Category Archives: Press Releases

Press Releases from CANE

Federal government vows Canada will make HEU-free isotopes by 2016

canadaflagCanada will produce commercial quantities of medical isotopes without the controversial use of highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium, the federal government has pledged.

The announcement follows news that Canada will ship 23,000 litres of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) liquid isotope waste to the United States, where President Barack Obama has made global civilian HEU reduction and repatriation one of his administration’s national security priorities.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, speaking Thursday to an Ottawa gathering of the Canadian Nuclear Association, said $25 million in additional federal funding is being awarded to three promising Canadian projects that use cyclotrons and linear accelerators in the production of life-saving technetium-99m (Tc-99m), the most widely used medical isotope in the world. Read More

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National Anti-Nuclear Summit (29-30 July 2011)

FROM THE OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON

THE COALITION AGAINST NUCLEAR ENERGY (CANE)
PO BOX 82 PLETTENBERG BAY 6600 SOUTH AFRICA

In March 2011, soon after the catastrophe of Fukushima, the Minister of Energy declared for six new reactors as part of the Integrated Resource Plan for electricity production (the IRP2010). This was also in the face of heavy opposition and many submissions by members of the Civil Society Energy Caucus, including affected communities, the labour movement, faith-based organizations, and many Non-Government Organisations (NGOs).

Moreover, in recent months, Eskom has persisted with public meetings in Cape Town, Overstrand and Kouga Municipalities, in desperate defence of their Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report. Indeed, they were met with fierce resistance on the part of individual CANE members, the Koeberg Alert Alliance, the Save Bantamsklip Campaign, the Thyspunt Alliance, and many others. What is most disconcerting is that no nuclear technology has been specified; many specialist studies have not been completed adequate; and no final solution for the spent fuel has been specified.

This failure to prepare the ground properly for the preferred Thyspunt site (but with Bantamsklip and Koeberg to follow, making up two reactors each on three designated sites) will inevitably lead to a series of court challenges in the following years. A “war chest” has already been started for this express purpose.

In the light of these developments, and in response to popular demand, the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy has therefore convened a National Anti-Nuclear Summit at the Country Crescent Hotel in Plettenberg Bay on Friday the 29th and Saturday the 30th July.

List of Delegates

Rianne Teule, Johannesburg-based, but Netherlands-born Greenpeace, anti-nuclear campaigner, recently returned from Japan;
Richard Worthington, veteran Climate-Change campaigner, World Wildlife Fund, Johannesburg, and founder of the  South African Climate Action Network;
Dr David Fig, policy analyst, academic researcher, and author of Uranium Road, among other works;
Makoma Lekalakala, (Sustainable Energy Climate Change Project, Earthlife Africa, Johannesburg Branch;
Dominique Gilbert, Pelindaba Working Group, Brooderstroom;
Keith Gottschalk, Senior Lecturer in Political Studies, University of the Western Cape;
Peter Becker, Convenor, Koeberg Alert Alliance, Cape Town;
Rod Gurzynski, Architect, Researcher & Green Building Consultant, Cape Town;
Sibusiso Mimi, Research Officer, National Union of Mineworkers;
Muna Lakhani and Gray Macguire, Earthlife Africa, Cape Town Branch;
Rodney Anderson, Chairman, Save Bantamsklip Campaign & Vice-Chairman, Hermanus Ratepayers Association;
Ebeline de Villiers, Save Bantamsklip Campaign;
John Williams, Stanford Conservation Trust and former Chairman, Save Bantamsklip Campaign;
Lesley Richardson, Agulhas Biodiversity Initiative;
Wilfred Chivell, Dyer Island Trust;
Katja Vinding Petersen, Dyer Island Trust;

Hilton Thorpe, St Francis Residents Association and member, Thyspunt Alliance;
Alison Kuhl, Supertubes Surfing Foundation, Jeffreys Bay;
Derek Luyt, Public Service Accountability Monitor, Rhodes University

Apologies

Len Swimmer (Chair, Greater Cape Town Civic Association);
Louis de Villiers (former Chair, Wildlife & Environment Society of South Africa, Western Cape);
Dave Whitelaw (ABI Initiative, Overberg Region);
Helena Kingwill, Writer-Producer of Buried in Earthskin a TV documentary on nuclear waste dumping in Namaqualand;
Bernedette Muthien, Executive Director. Engender, an NPO focusing on Eco-Feminism;
Brenda Martin, Project 90X2030;
Dr Yvette Abrahams, Commission for Gender Equity;
Bobby Peek, Groundwork/Friends of the Earth.

