power plant on the coast by 2016. The Department would also be available for public meetings with the affected communities. This would have to be co-coordinated as there was no purpose in extending the period of public meetings which might not even add value to the process.” [Emphasis mine]

Earlier in the briefing, Mr Maqubela was quoted as having said: ?
“The era of investment in nuclear energy had arrived. Those who had invested in this in the past had benefited the economy. The time had arrived to invest in order to benefit this and future generations.”

At what point, then, was the capture of State Power taken away from its own citizens and handed over to an invisible elite?
How can we as citizens regain control over our own destinies?

As we have seen in recent years, through the social movements — such as the Treatment Action Campaign, the Women and Children’s Rights, and the Environmental Justice Movement, to name only a few - through the just and noble decisions of the Constitutional Court, and through the small struggles of discrete communities against arbitrary behaviour on the part of statutory authorities, our freedoms cannot be won at the ballot box, but by active participation in the day-to-day exercise of participatory democracy.

To quote that great champion of democracy, Paolo Freire,
“To remain neutral is not to side with the powerless, but with the powerful.”

We call upon all democrats to familiarise themselves with the national debate in energy policy and to take an active part in the collective determination of a sustainable future.

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