Date: Sunday, August 07, 2005

Producer: 50/50 Producer
E-mail: 5050@sabc.co.za
Muna Lakhani – Earthlife Africa
We are saying it is not good, it is expensive, it is not a commercially viable thing. It is not safe for our people and it doesn’t create jobs. We also do not like the idea of trucks carrying nuclear stuff coming through our city.

A few weeks ago Earthlife Africa staged a protest on Durban’s North Beach front against Eskom’s intentions to transport uranium through Durban Harbour to and from Pelindaba plant, near Pretoria.

Muna Lakhani – Earthlife Africa
It is a very dangerous way of making electricity and we are saying they must rather spend the money rather to make electricity in a safe way that does not harm our health. So we are saying we want to stamp it out. Do you want to stamp it with your hand? Vola stamp out nuclear.

It seemed quite an effective way to get the public involved and to focus attention on the proposed pebble bed modular reactors as an alternative energy source to coal powered plants. A move that have now been put on hold after Earthlife Africa won their appeal against the Government’s record of decision to allow it to proceed.

But meanwhile it seems as if plans to proceed with the reactors are moving ahead at speed. And if it does happen, then according to ELA, Durban would become the main export and import location for vast quantities of nuclear fuels.

Muna Lakhani – Earthlife Africa
The problem is of course that transporting nuclear material is only part of the uranium chain so it is a bigger picture that will harm. The truth is that uranium would come into the country in the form of a fine powder which can easily spread and even Eskom’s documents say that the container won’t withstand a drop of nine meters. Therefore of course any impact of a greater force would release radioactive material.

He claims, at the height of production, there could be up to nine trucks a week on the roads transporting enriched uranium and other radioactive materials between Durban’s harbour and Pelindaba. ELA sees this has an acute danger.

Jan Horn
Today Pelindaba processes nuclear materials for a variety of purposes, mainly for the health sector and a certain amount of nuclear fuel for the Koeberg reactor and maybe it is just because of that, our sophisticated nuclear infrastructure, and the quality of our scientists that Eskom has decided to go ahead with this new generation reactor, the PBMR. But ELA warns that no nuclear facility is ever safe – after all history has taught us exactly that.

Muna Lakhani
The scary part of radiation is that there are lots of accidents happening all the time but the nuclear industry is shrouded in secrecy so the few examples we have been able to pick up are just indicative of what is actually going on.

Who can forget the Chernobyl melt down in Ukraine that caused thousands of people to die as a result of radiation related conditions and left an entire landscape destitute.

I visited this desolated landscape in 1993 and it was a most eyrie feeling to see the many abandoned buildings – that once was filled with the warmth of family life. Children born of parents that were exposed to radiation then are still suffering today from diseases linked to the nuclear accident. So yes the scare around radiation is most vivid and is real.

How safe is this new technology actually and are Earthlife’s concerns about transportation safety justified?

Dr Kelvin Kemm – Silver Protea Nuclear Consortium
The transportation of fuel is not a problem. One great advantage if one can put it this way, of nuclear fluel is it is so small. One big coal fired power station uses six train loads of coal a day. Koeberg uses one furniture removal van of nuclear fuel a year. It is tiny. So the amount of uranium that we are talking about that is coming from Durban for example, we are going to import the enriched uranium; we are talking about two coke bottles full per week. That is all we are transporting! It is not truck loads of coal or dust or builders sand, or something which is a lot as the imagery that is projected.

Tom Ferreira, is the Communications manager for the PBMR, and he does not believe that there are any transportation risks.

Tom Ferreira – PBMR (Pty) Ltd
Yes certainly there are emergency plans in place. The containers are made according to international standards – the containers in which the uranium is transported. And they have to do those plans in collaboration with the Department of transport and the national nuclear regulations.

Jan Horn
But if it is that safe – why does your normal household insurance policy not cover you against any accidents involving radio active materials. In fact Earthlife Africa warns that if you are involved in a accident where radio active materials are transported, you will not be covered.

Jan Horn
I am here in front of the Glenrand Mining Insurance Brokers, they are used for this kind of insurance. They declined to comment on camera but they did tell me, insurance in terms of radio active materials falls under the same category as war, terrorism and riots in the country.

Tom Ferreira
Well, its always been like that, insurance companies in terms of nuclear have always had that clause that exclude nuclear and many other things by the way.

If insurance companies are unwilling to commit themselves to provide cover for the transport and safety of nuclear material, then one wonders how capable our emergency personnel are and whether they would be able to cope with a radioactive incident? Malcolm Midgely, Divisions Commander Emergency Services in Johannesburg, says they are trained to handle a radioactive emergency.

Malcolm Midgely – Jhb Emergency Services
There is a special team – that’s our hazard team and they are trained in that type of thing and have the right equipment to detect it and the basic clean-up. Anything that is larger we have to inform the provincial authorities and then state authorities.

Earthlife Africa speaks of the dangers of enriched uranium when inhaled or swallowed and now recent studies have shown that people who ingest particles are likely to suffer extreme toxic effects. But, Dr Kemm reassures that natural uranium is safe.

Dr Kelvin Kemm
Natural uranium or un burnt uranium, uranium that hasn’t been burnt is perfectly safe. While legally you are not allowed to walk around with it, for safety sake, I myself have walked around with this uranium in my hands. It is not deadly. Uranium dust is not a good idea if you breath it in, but nor is it a good idea to breath in dust of all sorts of other things that you find around factories. If you are going to do irresponsible things with nuclear radiation it will kill you. But South Africa has world leading scientists, world leading nuclear engineers. We know how to handle it.