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Electricity plan to be released by year end

south africa mpumalanga middelburg arnot power station

Pic: Wikimedia Commons

Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System
Date: 03 Aug 2010
Title: Electricity plan to be released by year end
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Cape Town – South Africa will have a clearer picture on the future of its electricity mix and supply by the end of the year, said the Department of Energy’s Ompi Aphane, Acting Deputy Director-General of Electricity, Nuclear and Clean Energy.

Aphane was briefing Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Energy today, on the public comments received by the department on the Second Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

He said the plan is to promulgate the IRP2 – which will present various scenarios for the country’s future energy policy – by November.

Leading up to this, the department plans to next month release a draft of the IRP2 for public comment and public hearings would be held with the National Energy Regulator (Nersa).

The scenarios would be built using 29 parameters including the effects of climate change, water availability, price elasticity of demand, a carbon tax, distributions infrastructure and renewable energy, on the supply of electricity for the country.

The department had received 81 submissions from the public, including from non-governmental organisations, academics and consultants and industry and business, which all made various submissions based on the parameters.

Some of these comments were gathered via www.irp2010.co.za while other inputs were gathered from Nedlac.

A total of 831 specific inputs have been fed into a database and are now being used to build the various scenarios.

Many of the comments were around renewable generation and the IRP2 consultation process itself – with most of the respondents adding that they were impressed with the process itself.

Most of the respondents called for a low carbon economy and for renewable energy – such as wind, solar and geothermal – to make up between 20 percent to 75 percent of the country’s electricity mix by 2050.

Many of the respondents were strongly against coal and nuclear as future energy solutions to the country’s future and pointed out the difficulty of obtaining funding for nuclear and coal.

They also pointed out the importance for the IRP2 to consider new technologies still emerging, such as solar hydrogen technology and sugar fan fibre as renewable energy source.

Aphane said South Africa faced tough choices around the future of its energy mix, adding that the economy couldn’t grow in an energy-constrained environment.

He said at present available dispatchable capacity would not be able to keep up with future demand, meaning the threat of blackouts would increase.

Another challenge is that the costs for clean technology are high and international agreements on financing these technologies had to still be concluded, he said.

The IRP2, which is part of the department’s Integrated Energy Plan, looks at the electricity sector and plans will also be developed for liquid fuels and gas, he said.

Aphane said the IRP2 will take into consideration whether the country has enough primary energy source, skills, land and transmissions infrastructure to meet its energy needs.

The plan also needs to meet funding requirements and answer what the future costing of electricity will be, what will be required to meet the country’s energy needs and whether there is sufficient confidence from South Africans in seeing the plan through.

It must also consider how the energy needs can also help to grow the country by complementing the Department of Trade and Industry’s Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP), which was launched earlier this year and aims to vamp up the country’s industrial capacity.

Each scenario will describe the effect on the price of electricity, security of supply, multiplier effects and the effects of carbon on the environment.

Public comments on all 29 parameters of the IRP2 can be found at www.doe-irp.co.zaBuaNews

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What can I do about preventing a nuclear future?

STOP THE MEDIA FROM LYING !

More and more mainstream media are ignoring the health and economic risk – let alone the legacy – involved with nuclear power and appear to be backing an  already well-oiled propaganda machine of the nuclear industry, hell-bent on foisting dangerous technology on this country. Their published views DO NOT reflect the vast and irrefutable evidence against this heinous form of electricity generation. Here are two letters recently written to the Business Day newspaper to set the record straight which we trust the paper bothered to publish.

