Safety fears bring nuclear programme to a halt

This is because of problems with the manufacture of safety equipment. The suspension of the manufacture of safety-related components came in October and remains in force. It is to be removed when Eskom and PBMR (Pty) Ltd have provided the NNR with documentation to show that the manufacturing process meets the regulator\'s quality requirements and that they have taken ‘corrective action’ in their approach to the licensing of the pebble bed reactor. Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the University of Greenwich in the UK, said the suspension ‘demonstrated a disturbing failure in Eskom and the PBMR company to understand the requirements for the manufacture of equipment for nuclear plants’. Thomas said parliamentary hearings on nuclear power this week would provide ‘an ideal opportunity’ for the government and Eskom to answer these questions. Full Cape Times report

Staying with nuclear issues: The first round of public participation meetings were held last week regarding the proposal of a nuclear power plant at Bantamsklip, close to Pearly Beach, according to the Cape Argus. As previously reported in Legalbrief Environmental, this is one of five potential sites for SA’s second nuclear power plant. The Bantamsklip proposal has outraged Earthlife Africa and other environmental groups, which believe that nuclear energy is not the answer to the power generation problem. Maya Aberman, of Earthlife Africa, said the Pearly Beach site had ecological value and high biodiversity. Michael Duerr, of the Bantamsklip Anti Nuclear Group (Bang), said that nuclear was not the only way to solve the power supply problem and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. \'This is not true at all. The public discussion about renewable energy sources has to be fast-tracked. Extremely dangerous radioactive waste is generated by any nuclear plant. After 50 years of nuclear power there is, worldwide, still no solution as to how to store this lethal residue,\' Duerr said. Full Cape Argus report