Document written by: Katja Vinding Petersen, Michelle Wcisel, Brenda Walters, Oliver Jewell, Alison Towner, in cooperation with the Trustees from Dyer Island Conservation Trust.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Introduction

This document outlines the concerns of The Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) with regards to the proposed establishment of a nuclear power station (NPS) at Bantamsklip. It also provides an overview of the research which the DICT deems necessary to be carried out prior to the establishment of an NPS as well as suggested monitoring programs during construction and operational phases.

Insufficient Baseline Data

DICT finds the current baseline data concerning this area and the ecosystem insufficient. In order to protect this area’s unique marine biodiversity, DICT calls for further research prior to the establishment of a NPS. Should the NPS project at Bantamsklip proceed, DICT would like to see more monitoring programs during the construction and operations phases.

Current Lack of Knowledge

The DICT is highly concerned that rare and endangered marine species will experience devastating impacts in relation to the NPS. Since there have been no studies carried out prior to the NPS concerning the marine animals i.e. sharks, fur seals, cetaceans, birds and fish species in the area, it is unknown to which degree the proposed site is of significance to these animals. Also, due of this lack of knowledge, DICT find the conclusions made in the EIA and in the Marine- and the Oceanographic Specialist studies highly questionable.

Consequential Damage to Ecosystem

It is not difficult to find examples from the past where developments have unintentionally destroyed factions of an ecosystem when information about that system was unknown until the damage was done. Any visitor to the Cape Agulhas region can describe a bio-diverse habitat that is as incredible as it is delicate.

That is why the DICT is calling for more research to be conducted in this region before further development occurs. Enabling us to better understand the intricate cycle of life in this region and further assess how future development may impact the area.

DICT calls for a document outlining actual research projects which will be carried out prior to and during the construction phase as well as during the operational phase. This document should also state the aim, the methods, duration of the projects, the expected results and how it is linked to other projects carried out in conjunction with the NPS. Eskom’s degree of commitment to the different research projects should also be stated.

Full document 67 pages available here.

Buried in Earthskin - An Investigative journey into the impact of nuclear power on the environment and peoples of South Africa

Buried in Earthskin has been selected for the Encounters Documentary Film Festival.

It will be screening at the NuMetro Cinema at the Waterfront:  (THE BIG SCREEN)  on Sunday the 16th at 8:15 and Sunday the 22nd of August at 8 pm.

Sunday the 16tth’s screening will have a question and answer section at the end with myself, Helena Kingwill and Muna Lakhani of Earth Life Africa as a guest speaker.

What it’s about:

An Investigative journey into the impact of nuclear power on the environment and peoples of South Africa, and a glimpse into potential alternative solutions.

This film aims to look at the nuclear issue as holistically as possible, and sheds light on the severity of the predicament facing decision makers: energy generation versus the environment.   Alternative solutions are blowing in the wind, but can we access them?  Who pays the ultimate price for our convenient electricity?   Who holds the power and can a critical mass shift the paradigm?

Buried in Earthskin subtly demonstrates how energy and political power go hand in hand, and gives a voice to marginalized indigenous peoples who have paid the ultimate price for decisions made (about where we get our electric power) for the sake of political and financial power.

Reviews:  ”Powerful”-  Director of the Oakland International Film Festival- San Francisco.

“I loved it! It is powerful and very thought provoking. ”  Marie Holms Independent Consultant and Project Advisory, Bath, England.

TO ORDER copies of this documentary, please click here. (R120 per copy plus postage within South Africa)

China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group Co., the nation’s second-biggest builder of atomic plants, received state approval to construct two reactors in the southern province of Guangxi to boost supply of clean energy.

…but you don’t have to look too hard to see how far the infection has spread. When even the US’s Environmental Protection Agency refers to nuclear power as ‘clean’ you can see how deeply the idea is entrenched.

How has this happened and why? Are the journalists writing these pieces pro-nuclear and so smuggling their viewpoint (whether subconsciously or not) into their copy? Or are the words ‘clean energy’ being copied and pasted from nuclear industry PR(opaganda)? We’d genuinely like to know.