10 June 2010

The Editor

Business Day

Dear Sir

Two undated articles from your newspaper were recently forwarded to me. One was an otherwise reasonable article by Siseko Njobeni on the state of play in the IRP2 process, but which had a disturbing caption attached to its photograph: “There is little debate about the benefits of nuclear power … as the least carbon-generating  technology.” Apart from the constant privileging of nuclear power over other and cheaper viable technologies for electricity production that this prominent photograph suggests (and belied in the accompanying article), the very idea of “no debate” is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s TINA: “There is No Alternative” – a Goebbelsian mantra, if ever there was one.

If your reporters had attended the recent Environmental Impact Assessments public meetings for the ill-starred “Nuclear-1”, they would have experienced an extremely robust and entirely hostile debate at all three sites. Indeed – with the rebirth of Earthlife Africa and the Koeberg Alert Alliance in Cape Town; the fierce resistance of the Save Bantamsklip campaign in the Overstrand; and the Thyspunt Alliance in the Kouga Municipality – one can honestly say that the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (CANE) has come of age. It also currently enjoys the active support from the National Union of Mineworkers, the faith-based SAFCEI, and a clear mandate from the Civil Society Energy Caucus to represent its anti-nuclear interests to the IPR2 process.

More objectionable, however, both in its cynical, “embedded” tone and its uncritical content, is Sarah Wild’s “Science & Technology” column on the subject. Quoting (without making it clear) standard nuclear industry propaganda, Wild writes that “fewer than 50 people” died and guesstimates the overall cancers at 4 000 from the disaster at Chernobyl. According to the Russian newspaper Pravda of 16 December 2002, however –

A total area of 50 000 square kilometres covering 12 regions was contaminated in that awful tragedy. Over three million people, including about one million children are suffering [in 2002] from diseases of the respiratory airways, thyroid gland, etc., which rates are higher in the regions contaminated after the tragedy as compared with the whole of Ukraine. About 600 000 people participated in the clean-up … of Chernobyl: 200 000 of them were exposed to an enhanced radiation dose. These people will now need special medical aid and supervision for the rest of their lives.

Within the first ten years after the Chernobyl tragedy, about 168 000 people (out of the total number of 3.2 million … victims) died. It was later discovered that 4 300 died [immediately] as a result of the tragic consequences, about 3 000 of [these] fatalities were those who participated the clean-up. Those victims of the tragedy who remained alive registered a worsening of their health condition.

While the red herrings may be trotted out about for cars and jets and coal stations and farting cattle, the scientific facts are that the two principle by-products of nuclear fission – Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 – both have a half-life close to thirty years and therefore tend to accumulate in the environment over many decades. Even the otherwise extremely reluctant Air Specialist Study in the EIA for Nuclear-1 admits as much:

The methodology described in IAEA Safety Report No. 19 (IAEA 2001) was adopted in the estimation of inhalation and immersion dose….. The inventory of long-lived radionuclides builds up in the environment, with the result that exposures may increase as the discharge continues. [emphasis mine]

When I studied Eskom’s own Environmental Science Laboratory reports to the National Nuclear Regulator on emissions and effluents from Koeberg Nuclear Power Station,
the following amount of Strontium-90 was recorded in liquid effluents in Becquerels per year:
1994 =   53 600 000
1995 =      9 560 000
1997 =   15 100 000
2001 =      3 140 000
It follows, therefore, that there is a genuine risk from routine operations of nuclear power stations, and this was borne out in a number of peer-reviewed studies. Writing for Global Research, Ian Fairlie (2008) drew attention to the following:

Last year [2007], researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston carried out a meta-analysis of 17 research papers covering 136 nuclear sites in the UK, Canada, France, the US, Germany, Japan and Spain. The incidence of leukaemia in children under 9 living close to the sites showed an increase of 14 to 21 per cent, while death rates from the disease were raised by 5 to 24 per cent, depending on their proximity to the nuclear facilities (European Journal of Cancer Care, vol 16, p 355).

This was upstaged by the yet more surprising KiKK studies (a German acronym for Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants), whose results were published this year [i.e. in 2008] in the International Journal of Cancer (vol 122, p 721) and the European Journal of Cancer (vol 44, p 275). These found higher incidences of cancers and a stronger association with nuclear installations than all previous reports. The main findings were a 60 per cent increase in solid cancers and a 117 per cent increase in leukaemia among young children living near all 16 large German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003. The most striking finding was that those who developed cancer lived closer to nuclear power plants than randomly selected controls. Children living within 5 kilometres of the plants were more than twice as likely to contract cancer as those living further away, a finding that has been accepted by the German government.

