St Francis Kromme Trust

There are plenty of rumours flying around, together with propaganda on the economic benefits of Thyspunt to the region, but very few facts. We are still waiting for the publishing of the revised (third) Environmental Impact Report, which should give answers to some of the numerous outstanding questions regarding Thyspunt. Until this is published, everything is speculation. There have been delays in publishing the third attempt, partly because a new contract has had to be negotiated with Arcus Gibb.
Would it be asking too much to be told which specific PWR technology will be used? This is the most fundamental piece of material information required by both the community and the decision-makers. It affects the entire project, and the very viability of the site. Until this is known, and a licence application submitted by Eskom, the National Nuclear Regulator is excluded, and we do not even know whether the Thyspunt site conforms with international emergency planning requirements.
A message received directly from Eskom on 11 April indicates that, once the report is released (no date given), a period of 60 days will be allowed for public comment, following which the DEA will require 5 months to review the report. No ROD is therefore expected before 2013. This is, of course, quite separate from the Nuclear Regulator’s process, which can only start when Eskom submits a licence application for a specific technology. Our view is that the entire EIA should be put on hold until this decision has been taken.
An important issue affecting St Francis Bay is the transportation report, and a decision on which roads will carry what traffic. The most reliable rumour is that all construction and commuter traffic will travel on a new road to be built between Humansdorp and Oyster Bay. This would be a major concession for St Francis Bay. However, Eskom would still like to use the R330 for the ultra-heavy loads. This affects the type of bridge required over the Sand River, and it would appear that the slow progress with an EIA for this results from indecision on Eskom’s part.
We understand that the main focus of the revisions to the second draft report will be on transportation, heritage, marine and economic aspects. There is a need for critical re-examination of several of the other specialist reports.
The government recently announced that it planned to spend R300 billion on its current nuclear programme, which is designed to produce some 9600 Megawats of power. This translates into approximately R31000 per kilowatt of power. The estimates are for “overnight” costs only, and do not include finance charges and some infra-structure. Prof Steve Thomas, who is a world authority on energy economics, calculates that the overnight cost “Generation 111” (state of the art) reactors, will be R42000 per kilowatt. Eskom has repeatedly stated that it intends to use Generation 111. It would appear that government continues to accept that Generation 111 is not affordable, and that we will be using Generation 11 technology, as used at Koeberg. This implies that the current EIA is null and void, and has numerous implications in terms of safety and emergency planning. It probably means that Thyspunt is not a viable site in terms of internationally accepted norms.
Two relevant studies have recently been published in connection with nuclear power. An independent German consultancy has calculated that the cost of insuring adequately against nuclear disasters would add anywhere between R1.40 & R16.50 to the cost of one unit of electricity. In other words, nuclear power is uninsurable. Hence the refusal of short-term insurers to include nuclear incidents in their policies. Report: guenther@versicherungsforen.net.