A nuclear forum is being held in South Africa on the 19th of May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg, aimed at once again promoting nuclear energy in South Africa. As always these “forums” are not for free and are designed that way in order to keep out NGO’s and community driven organisations who simply do not have the funds to attend them. To give you an idea the cost of attending is R2850.00 per person which most NGO’s will not be able to afford, simple as that.

What happens with all these events is that 99% of the attendees are already pro nuclear so one wonders what’s the fricking point??

If the nuclear industry really wants to enter into debate with the South African public WHICH THEY DO NOT, they would make attendance for NGO’s and community driven organisations FREE but they DO NOT want to debate anything. They have an agenda and they will stick with it no matter what. In 5 years we have never been able to get anyone inside the highly secretive South African Nuclear Industry to debate anything, they cannot even answer the simplest of questions posed to them.

What is most annoying is an email promoting this event which was circulated by the company managing the event, namely Siyenza Managament (Pty) Ltd. In this email the author one Mabel Modipa spits out the biggest bunch of bogus unscientific garbage we’ve seen yet.

The email reads as follows:

Africa Needs Nuclear Power

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant incident, resulting from the recent massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and following the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the former Soviet Union, there has been much public debate internationally concerning nuclear power.

Much of the information projected to the public is misguided and inaccurate which leads to a public fear which in turn affects the formulation of government policy internationally. This in turn affects the costs of construction of nuclear power stations because, at times, unrealistic requirements are put in place, which then tend to drive costs up.  The mystique surrounding the subject of nuclear power tends to confuse matters further, in the public mind.  A confused public cannot make informed energy decisions relating to nuclear power.

In Fukushima province the first person to die as a result of the Fukushima nuclear incident has just been reported.  He was a 64 year old farmer from Sukagama, 65km from the reactor.  He hanged himself because the authorities would not let him sell his produce.  To receive any meaningful radiation dose from his spinage a person would have to eat many tons of it, which would be impossible.  It is sad that misguided policy caused his death.

Issues of nuclear construction costs and public perceptions of nuclear power will be discussed at the forthcoming nuclear power conference; Nuclear Forum 3, on 19 May 2011 at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg.

The conference will be opened by the Minister of Energy, The Hon Dipuo Peters.

A lot of debate around the use of nuclear as an alternate energy source has been debated this week at the Africa World Economic Forum in Cape Town.  South Africa will be taking the lead in Africa, with the proposed implementation of nuclear as a reliable source of power for the country.  This will no doubt raise the nuclear debate in the rest of the African continent.

ENDS
5 May 2011
Issued by: Siyenza Management
+27 11 463 9184

Mike Kantey, the chairperson of the National Coalition Against Nuclear Energy duly responded to Miss Modipa with the following response.

Dear Mabel

As the National Chairperson of the Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (see www.cane.org.za) and on behalf of the African Uranium Alliance, I take the strongest objection to the unscientific and emotional language employed in your press release appended below.

If this is the quality of business “intelligence” that is sold at high expense to political, investment, and business leaders in Africa, may Heaven help us over the next century.

Not only does the recently Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2010) for South Africa make it abundantly clear at Table 18 on page 43 that a non-nuclear future is perfectly and affordably obtainable, but the respected International Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA) declared the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident at its highest level of INES-7, equivalent to the worst accident ever at Chernobyl.

To trivialise and minimise this horrendous accident as your misguided “press release” appears to do makes a mockery of those Japanese citizens within a 20-km radius who have been forced to evacuate their lands and their homes, probably forever, and the risk to all those who are forced to consume foodstuffs and liquids with traces of Strontium-90 and Cesium-137. Unlike your ill-informed and disgraceful mockery of an old man’s death by suicide (an understandable response in Japanese society), as well as your simple ignorance of the basic rules of English spelling (“spinach” not “spinage”, which is what you appear to be practising), the smallest, micro-quantity of Cesium-137 or Strontium-90 will be sufficient to trigger a cancer or genetic defect, once it has been inhaled or swallowed.

I trust that your conference will not be another exercise in pulling radioactive wool over your monied classes, but an honest assessment of what really is in the best interests of the African masses.

Sincerely

Mike Kantey
National Chairperson
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy
www.cane.org.za

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

Apr 17, 2011 10:13 PM | By Andrea Nagel
Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article1026595.ece/Deadly-cost-of-power

Before March 11, not many people outside Japan had heard of the towns of Okuma and Futaba. Now the area around the towns, home to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world, has been splashed across news stations around the world.

When the 9.0 earthquake and resultant tsunami hit Japan, the reactor cooling systems of the plant were disabled, which led to nuclear radiation leaks that required a 20km-radius evacuation zone.

The security category of the crisis has now reached level 7, equal to the Chernobyl disaster, which means a major release of radiation and a widespread health and environmental impact, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency .

But experts are saying the new rating exaggerates the severity of the crisis, and that the Chernobyl disaster was far worse.

April 26 will be the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The blast at Chernobyl blew the roof off a reactor and sent large amounts of radiation wafting across Europe. The accident led to the evacuation of well over 100000 people and affected livestock as far away as Scandinavia and Britain.

Against this backdrop and ever since President Jacob Zuma’s visit to France to discuss plans for our nuclear power developments, a debate is raging in South Africa over whether nuclear power is a safe alternative for energy in this country.

Some residents of Krugersdorp are have been relocated because of high levels of radiation detected on a mine in the vicinity and our National Nuclear Regulator plans to distribute hundreds of leaflets to teach the affected community how to protect themselves from mining radiation.

Environmental group Earthlife SA believes nuclear power is not only risky but also complex, dangerous and expensive.