Muna Lakhani
There is no need for it to be transported at all. The reality is we don’t need the pebble bed modular reactor. So the argument around whether we should have nuclear or not is actually the issue. Not whether we can transport it safely.

Dr Kelvin Kemm
Solar and wind is just expensive at the moment. But I am in favour of them where they are economically viable. At the moment the most economically viable solution for the future for South Africa would appear to be nuclear power, we have the uranium, we have the technology and we now have the design of an reactor that should work as indicated.

South Africa has to move away from fossil fuels, and the renewable options on the table just cannot meet the total output required for the country’s growing electricity demands. The scientists are quick to point out that it is only Chernobyl that has so far caused any major catastrophe. This prototype nuclear facility was housed in an ordinary building with no safety features to speak of. The entire system was poorly designed and maintained – an accident waiting to happen.

Tom Ferreira
This is the exact opposite to the Chernobyl type reactor which created more energy the hotter it became, with this reactor creates or generates less energy the hotter it becomes and that is what makes it inherently safe.

Dr Kelvin Kemm
A pebble bed modular reactor is small, about 10 persent the size of Koeberg but the main thing with the technology is that it is gas cooled as against water cooled.

The fuel pebble contains only a pinhead of uranium and is designed to prevent any meltdown due to high temperatures.

Dr Kelvin Kemm
Even if the pebbles break or chip, it won’t make a difference. They are round because when stacked up against each other there are spaces which the gas can go into when it flows over them.

Eskom plan to build a 110 Mega Watt PBMR demonstration model at Koeberg and a pilot fuel plant at Pelindaba, as soon as they get the go-ahead from the nuclear regulator. Meanwhile, a substantial amount of testing of the PBMR gas cooled systems and components are being completed at the University of North West in Potchefstroom.

The manager of this Micro-model, Willem van Niekerk, says that so far during the 45 times it has been stopped and restarted, the system has performed without any sign of a fault.

Willem van Niekerk – North West University Potch
This is a gas cycle – it is different from other cycles that Eskom use that is steam. The advantage of especially the helium cycle is that helium does not get radio active in the process. So if there is a gas leak or a pipe burst, then you don’t get leakage of radio active material into the atmosphere or into the environment.

Jan Horn
Nuclear energy is not cheap and as you can see those involved have already invested millions on perfecting the systems. Already the cost of the PBMR has risen by five times since the idea first surfaced in1998. Earthlife Africa is questioning who stands to gain financially by it? They also ask why are we going ahead with this very expensive technology when all the other role-players have pulled out. And according to them the world is turning away from nuclear energy.

Muna Lakhani
Firstly, they are not commercially viable, Exelon the American partners pulled out.

Jan HornWhy did Exelon pull out?

Tom Ferreira
They pulled out because of a change of leadership and a change of management direction at Exelon. Again the Earthlife Africa’s of the world wanted to believe that it was for concerns of the economics of PBMR.

Tom disagrees that the world is turning its back on nuclear energy – he says about 440 commercial nuclear power reactors are operating in 31 countries, and even more are investigating the nuclear option to meet their energy needs. China is also in fact developing their own PBMR reactors, and is about 4 years behind South Africa.

Tom Ferreira
The intention is to manufacture as far as possible the components locally and build an industry around this technology and hence we believe that up to 57 000 new jobs can be created by doing that.

Dr Kelvin Kemm
There is huge international interest in this reactor and its big money. I say that it is better to have developed this reactor than to have stuck oil in the karoo. It will mean money into the pockets of taxpayers. The foreign capital that will flow in here will be great. Even the exported reactors will be about half local content.

So at the moment the South African project is regarded as the frontrunners and if the demonstration plant achieves its targets, it is expected to have a number of world-wide sales opportunities. Eskom says it will build up to ten local plants on South Africa’s coastline and would like to then begin exporting up to 20 plants per year.

Tom Ferreira
This is something different that could put South Africa on a different playing field. We are for a change ahead, we are ahead of the pack, in terms of a hi-tech project South Africa are the leaders.

In January this year, a Cape High Court set aside the three year Environmental Impact Report and ruled in favour of Earthlife Africa. This means that the project won’t be halted, but the process will just be reopened for public discussion.

Muna Lakhani
There is no such thing as a safe dose of radiation, we are tired of saying this and the reality is that the entire process from mining uranium, transporting uranium enriching uranium and transporting that manufacturing fuel using that in the plant and trying to dispose waste for a quarter of a million years is not safe. So there’s no point debating whether its better or worse the point is that it kills that’s the reality.

Jan Horn
South Africa already supplies two thirds of the electricity Africa uses. At the same time we need more energy to fuel our own economy. If I can believe what Tom says more and more people are opting for the PBMR simply because it is considered to be safe. Earthlife Africa says that there are other safer methods for generating electricity and they won’t settle for the pebble bed modular reactor. At the same time if we do go ahead with this project and we win the PBMR nuclear ‘race’ by 2013 the impact will be far beyond the shores of own continent.

Contact: Muna Lakhani, Earthlife Africa, Tel: 083 471-7276
Tom Ferreira, PBMR Communication Manager, Tel: (012) 677-9400.