Full article

The government has pulled the plug on its ambitious nuclear energy programme after pumping more than R9-billion into it over more than 11 years. There have been suggestions that this figure is far higher than declared and allegations that PBMR funding resulted in various slush funds. There are also suggestions that the PBMR project may continue to be funded in the US and may yet try to rear its ugly head in South Africa. What we want to know is what will happen with the PBMR “test” fuel factory established at Pelindaba and why were no environmental reports made public from the several years of pebbles experimentation that transpired in the hills of Hartbeespoortdam? And what ever became of the nuclear pebbles produced at Pelindaba that were shipped overseas for testing? – Comment from CANE

In a letter dated July 5, Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan told the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM): “The minister of finance has clearly stated that there will be no further funding for the company, and I would like to reiterate that this position has not changed.

“It is clear that the remainder of the cash on hand is to be utilised solely for the winding down of the company as well as the preservation of the intellectual property.”

One objective was to design, license and build a prototype nuclear reactor plant, which, if successful, would have paved the way for building small power plants to help meet SA’s needs.

The company operates as an independent entity governed by an agreement between founding investors Eskom, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and US nuclear giant Westinghouse.

It has spent R5-billion on projects since 1994, including R2.7-billion on a demonstration power plant, which was to have been built at the Western Cape’s Koeberg nuclear power station, but was later scrapped. In the process, the company wasted R268-million on the manufacture of a major component of the demonstration power plant, a 2000-ton reactor pressure vessel.

The vessel, which is due to leave the Spanish port of Santander next Sunday, will be stored at Saldanha Bay for R10000 a month as the company can no longer afford the R1.4-million it will cost to transport it to Pretoria.

Business Times was told that the company decided to have the component shipped to SA as it would have been liable for R34-million in VAT had it remained in Spain. Nuclear experts were unanimous this week that the vessel would have to be scrapped as the PBMR company changed the original design of the demonstration power plant last year to 200MW from 400MW. The vessel can function in a 400MW power plant only.

Although the part is unfinished, as the contract for its construction was cancelled last year, PBMR was forced to pay the Spanish builder R268-million for the incomplete product. The original contract price was R317-million.

Payments to companies that made parts for the demonstration power plant include:

• R503.2-million to Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for a helium turbine for the power plant;
• R256.8-million to German company SGL Carbon for manufacturing carbon reflector blocks; and
• R256-million for graphite for the demonstration power plant.

The company also spent millions of rands manufacturing coated uranium oxide particles encapsulated in graphite fuel spheres, which were sent to Russia for testing.

However, staff say the financial cut-off did not stop the company recently giving golden handshakes of R1.8-million each to some of its general managers.

Last year, the company’s 11 executives were paid a combined R18-million in salaries and other benefits. Other big payments since 1994 include:

• R2-billion to mostly overseas consultants;
• R115.9-million for building rental;
• R707.9-million for the construction of a pilot fuel plant; and
• R172-million for overheads.

Hogan recently turned down a rescue plan proposed by the NUM that included a request for a R262-million government bail-out until March next year. In a detailed submission to Hogan, the union called on the auditor-general’s office to conduct a forensic investigation into the company’s financial affairs.

The union also called on the government to suspend the company’s board and executive officers. It said some engineers and scientists were “inappropriately qualified” for nuclear reactor engineering applications.

“The actions of certain individuals can be treated as sabotage for changing the design almost every second year. It seemed as if they did not want to see the reactor built.”

Union general secretary Frans Baleni deplored the company’s “wasteful expenditure. The closure is marked by serious allegations of corruption and unethical conduct. We would be pleased if it can be investigated thoroughly,” he said.

A nuclear expert employed at PBMR blamed the board and executives for the company’s failure. “The technology in terms of electricity production was good, but the only problem was that it was not well managed. Nothing was ever achieved by the company. It was a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Eskom said in a short statement that it was a minority investor, and referred queries to PBMR.

PBMR’s acting chief executive Alex Tsela declined to comment, referring all questions to the company’s corporate communications department, which could not be reached for comment.

