CANE - Coalition Against Nuclear Energy South Africa

Eskom told to halt project

MELANIE GOSLING
Environment Writer The Argus 18 June 2007
Copyright - http://www.capeargus.co.za/

THE National Nuclear Regulator (NNR), the body responsible for nuclear safety has slammed the brakes on Eskom’s planned pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR).     This is because of problems with the manufacture of safety equipment.

The suspension of the manufacture of safety-related components came in October and remains in force.

It is to be removed when Eskom and the PBMR (Pty) Ltd have provided the NNR with documentation to show that the manufacturing process meets the regulator’s quality requirements and that they have taken “corrective action” in their approach to the licensing of the pebble bed reactor.

The Cape Times became aware of the suspension through an article in the Platt’s international journal, Nucleonics Week, published on June 7. Platt’s is an international energy information company.

An official at the NNR, who did not want to be named, has confirmed that the contents of the article are correct.

Ann MacLachlan, who wrote the article, said the NNR and Eskom had not disclosed the order to stop work. The NNR had confirmed it after Nucleonics Week made inquiries.

The article says the NNR issued a directive to Eskom, as the pebble bed’s licensee, to suspend “all manufacturing activities related to importing safety components”.

It quotes NNR’s programme manager for PBAM licensing, Peter Bester, who said the order to stop work on safety-related components had been issued after the NNR had learnt that manufacturing activities for some of these had started 11 without the necessary regulatory control. As a result, the Nl-.M was unable to perform its regulatory function over the process” as mandated by law.

The NNR was established under the National Nuclear Act of 1999 for the protection of the public, property and the environment against nuclear damage.

Nucleonics Week quotes an Eskom official, who did not want to be idei-itified, as saying he was unable to predict when the documents would be given to the NNR and that it was up to the PBMR company to provide the technical details.

Jaco Kriek, chief executive officer of PBMR (Pty) Ltd, told Nucleonics Week that it would be “inappropriate for PBMR to comment” on the stop-work order. He referred questions to Eskom, as the licensee.

Eskom holds 100% of the PBMR company, a subsidiary.

The article quotes PBMR’s technical manager, Gert Claasen, who said at an international nuclear congress in France earlier this year that the demo PBMR was unlikely to be operating before 2012 because of licensing snags.

Claasen said it was proving very difficult to get through the regulatory process with a “first-of-a-kind” plant. There were “simply not enough data to prove all the issues that arise” in the safety analysis report.

“In the end, it’s a judgment call,” Claasen was quoted as saying.

He said the NNR was using outside consultants to help it with the licensing of the PBMR.

Eskom has applied to build a demonstration PBMR. If successful, it will build 24 of these “pocket nukes” around the South African coast, and others for export.

On Friday, the Cape Times asked the NNR, Eskom and the PBMR (Pty) Ltd to comment, but there has been no official response.

Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich in the UK, said the suspension “demonstrated a disturbing failure in Eskom and the PBMR company to understand the requirements for the manufacture of equipment for nuclear plants”.

“The South African people need to be told how this situation arose, what will be done to resolve the problem and how procedures will be changed to prevent similar problems occurring.”

Thomas said parliamentary hearings on nuclear power this week would provide “an ideal opportunity” for the government and Eskom to answer these questions.

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