SA nuclear power programme’s unrealistic assumptions
http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3900662
June 25, 2007 Edition 1
The Acting Deputy Director-General at the Department of Minerals and Energy, Tseliso Maqubela (June 22), is critical of three aspects of the evidence on nuclear energy I submitted to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism portfolio committee: the cost estimate I gave for the nuclear programme; my suggestion that there is an “aura of panic” about the government’s policy; and my concerns about public information.
His criticism is not valid, nor is it supported by the South African nuclear and electricity industries.
The basis for my calculations was given by the Legal Resources Centre in the hearings. If the department disagrees with my calculations, it should say which assumptions are wrong and why. The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation estimated the cost of a nuclear programme at a conference in France this May and its estimate is in line with mine.
CEO Rob Adam said it would cost $2 500 per kilowatt installed. If we assume a programme of 24 000 MW, this works out at a total cost of R420 billion.
However, the South African public should not have to rely on independent experts to estimate the cost of a major programme of public spending, nor should it expect publicly-owned companies only to disclose important cost estimates to a specialist conference on the other side of the world.
Eskom is owned by taxpayers, and if it makes errors, it will be taxpayers who will suffer. Over the past decade, the government and Eskom have failed to keep the public informed on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
In October, the nuclear regulator required Eskom to halt all work on the manufacture of safety-related components. This was not announced to the South African press, but made known in response to a question from international trade journal Nucleonics Week only eight months later.
Maqubela states: “From the time a vendor is chosen to full operation, a nuclear power plant takes anything from 50 to 60 months to construct.”
But he is confusing intention with outcome. The World Energy Council reported that, from 1995-2000, the average construction period for the 28 nuclear units completed was 116 months.
Maqubela also notes “the UK recently released an energy policy, arguing strongly in favour of nuclear energy”.
In July 2006, Tony Blair said: “Nuclear power is back on the agenda with a vengeance.” Under the UK’s central case scenario, this would result in a new nuclear unit coming on-line in 2021, with 6 000 MW of new nuclear capacity being completed by 2026.
The onus is on the minerals and energy department to explain how South Africa is going to complete a nuclear programme four times as large as the UK’s and in half the time, while still sticking to safety requirements.
The South African electricity system is in urgent need of new investment, and a nuclear power programme based on wholly unrealistic assumptions is an irrelevance to these problems.
Professor Steve Thomas
University of Greenwich
London