The chairman, Alistair Ruiters, could not be reached for comment either.

• - govenderp@sundaytimes.co.za

Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article555632.ece/Government-pulls-plug-on-PBMR

Nuclear Protest at Thyspunt - Jeffrey's Bay

By Melanie Gosling
Environment Writer
Source

Just over 2 000 people marched through Jeffreys Bay on Sunday in protest against the multi-billion rand nuclear power station Eskom plans to build at the nearby Thyspunt.

While marchers converged on the local municipal offices where organisers handed over a memorandum, 14 chokka (squid) fishing boats dropped anchor just behind contestants in the Billabong international surfing championships and switched on their lights in support of the marchers.

The protest was organised by the Thyspunt Alliance, an umbrella body of several local resident, ratepayers, environmental, surfer and other organisations, who were joined by the chokka fishermen and a range of local people.

Allliance spokesperson Trudi Malan said on Sunday: “We thought we would not get many people because we were competing with the surfing and the rugby, but some of the surfers phoned and said please can we wait till the Kelly Slater heat had finished. We did and they all came rushing over. And some rugby fans told us they could always watch rugby again, but they may not have the opportunity to show their support again against a nuclear power station that would affect all their lives.”

Malan said the Alliance had purposely not entered the debate about the pros and cons of nuclear power, but were all opposed to siting a nuclear power station at Thyspunt. The Alliance was heavily critical of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) Eskom had commissioned, saying it had failed to address many biophysical issues of building the power plant at that spot.

Eskom had selected the site in the apartheid era with no input from the public. One of the criteria was that a site for a nuclear power station had to be at least 100km from any of the former “homeland” areas for security reasons.

“The EIA is an atrocious document. The biggest flaw is that it did not consider the chokka industry and there was no public participation in the site selection. During construction they will dump 6.3-million cubic metres of sand into the sea, which will kill the chokka industry. We do not want to jeopardise the development of our country, but we do not believe development should come at the expense of the environment,” Malan said.

Read full article

Opposition party member Ali Riza Ozturk shows the 170,000 anti-nuclear signatures in Turkey’s Parliament (© Greenpeace)

As is usual with nuclear deals, the details of the agreement reveal just how ludicrous it is. The reactors will be built, owned and operated by the Russian nuclear industry with Turkish partners. So much for nuclear power providing energy security. Turkey is making itself reliant on Russian expertise and nuclear fuel for its energy needs.

Not only that but, as you would expect, the economics of the deal are pitiful. Tetas, the Turkish grid company, is committed to a 15-year deal to buy electricity from the reactors at a price of US$124 per megawatt hour. That, unbelievably, is more than double the market prices for electricity across the EU right now. So much for nuclear power being affordable and competitive.

Of course, when it comes to projects of this kind -  especially in Turkey where previous attempts to join the nuclear club have been a comedy of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes and record-breaking costs – it isn’t worth raising one’s expectations. There still are many obstacles in the way of four nuclear reactors being built in Turkey on time and on budget, if at all.

Here at Greenpeace we’ll be continuing the fight to make sure it never happens.
read full article

Closed-circuit video capture the shootout and arrest in South Africa where police obtained nuclear material that could have been used for a dirty bomb.

An international police sting at a Pretoria petrol station has netted four men involved in the sale of a highly radioactive metal suspected to be destined for use in a dirty bomb.

The high-risk operation by the Hawks’ specialised tactical unit was carried out yesterday.

Police recovered some Caesium-137 contained in a protective cover, but admitted they had yet to find a larger device, which was set to be sold on the black market for R45 million.

CCTV footage shows how undercover members of the Hawks’ organised crime unit stormed through a Sasol garage, opening fire on the suspects with semi-automatic weapons, sending terrified customers, motorists and petrol attendants fleeing.

Within moments of arresting the Mamelodi and Vanderbijlpark men, who are aged between 35 and 50, environmental officers and a field team of South African nuclear specialists sealed off the area as they gathered air samples and conducted tests on the radioactive material.

