Khulu Phasiwe
Johannesburg

NUCLEAR energy will form part of SA’s strategy to mitigate climate change and global warming, says the government’s draft Nuclear Energy Policy and Strategy document, released yesterday for public comment.

The document is the clearest and most emphatic commitment made by the government to nuclear energy .

The government also commits itself to using nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes and to ensuring nuclear safety and radiation safety receive the “highest priority”.

In February, the treasury allocated R14,7m to strengthen the oversight role of the National Nuclear Regulator. The treasury said the allocation would increase to R24m a year in the next two years. The money would enable the nuclear regulator to monitor nuclear activities and develop safety standards for the protection of people, property and the environment against nuclear damage.

The nuclear regulator exercises safety control over the entire life cycle of nuclear installations and vessels propelled by or containing radioactive material.

About R3m has be allocated to implement the radioactive waste management policy, which the minerals and energy department says will be finalised this year.

Last year the treasury also allocated R21m to nuclear technology agency the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation to conduct research into the development of a high-tech mini nuclear plant, the pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR).

An additional R1,2bn has been allocated this year to the PBMR project for the construction of fuel plants. The nuclear facility is expected to be operational by 2011.

“Nuclear energy remains very important to the government of SA as there are no greenhouse gases emitted from nuclear sources of energy and alternatives to nuclear are very expensive,” says the minerals and energy department.

Power utility Eskom plans to increase its nuclear energy output to 20000MW by 2025.

Nuclear scientist Kelvin Kemm has recently defended the government’s decision to turn to nuclear power as a means of satisfying SA’s growing energy needs.

Kemm, who works at Pelindaba, the nuclear-fuel facility outside Pretoria, says nuclear energy remains a viable means of meeting energy needs.

He says claims by environmental group Earthlife Africa about dangerous radiation at the Pelindaba site are unfounded.

“I have worked with the nuclear reactor at Pelindaba for something like 30 years. I am the guy that stands on top of that nuclear reactor. Believe me, when I am standing on top of that thing, I want to be sure that nothing is leaking out, everything is working perfectly,” says Kemm.

He dismissed concerns about the safety of nuclear power in general as part of a mass campaign by antinuclear energy groups to discredit the industry.

But Earthlife Africa says its concerns are based on solid research. The organisation says it is worried about the effects of radioactive waste on communities living near nuclear sites.

The debate over the storage and disposal of nuclear waste has been going on for nearly 30 years, ever since the first major nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in the US.

Nuclear energy proponents say a chest X-ray or a long-distance flight expose a person to more radioactivity than they would experience in a year of living close to a nuclear plant.

Environmental lobby groups, on the other hand, say the technology is expensive and fraught with risks.

In SA, environmental activists want Eskom and its partners in the PBMR to abandon the project and explore renewable sources of energy instead.

Industrialised countries, such as the US and those in western Europe, use nuclear power for electricity generation.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Lithuania and France produced about 80% of their electricity needs from nuclear plants in 2002. The US produced 20% of its needs from its 104 nuclear power stations.

The Environmental Justice Networking Forum says SA’s proposed demonstration mini nuclear power plant will cost taxpayers R12bn.

This is money that could be used to explore alternative energy or fund social upliftment programmes, it says.

“Like the arms deal, the current cost estimate is unrealistic and South Africans can expect the costs to mushroom,” the organisation says.

“International experience has shown that reactors cost five to 10 times more to complete than their original estimates.”

The forum says SA is “rich” in wind, sun, and wave and tidal resources for clean, renewable energy that should be tapped.

However, nuclear proponents say there has been a “continual improvement” in the safety records of the nuclear power industry since the Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.

The Institution of Nuclear Engineers says the proposed PBMR project, like the Koeberg power plant in Cape Town, has been designed to deal with nuclear waste efficiently and safely. It says the disposal technologies being developed can completely isolate nuclear waste for 10000 years, during which period more than 99% of the radioactivity dies away.

“There is no doubt that with modern technology and billions of rands, this is achievable. Local residents will have nothing to fear from leakage,” says the Institution of Nuclear Engineers.