Nuclear waste concerns raised

Maurice Magugumela, CE of SA’s National Nuclear Regulator (NNR), is quoted in a report in The Citizen as saying internationally a number of ways had evolved to classify radioactive waste. This was done according to its physical, chemical and radiological properties. ‘These schemes have led to a variety of terminologies, differing from country to country and sometimes even between facilities in the same country’. However, the NNR pointed out that the lack of resources and expertise to track nuclear sources, which include small devices that contain radioactive material, was a cause for concern, says Business Day. And environmental activist group Earthlife Africa said it had many safety concerns about how SA was managing nuclear waste. ‘The pools where nuclear waste is being stored are getting smaller and people are only now looking into the problem. That should have been done a long time ago,’ said Earthlife Africa health campaigner Keenan van Wyk. Full report in The Citizen Full Business Day report

At the end of the workshop, experts endorsed a comprehensive radioactive waste management classification system, reports The Citizen. Magugumela said he welcomed the adoption of the system as it ‘went a long way in establishing a common platform and framework of managing and regulating all types of radioactive waste’. The system is able to classify all types of waste encountered by member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the NNR. Full report in The Citizen

The NNR has been allocated R17.4m this year to enable it to perform its oversight role, the Minerals and Energy Department (DME) say. A report in Business Day notes that this comes after the NNR’s nuclear technology and waste programme manager, Thiagan Pather, said the NNR’s oversight role was hampered by the lack of resources and expertise required to track nuclear sources. About R3m had been allocated to implement the radioactive waste management policy, which the DME said would be finalised this year. 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. Full Business Day report

The Vaalputs disposal site in Namaqualand for low and medium-level nuclear waste is recognised internationally as a safe facility, according to Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (Necsa) official Piet Bredell. The Cape Argus reports that if Eskom built new nuclear power plants, the low and intermediate-level waste from these plants would also go to Vaalputs in terms of the government\'s 2005 policy and strategy on nuclear energy, Bredell added. Full Cape Argus report

Nuclear power comes at a huge cost. Necsa has says SA’s proposed nuclear programme will cost taxpayers between R255bn and R401bn – at a conservative estimate. A Cape Times report notes that Necsa is the first official body to put a price tag on the proposal to build more nuclear power plants and 24 pebble bed modular reactors. It confirms the figure of R400bn given last month by Professor Steve Thomas from the University of Greenwich in a study commissioned by Cape Town\'s Legal Resources Centre and dismissed as a ‘thumb suck’ by the DME. Eskom and the department have refused to say what the programme would cost. Full Cape Times report

Staying with nuclear issues, the Oxford Research Group paper, funded by the Joseph Rowntree charitable trust, says that the worldwide nuclear ‘renaissance’ planned by the industry to provide cheap, clean power is a myth. A report in The Guardian notes a worldwide expansion of nuclear power has little chance of significantly reducing carbon emissions but will add dangerously to the proliferation of nuclear weapons-grade materials and the potential for nuclear terrorism. The paper – Too Hot to Handle? The Future of Civil Nuclear Power – comes as the UK Government consults on a new generation of nuclear power stations. Full report in The Guardian Download the report