The lunchtime chaos brought an end to a lengthy police investigation involving Interpol agents around the world.

Police said they began their investigation after infiltrating a criminal organisation, which has allegedly been trying to source the highly radioactive Caesium-137.

Sources said the amount recovered, although small, could have been used in building a dirty bomb. According to the Wikipedia website, a dirty bomb combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. It is used to contaminate the area around the explosion and create terror.

A policeman said the source of the Caesium-137 was unknown and investigators were going all out to locate the larger device. “We don’t know what these suspects’ intentions were and we need to find the device quickly,” he said.

Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA spokeswoman, Chantal Janneker, confirmed the material was Caesium-137, and said there had been no contamination in the area.

Hawks spokesman, Colonel Musa Zondi, said the four were arrested as they tried to sell the stolen material which was a sample of a device which was to be sold for R45 million.

Zondi said the suspects would appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on charges of theft, possession of a radioactive device and violating the Health Department’s prohibition of handling this material in public.

* This article was originally published on page 1 of The Independent on Saturday http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20100710085544493C308461

The Pretoria News reported Saturday that police had recovered a limited amount of cesium 137, which has been identified as possible dirty bomb material (see GSN, July 6). The newspaper indicated, though, that the device that once housed the material had not been found.

“At this stage we don’t know where it comes from or where the remainder of the device is, which is of grave concern to us, especially as cesium 137 can be used in dirty bombs,” a police officer said. “We don’t know what these suspects’ intentions were and we need to find the device quickly.”

GSN reported that Friday’s operation was the result of an extended investigation that included Interpol officers from various countries and targeted a criminal group that had spent months trying to sell the radioactive material, police said. It ended at a gas station, with the suspects unsuccessfully trying to flee under semiautomatic fire from the Hawks.

The Right Perspective said in its report officers are still looking for a much larger device the suspects are believed to have.

The Digital Journal reported that Caesium-137 is radioactive isotope (radioisotope) of Caesium and is toxic in even small amounts. It is soluble in water and can be difficult to detect. It is used in small amounts for radiation testing and for some medical applications.
The isotope would make an effective component of a so-called “dirty bomb,” a device which is made up of a normal explosive like TNT and a radioactive isotope. When the bomb explodes, the area it affects becomes contaminated and people coming into contact with surfaces or water containing the radioisotope could become seriously ill or even die.
Caesium-137 was released into the atmosphere during the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown and was one of the three most toxic radioisotopes in the disaster. Dirty bombs are used primarily to created terror in populations, as the explosion itself is no worse than that produced by regular explosives, but the fear of radiation sickness could cause panic.

A policeman who was not named said:  “We don’t know what these suspects’ intentions were and we need to find the device quickly” according to the Digital Journal.

The suspects will appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court to face charges of theft, possession of a radioactive device and violation of health regulations pertaining to nuclear material.

The Global Security Network reports that police said the incident was not World Cup related despite earlier reports that Iraq claimed its security forces had detained an al-Qaeda militant suspected of planning to detonate a “dirty bomb” at a soccer stadium.

While it was not immediately clear where the device involved in Friday’s sting had come from, a significant amount of nuclear medicine manufacturing for treatment of certain cancers is manufactured at NECSA’s Pelindaba site near the Hartbeespoortdam outside Pretoria.

In 2007 a daring breach in security occurred at Pelindaba as two separate gangs of armed men broke into NECSA’s operations room during which an official was shot. NECSA passed this incident off as “crime-related” at the time and no further information was ever made available. There has been little fuss in South Africa over the security breach at Pelindaba but international media and  nuclear watchdog organisations remain severely disturbed believing that a significant amount of Highly Enriched Uranium at Pelindaba was a likely target for the break-ins.

Sources:

http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20100712_8973.php

http://www.therightperspective.org/2010/07/11/south-africans-arrested-selling-dirty-nuke/

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/294511

Unable to admit defeat – and in the face of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes, and ludicrous, record-breaking costs – the country’s government have resurrected the plan once again and have drawn up an agreement with Russia to build a nuclear reactor in the south of Turkey. The parliament will vote on the agreement this Friday.

