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South Africa expects its next nuclear power plant to come on stream by 2019, two years later than initially planned by utility Eskom, which has dropped plans to build the facility due to financial woes. While Eskom was hoping nuclear energy would supply one quarter or 20,000 megawatts (MW) of South Africa's expanded generating capacity by 2025, the government says a target of 6,000 MW in the same period is more feasible.

Scientists heard conflicting views on safety issues around pebble-bed nuclear reactors at an international conference in Washington last week, says the Cape Times. The debate is significant for SA as the country intends to build a demonstration model pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) at Koeberg, and 20 to 30 for export. Eskom is attracted to the technology because it sees it as being 'inherently safe' and not needing the expense of a full safety barrier, known as a secondary containment, which other modern reactors have. In June, Rainer Moormann, a scientist who works at Germany's Juelich Research Centre, FZJ, published a report on safety problems with pebble-bed reactors after re-examining the pebble-bed prototype reactor, the AVR, which was shut down in 1988. According to an article in Nucleonics Week, Rainer's findings were 'strongly rebutted' in a presentation by PBMR Ltd, which is 100% owned by Eskom. The PBMR company said Moormann is alone in his findings, and other scientists regard his study as 'flawed'.

And Eskom GM says a mild winter will go a long way to minimise load shedding The government's plan to include nuclear and renewable sources in the energy mix could push electricity bills even higher than currently foreseen, a senior Eskom official said yesterday. The Cabinet has formally committed the country to build conventional and Pebble Bed nuclear power stations.

Eskom's hikes in the electricity price by around a quarter and a third in two years and its need to repeat such price increases for the next three years bring one issue to a head. Why are Eskom and the departments of energy and public enterprises so grimly determined to generate electricity by the most expensive and complicated of all options -- atomic power stations and their high-level radioactive waste depositaries? Eskom and other power companies have set up Westcor (Western Corridor Power Company), incorporated in Botswana. This has spent years conducting road shows for the World Bank and others, estimating the Inga3 hydro-electric power project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at around R70-billion.

"CONCERNED residents of one of the Eastern Cape's most pristine stretches of coastline are planning a court battle of David and Goliath proportions in a last-ditch effort to stave off parastatal Eskom's attempts to build a massive nuclear power reactor on their doorstep. Residents of popular Southern Cape resort towns Cape St Francis, St Francis Bay and Oyster Bay are furious over plans by Eskom to build a pressurised water reactor, the most common type of nuclear station globally, at Thyspunt, a vacant tract of land between the three coastal retreats. Some residents have even sold their properties and left the area amid fears the project will go ahead and reduce their property values."

Residents opposed to the building of a nuclear power station at Bantamsklip on the southern Cape coast staged a protest march through Hermanus on Saturday and handed a memorandum to the Overstrand municipality, saying the local authority had failed to represent their interests by supporting the proposed nuclear power plant. John Williams, chairperson of the Save Bantamsklip Association, said on Sunday that about 300 people had marched through the town to protest against a proposal by Eskom to build nuclear reactors in "one of the hottest biodiversity hot spots in the world".

Residents opposed to the building of a nuclear power station at Bantamsklip on the southern Cape coast staged a protest march through Hermanus on Saturday and handed a memorandum to the Overstrand municipality, saying the local authority had failed to represent their interests by supporting the proposed nuclear power plant. John Williams, chairperson of the Save Bantamsklip Association, said on Sunday that about 300 people had marched through the town to protest against a proposal by Eskom to build nuclear reactors in "one of the hottest biodiversity hot spots in the world".

Eskom's proposed nuclear power station to be built next to Koeberg could pose a serious threat to residents as the power utility had failed to address a number of concerns such as health risks and an emergency evacuation plan. This was said at a meeting yesterday of the city council's planning and environment portfolio committee (Pepco), which raised a number of concerns about the proposed nuclear station during a discussion on the draft environmental impact report by Eskom. The committee said the report had failed to address issues such as an emergency plan, health risks, nuclear waste, security and economic growth."

The cost of the controversial Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project that Eskom wants to build at Koeberg is likely to run well beyond the government's present estimate of R16-billion - and that's without taking into account the cost of dealing with the resulting nuclear waste. So says Kommetjie architect and environmentalist Rod Gurzynski in a scathing critique of the specialist study on the financial aspects of the project.

It's been a grim month for Nuclear Power, always a contentious issue for greens, power from the atom has taken two steps back as South African utility Eskom announce plans to cancel their tendering process for new nuclear plant in South Africa. It comes a week after revelations from the French economic publication Les Echos reveal that French campaign group "Sortir du nucléaire" have accused EdF of lying during a public consultation exercise which was the prelude to the decision to build a new nuclear plant at Flamanville in France.

South Africa, suffering a power crisis that's limiting supplies to gold and platinum mines, canceled a plan to build a nuclear plant for about 120 billion rand ($12 billion) as the credit freeze cuts financing. State-owned Eskom Holdings Ltd's decision won't undermine "national security of supply" as economic growth will slow and other plants are being built, the government communications office said in an e-mailed statement today.

In a blow to South Africa's efforts to reduce reliance on cheap, polluting coal, the state electricity company said Friday it could not afford to build a planned new nuclear power plant. Eskom said it had ended the bidding process between the EPR consortium led by Areva of France and the N-Powerment consortium led by Westinghouse of the United States because of the "magnitude of the investment."

The new national nuclear policy which the government will reportedly gazette before the end of this month has completely bypassed Parliament and ordinary MPs have not had any input into its formulation, says the opposition DA. It is now asking the Speaker to place the policy on Parliament's agenda. The move coincides with concern by some "interested and affected parties" that they are still not being given enough time to respond to the environmental impact assessment report for the controversial Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) "mini" nuclear demonstration project that Eskom wants to build at Koeberg. The already-extended deadline for comment is Friday.

South Africa is completing feasibility studies into nuclear fuel production processes and now plans to develop experimental sites, an official at state- owned Nuclear Energy Corp. of SA, or Necsa, said. "We are finishing a range of feasibility studies into aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle," Van Zyl de Villiers, general manager of research and development at Pretoria-based Necsa, said in an interview in Johannesburg today. "The next step for us will be to establish experimental infrastructure." South Africa plans to add to its only existing nuclear plant, Koeberg, to overcome electricity shortages and reduce the country's dependence on coal. While power utility Eskom Holdings Ltd. this year canceled a plan to build the country's second nuclear plant, citing costs, the government said it remained committed to nuclear power.

"Thousands of Gauteng residents can't be wrong - Cape St Francis, with its beautiful beaches, blue skies and bracing ocean, is the perfect holiday destination. It's also a great place to build a nuclear power station, according to environmental consultants Arcus Gibb. The company, hired by Eskom to assess the suitability of three sites for a station, said in a report this month that Thyspunt, within a few kilometres of Oyster Bay, Cape St Francis and St Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape, was the best. "