I am normally convinced that Business Day conducts proper research in order to better inform its readers of investment potential in one business sector or another. I therefore think it would be equally helpful for the newspaper to engage in a more critical investigation into the dubious merits of electricity production from nuclear power stations before questioning the “viability” of its critics. We may not be financially viable (or even properly functional) as a lobbying group, but at least we do our homework.

Mike Kantey
National Chairman
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (CANE)
www.cane.org.za
072 628 5131

Endnotes

Ian Fairlie (2008) “Reasonable Doubt: Children living near nuclear facilities face an increased risk of cancer” April 24, 2008 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8785)

A follow-up for your self-confessed “science” writer may be made through examining Chris Busby’s 2009 study: “Very Low Dose Fetal Exposure to Chernobyl Contamination Resulted in Increases in Infant Leukemia in Europe and Raises Questions about Current Radiation Risk Models” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Volume 6. www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph]
Chris Busby et al (2006): A survey of cancer in the vicinity of Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in north wales Report 2006/3, Green audit Aberystwyth, June

Communities adjacent to nuclear facilities in the U.S. and U.K. have increased rates of leukemia and other childhood cancers (Cragle et al. 1988; Morris and Knorr 1996; Beral et al. 1993; Pobel and Viel 1997; Cardis et al. 2007).

Arjun Makhijani (2008): The Use of Reference Man in Radiation Protection Standards and Guidance with Recommendations for Change, December (Revision 1, April 2009). Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Takoma Park, Maryland

Kaatsch P, Spix C, Schultze-Rath R, et al. Leukemia in young children living in the vicinity of German nuclear power plants. Int J Cancer. 2008; 1220:721-726
Baker PJ, Hoel DG. Meta-analysis of standardized incidence and mortality rates of childhood leukemia in proximity to nuclear facilities. Eur J Cancer Care. 2007:16:355-363
Laurier D, Jacob S, Bernier MO, et al. Epidemiological studies of leukemia in children and young adults around nuclear facilities: A critical review. Rad Prot Dosim. 2008; 132:182- 190
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Sent:     Tuesday, June 08, 2010
To:     busday@bdfm.co.za
Subject: What’s on my plate in a nuclear future?

Dear Editor

What’s on my plate in a nuclear future?

Koeberg emits, by their own admission, ‘permitted levels of radioactive waste’ from their site. This means that radioactive isotopes (such as Cesium-137, Strontium-90 and Iodine-131) become part of the environment in which they are emitted. When we eat the crops, or, the animals that graze on effected vegetation, we take in substances that, are not only carcinogenic to our bodies,  but, will also change the characteristics of our DNA, and, by implication the DNA of future generations. Wind dispersion allows for emissions to be spread over vast areas.

With the government’s planned ‘fleet’ of nuclear power plants to be rolled out in SA, how much of our farming land will be effected?  Which European country will import radioactive fruit, or, wine? Avian flu (a mere virus) decimated sectors of economies in the world. We could face a blanket  ban on all our export produce. So, not only will our health be adversely effected by a nuclear future, but our economy too. If I was a farmer I would definitely be toy toying.

The latter will be nothing compared to a nuclear waste accident…  even if it is  minor.  Consider that every month we transport radio active waste from Koeberg to Vaal Puts in the Karoo for ‘safe storage’. Our road accident rate is high. It is only a matter of time before a transit vehicle, carrying the waste, is involved in an accident. High level waste remains at Koeberg – over 1 million killograms of it.  Why? There is no actual plan for disposal (ps this goes for nuclear waste worldwide). And, as far as procuring material to create nuclear energy is concerned, personally, I will not be applying for a mining position on any uranium mine in the near future… call me crazy if you like. Let us not be duped into thinking that there is anything clean about nuclear energy.

Most countries in the world are actively sourcing renewable energy solutions. Countries with no wind or sun to speak of (incl Germany and Denmark) generate substantial  amounts of electricity via renewable sources. Yet, SA is committing to generating nuclear energy in spite of clean alternatives that will cost less financially.