This week 60 activists took a petition with 170,000 signatures to the parliament building to demonstrate the widespread opposition to the nuclear plan. Will the politicians listen to these voices? The evidence, history and the people are all against a nuclear reactor being built in Turkey.

source: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/170000-say-no-to-turkeys-dirty-nuclear-deal/blog/12903

The story “What’s really wrong with Harties?” featured in the 7 May 2010 issue of Farmer’s Weekly, contains information worth noting – try locate it if you missed it. I received many responses, many in support and one not. Of those in support, one was the horror story of Mary-Ann van Niekerk, addressed to the editor in the 21 May 2010 issue. It was the letter of the month. Stories like these are bound to anger some people who value money and investments more than health and life.

The negative response was an official letter from the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) that appeared in the letters column of the 18 June 2010 issue of Farmer’s Weekly. Please read it before you continue as I’ll only be dealing with the letter and not with the mountains of global data I have on the subject.

This letter shows how heavily Necsa has depended on its powerful propaganda machinery for decades, so much so that it no longer cares how misleading, inaccurate, incomplete, illogical or untruthful the information that it expects the public to swallow is. How logical is it to start the letter by stating that it’s the fate of 25% of people to die of cancer without ever being exposed to radiation and then to end the letter by saying “we are all exposed to it (radiation) all the time”?

Necsa’s statements that “Steyn attributes his friend’s death to radioactivity in the water of Hartbeespoort Dam and specifically to effluent from Pelindaba” and “implicitly assumes that there is a conspiracy involving Nesca, the Department of Water Affairs, the National Nuclear Regulator, Wits University and the University of Pretoria”, reflect how poorly my article was understood. Anyone who read it properly would see that I never wrote that. Necsa tried to read my mind, instead of what I wrote. In fact, I had never even thought about the possibility of a conspiracy, but seeing as Necsa brought it up, could it perhaps be true?

Necsa complained that I blamed it for the dam’s shocking condition and the demise of thousands of blue kurper. In fact, I devoted two long paragraphs to other pollution sources – sewerage plants, mines and Rietvlei runoff – although this doesn’t absolve Necsa from being the straw that broke the camel’s back.

By using the Crocodile River to dump its radioactive waste, Necsa is simply adding to the toxic brew of an already overloaded system, further harming the environment and endangering the health and lives of people living downstream from Pelindaba. I never laid the blame solely at its doorstep, but if the cap fits, it can wear it.

Necsa rightly calls its “current” effluent outflow of 350 000ℓ/day into the Crocodile River “a lot of water”, but in 1999, its average daily outflow was double that, due to a “calculation error”. Without disclosing the amount of the effluent’s radioactive content, it maintains that it is so “minuscule”, that “upstream and downstream” of Pelindaba, the river’s uranium content is the same.

Do you believe that? Does it make sense to use the contents of an olympic-size swimming pool to flush your toilet? It seems that calculation errors and inaccurate statistics are commonplace at Necsa and form part of its disinformation strategy. To demonstrate that the 100kg of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) that escaped from its plant in 1992 was no big deal when compared to the amount of uranium the Crocodile River carries down from upstream, it had to increase its flow.

According to Necsa, the river flows at an average of 20m3/s. Simple school arithmetic shows that there are 31 536 000 seconds in an average year. Multiplied by 20, it means that via the Crocodile River alone, 630 720 000m3 flows into Harties every year – three times its total known capacity of 212 000 000m3. This means that, without taking the Magalies River inflow into account, the Crocodile will, from bone dry, cause the dam to overflow three times every year.

A very real health threat

Necsa also downplayed the health hazard of the UF6 that escaped. By stating in the same breath that uranium is “relatively common” and only “slightly soluble”, it blatantly creates confusion with the uranium metal in the river, comparing apples to pumpkins. In contrast to metallic uranium, UF6 gas is one of the most highly soluble uranium compounds known. It’s an intermediate industrial compound used in the uranium-enrichment process and, chemically, it’s much more toxic and radioactive than uranium.

