The Editor
Business Day
per e-mail
Your correspendent Brian Sandberg, “The Truth about the PBMR” (Business Day, 27 November 2009) refers. As a self-confessed layman, it is commendable that he is so enthusiastic about the possibilities posed by the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project, but perhaps he was blinded by the apparent science and economic benefits.
The truth of the matter is that this technology failed spectacularly in May 1986 when there was a major release of radiotoxic isotopes into the environment in Germany. An attempt was made to cover this up as spillover from the catastrophe at Chernobyl in the Ukraine (April 1986), but some astute — and less sanguine — scientists identified the source correctly.
Despite the arms boycott, the technology was then sold forward to Armscor as a potential nuclear submarine reactor and survived the transition to democracy, reappearing in 1993 as the current choice for “Generation IV” reactors. This was the bais of the agreement signed recently between Energy Minister Dipuo Peters and US Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu.
While the “spin-offs” and “knock-on” effects of ANY investment in ANY technology are always welcome, the challenge for any open-minded industrial policy wonk is whether THIS technology is worthy of the R16-billion already squandered on a doubtful boondoggle for bomb-happy veterans of the nuclear arms trade.
As for global acceptance, it is still doubtful whether — in a truly democratic and participatory society — nuclear power will survive 2010 intact at all. The market certainly has no appetite for nuclear power, but is rather ploughing — like Venfin and Google — all their money into truly renewable and power-saving technologies.
The respect your correspondent speaks about is probably within a tightly controlled circle of embedded scientists and governemt favourites, NOT among private investors and energy analysts. Even the World Bank refuses to fund nuclear power stations.
If there is such a fantastic market for the PBMR, where is the order book? Even Eskom has turned its back on the project, after its former political boss, Public Enterprises Minister Alec “Wingnut” Erwin promised an order of 24-30 reactors. Another enthusiastic backer, Exelon of the USA (currently struggling with another problem at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania) withdrew when it was clear that the US NRC was not rolling over a nuclear licence.
With regard to “containment”, the 1986 accident proved that there no such thing. As Edward Lyman pointed out to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission long ago, the inside of the reactor wall is coated in graphite and it only takes a little air to get inside for a Chernobyl-type fire to ensue. Moreover, even the renowned precision engineering of the German engineers could not guarantee the perfect sphericality of every single pebble, which ultimately lead to the balls becoming stuck in the outlet flue. We may be very rightly proud of our engineering expertise, but we are not less fallible than the best that Europe has to offer, surely!
Mistakes may be made, absolutely, but the costs are too high and the risks too uncertain. We cannot afford a nuclear programme any more than we can afford sleek limousines and six-star hotel accommodation. We are definitely NOT Europeans, as any stroll through your local squatter camp will reveal.
You may be able to afford international, high-flying standards of excellence, Mr Sandberg, but we can’t. If all the basic services have been met — clean water, sanitation, affordable basic energy, transport, a reduction in the impossibly high levels of crime and HIV/AIDS, yes, then perhaps, but not before.
Even if we were living at a European standard, my choice would be for a heavy investment in energy efficiency, Concentrated Solar Power, wind farms, thin-film solar technology, micro-hydro, and wave power around Cape Columbine to Cape Agulhas.
THAT would be innovative and job-creating and much could be achieved in two years, not twenty.
Sincerely
Mike Kantey
National Chairperson
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy (CANE
www.cane.org.za