South Africans have been given one chance in Jhb, to participate in the IRP2 process. This ends 10  June 2010 (one day before kickoff date???). This is unacceptable, particularly since Capetonians sit with the ‘permitted emissions’ in our own backyard. I recently wrote a letter to local (CT) organic producers of diary products… “I know that your products are RBST free, but, are they free of radioactive isotopes”, to which the response has been… ‘this is a valid point, we are looking into it’. What if our food producers cannot supply us with raioactive isotope free produce? National health is already strained and just how many lawsuites can our government afford to take on?

Quite frankly, I find embracing a nuclear future to be just a tad unpalatable.

Your sincerely,

Jemimah Birch

Hout Bay
083 716 1010

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Anti-nuclear activist evicted from Energy Ministers nuclear stakeholder fiasco

MEDIA STATEMENT

Anti-nuclear activist evicted from Energy Minister’s nuclear stakeholder fiasco

Government turns its back on thousands of jobs and SME opportunities giving dictatorial support for “arms deal style” nuclear power acquisitions that will impose nuclear risks to South Africans for thousands of years. Billions of rand destined to alleviate poverty will once again be commandeered by the ruling party without allowing any public debate to derail this irrational & unsustainable policy.


“Is this the Government we fought to bring to power?” asked anti-nuclear stalwart Mike Kantey who was evicted from a nuclear stakeholder meeting on Tuesday in Cape Town called by Energy Minister Dipuo Peters.

Meant to be an open and constructive get together of “nuclear stakeholders”- including those against nuclear power – it turned into a fiasco. In just over an hour, Kantey the lone anti-nuclear activist in a predominantly pro-nuclear government and industry gathering, was summarily ejected for daring to challenge Kelvin Kemm’s claim that nuclear power is a form of “clean energy”. Discussion of the ruling party’s nuclear policy was also ruled “out of order”.

A former member of Armscor from 1981-1986, Kemm stands to benefit from the PBMR boondoggle as a director of BEE company Silver Protea. Kantey is the self-funded Chairperson of the national Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (CANE) and was one of only four civil society invitees to the meeting.

At the same meeting, Deputy General-Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers Oupa Komane introduced himself as a “representative of the working class” and confirmed that the biggest trade union in COSATU and an active member of the Tripartite Alliance is “opposed to the PBMR but in favour of nuclear power.”

All those affiliated to CANE — as well as those sister organisations opposed only to the siting of a nuclear power station in their region — will be having their own consultation to determine what response will be appropriate in the forthcoming months leading up to the 2010 World Cup.

Given the credence given to climate change denialist Kelvin Kemm in the meeting, and the Minister’s own attempts to convince civil society that “nuclear power is a clean energy option”, we will continue to broaden and strengthen the Coalition across all sectors of society — including our own trusted allies within the Tripartite Alliance.

The new-look Government should understand once and for all that the anti nuclear lobby cannot be co-opted, isolated or marginalised, since it remains united in opposition to nuclear energy, whether at the local level, or as a “one-size-fits-all” national energy policy. The blatant attempt to over-represent nuclear lobbyists with minimal civil society representation as ‘stakeholders”, must be addressed and rectified.

The anti nuclear lobby believes that the R1.3-trillion nuclear policy will hold back scarce public funds from solving the real issues of grinding poverty and economic injustice and will also substantially delay delivery of reliable energy to the economy due to massive delays in bringing nuclear power plants on line.

If China can build a massive two gigawatt solar plant, enough to power about 3 million Chinese households for less than $6 billion resulting in a tariff of 15 to 25 cents per kilowatt hour, why does South Africa with the best solar potential in the world want to go nuclear? *

Nuclear stakeholder groups from Namaqualand, Bantamsklip, Thyspunt, Koeberg and Pelindaba expressed solidarity with Kantey and questioned why their representatives had not been invited to the meeting which was billed as all-inclusive, as announced by the Minister.

ISSUED BY:
National Executive Committee
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy
Email: caneoffice@cane.org.za
Website: www.cane.org.za

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