When airborne, it hydrolyses immediately upon contact with water molecules in the atmosphere to form highly toxic hydrofluoric acid (HF) and uranyl fluoride (UO2F2), which comes back to earth no matter how high your chimney stack may be. The higher you release it, the wider it spreads.

HF is a corrosive vapour that can damage exposed parts of the body and when inhaled, can severely harm and damage the lungs, while the uranium component can cause acute kidney damage and various cancers. The main long-term storage place of these compounds in the body is bone. In the past, high exposures have resulted in immediate death.

And 100kg of this gas is a huge amount. The accidental escape of under 200kg of UF6 in the US in 1944 and the fatalities it caused are still mentioned today in reference articles about the gas. Necsa states that the 1992 incident is “absolutely not to be repeated”. They don’t know that I’m aware of another undisclosed incident, when 800kg of UF6 escaped from the plant in 1998.

Necsa concludes by stating that it “dispersed without causing any harm”. How does it know? Did it look, or did it look away?

The latter is most probably true if one considers that it ignored the plight of 225 of its former employees, who – some very ill – had submitted requests for their medical records. After a delay of almost two years, Necsa offered these employees an opportunity to be evaluated by a doctor it would provide. Those employees who were examined by this doctor had their claims that their illnesses were related to radiation dismissed across the board.

Forgive me for recommending that Necsa appoint more shrewd and competent people to drive its propaganda machine, because I think its long-standing bubble has finally been popped by its letter.
Contact Abré J Steyn on 083 235 4822 or at abrejsteyn @ gmail.com.

Source: http://www.farmersweekly.co.za

Jeffrey's Bay / Supertubes Foundation say No to Proposed Nuclear Station at Thyspunt

The Jeffreys Bay surf community came out in full support of the Supertubes Surfing Foundation’s call to prevent the building of a nuclear power station at nearby Thuyspunt.

200 – 250 people donned either black or yellow T-shirts and formed a human NO nuke sign on the Supertubes beach, the venue of the annual Billabong Pro surf event.

The protest formed part of International Surfing Day, a worldwide event where surfers from beaches across the planet unite to celebrate the Sport of Kings and highlight issues facing the environment.

The biggest concerns the Jeffreys Bay surf community have regarding the unpalatable prospect of having a nuclear power station on their doorstep are not hard to understand.

During construction of the nuclear station, an unprecedented amount of sand will be pumped into the ocean that will cause a layer of sediment 10 – 15 cm deep. The Environmental Impact Studies (EIA) readily acknowledges that the sediment will have an impact on the reefs in the vicinity.

Furthermore the sediment will have an adverse affect on the breeding grounds of the squid at Thuyspunt and will lead to the demise of the R 500 million industry in the area. Many surfers are fisherman whose jobs will simply be lost if the power station is built.

The social impact will also be devastating to Jeffreys Bay, which is already battling to cope with a high crime rate and people who are waiting for houses to be built and to receive other basic services.

The Supertubes Surfing Foundation is concerned that a mass influx of jobless people seeking work will cause house breakings to escalate and put the Jeffreys Bay Police under even more pressure. This point is also mentioned in the Impact Study which also acknowledges that an increase in alcohol abuse, drug abuse and HIV will also occur in the area. This is simply unacceptable as Eskom will not take responsibly for the looming social disaster that is waiting for Jeffreys Bay.

The Jeffreys Bay surf community will be joining others in a protest march on 17 July to coincide with the Billabong Pro to again voice their dissatisfaction with Eskom’s decision to make Thuyspunt a preferred site for a nuclear power station.  With all the international media crews in the town for the Billabong Pro, the march is sure to receive worldwide coverage.

The message is clear from the surf community in Jeffreys Bay and is supported by surfers from all over the world. Don’t build a Nuke at Thuyspunt.

Supertubes Surfing Foundation
Issued by:Brenton Williams
Media Officer
Email: brentonw @ vodamail.co.za

21 June 2010

The people say NO to the proposed Eskom Nuclear Power Station at Thyspunt