“It’s reckless insanity to continue with the nuclear programme in South Africa,” said Tristan Taylor, spokesman for Earthlife SA.

In the same week the disaster in Japan took place, Eskom announced that South Africa is “well-equipped” to have nuclear power stations, and that we have a good nuclear safety culture.

“Clearly we’d be looking at what actually happened in Japan, but South Africa has a nuclear safety culture because of Koeberg station,” Eskom spokesman for nuclear power, Tony Scott, told Sapa.

Taylor argued: “We don’t take a breath to reassess our security schemes. This government just goes ahead with its nuclear stance, even after China put a moratorium on its nuclear projects to think about its nuclear security.

“Do we need nuclear power at the great cost of this power?” he asked.

“Not only is it unsafe, it is also one of the most expensive ways of powering this country. Aside from the costs of building and running the nuclear plants, we also require a police force to guard them.”

Eskom’s Scott has a different perspective: “How many people are killed on the roads every day compared to people killed in the nuclear industry?

“Obviously if something does go wrong in nuclear the consequences are enormous.”

But, he said most of the nuclear reactors at power stations in Japan shut themselves down as they were supposed to, following the earthquake and tsunami.

Taylor, however, asks: “Why are we going down the nuclear road when we have safer and cheaper alternatives, such as renewable wind and solar energy?

‘We should be putting combined state funds from taxation, revenue from the sale of electricity and debt into renewable energy. South Africans should be questioning not only where their electricity comes from, but also the social investment that this country is making in the supply of electricity.”

Scott was positive about South Africa’s ability to supply safe nuclear power.

“If we do build more [nuclear power stations], we would buy modern technology, and certainly the events that happened [in Japan] would be looked at and taken into account to see what technology should be used,” he said.

But Taylor says that going forward with nuclear technology is a mistake.

“Nuclear energy requires a lot of state funding.

“We know we can manufacture what we need for renewable energy locally, like windmills and solar geysers. We have the industrial base to go renewable. Plus there are distinctive safety advantages.

“The danger of nuclear energy is that it can have adverse effects on the young that are only discernable after many years. [With renewable energy] the worst thing that can happen if a windmill falls down is that it kills a cow.”

Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/article1026595.ece/Deadly-cost-of-power

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)

When uranium was discovered in the impoverished West African state in the 1960s, many thought that the radioactive mineral – indispensable as combustible for nuclear power plants and raw material for nuclear bombs – would be the panacea for all the social and economic afflictions haunting the former French colony.

Instead, as several recent reports by environmental organisations and independent researchers show, Niger’s uranium mines constitute a deadly gift for the country, both for its public health and its politics.

Today, Niger is considered the poorest country in the world. It ranks last in the Human Development Index, and it is confronting a political crisis caused by allegations of corruption and environmental conflicts – all linked to the uranium mines (see part two of this article).

According to a report that the global environmental organisation Greenpeace released on Mar 30, high radioactivity can still be detected on the ground near the Nigerien uranium mines, especially in the mining towns of Arlit and Akokan, some 850 km northeast of the capital Niamey.

Some 80,000 people live in these towns and in the nearby region. The mines are operated by the French state-owned company Areva, which describes itself as “rank(ing) first in the global nuclear power industry”. France, which has been exploiting uranium mines in Niger for 45 years, is the main foreign investor in Niger.

In an interview with IPS, Rianne Teule, nuclear energy campaigner for Greenpeace International, explained that the group’s research team visited Niger’s uranium mines last November to investigate whether Areva complies with basic health and labour standards.

“We found dangerous levels of radiation in the streets of Akokan,” Teule told IPS. “We also found high concentration of uranium in four of five samples of drinking water from Arlit, in doses beyond the limits established by the World Health Organisation,” Teule said.

“Areva had earlier claimed that such radiation had been identified and its sources addressed,” Teule said.

In some cases, the radioactivity measured by Greenpeace researchers in Akokan was 500 times higher than the normal levels.

“A person spending less than one hour per day in those places would be exposed to more than the maximum allowable annual radiation dose for the public recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and enforced by legislation in most countries,” Teule said.

Greenpeace’s findings confirm earlier reports by other French environmental groups that have denounced Areva’s lack of responsibility in the operation of the uranium mines in Niger.

In 2007, an inspection by the independent investigative commission on radioactivity CRIIRAD (after its French name) and the Nigerien environmental organisation Aghir In’Man discovered high levels of radiation in the streets of Akokan.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Akokan hospital, CRIIRAD measured levels of radiation up to 100 times higher than normal background values. CRIIRAD also identified the source of the radiation as the radioactive waste rock from the mines that had been used for road construction.

“We gave our findings to the Areva board of directors and the Nigerien local authorities and called for a comprehensive radiological survey and clean-up of the village,” Bruno Chareyron, an engineer in nuclear physics and director of research at CRIIRAD, told IPS.

CRIIRAD also found radioactive contamination in drinking water and radio-active scrap metal in the mining towns.

The public health consequences of the exploitation of uranium are only one of the many problems raised by the extractive industry in Niger.

Alain Joseph, a French hydro-geologist working in the West African country, told IPS that the “pasture economy is about to disappear in north-eastern Niger because of the dozens of mine projects installed there which over-exploit the scarce water resources of the area”.

In 2009 alone, Niger authorised 139 uranium research projects conducted by companies from Australia, Canada and China.

Joseph said that these projects are draining water from Agadez, the region’s only water source. “The uranium exploitation is not only decimating Niger’s environment and public health. It is also about to destroy the economic foundations of Tuareg, Fula, Kounta and other pastoral, nomadic people in the north of the country,” he said.

Copyright © 2010 Inter Press Service. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/201004121380.html