The Mail & Guardian was recently accused of “relentless anti-nuclear bias” in response to an edited letter challenging a pro-nuclear article in an M&G supplement. Earthlife Africa regards the M&G as remiss for failing to report the bias in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Record of Decision that approved the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of Eskom’s pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) programme in June.
Feelings run high on either side of the nuclear debate. Opponents seek to expose the suffering of humans and devastation of ecosystems impacted by the nuclear industry, while proponents insist that proof of direct cause and effect is not conclusive and point to the problems of coal-fired power plants. Opponents highlight risks and set global nuclear decline against growth of 20% to 40% for cleaner, safe technologies; proponents claim that this time they will get it right, bring costs down and thus create a new market.
With more than R1,2-billion spent to date and about R10-billion required just to get a reference module fuelled and operational (and thus test projections for its performance), the PBMR project has the potential to trap South Africa in an industry that has cost developed countries dearly. The United Kingdom recently bailed out British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) to the tune of £42-billion.
While public participation is invited in the EIA process, the draft radioactive waste management policy and the draft White Paper on Renewable Energy, the crucial question of the best use of available public finance is dealt with in secret.
After 10 years of promoting the PBMR, the technically bankrupt BNFL is the only international investor (about 10%). The government has the authority to direct the spending of the other shareholders: Eskom Enterprises and the Industrial Development Corporation, neither of which are in good financial shape. The Development Bank of Southern Africa, for years promising substantial financing for renewable energy without results, is probably the next target for PBMR salesmen.
The pressing question facing South Africa over the next six months is: what is the best investment choice for funds available for local development of “new” energy technologies?
While there is broad consensus that we need to move away from coal as our primary energy source, we certainly won’t eliminate coal use in the short term. How quickly a transition away from coal and other fossil fuels can be achieved will depend, to a large extent, on the economic viability of alternatives.
Factors determining local economic viability of a technology include the scale of financing it enjoys and the percentage of local manufacture that will be supported at that scale of financing. Currently the nuclear industry receives up to 10 times as much public financing as renewable energy technologies — effectively the result of German willingness to sell us the licence on a technology they did not consider viable. To justify or stimulate local manufacture of wind turbines requires a commitment to deploy 500MW of generation capacity, while PBMR Limited expect production to be localised only when twice that capacity is reached.
The 10-year target for renewable energy development in the latest draft White Paper is too small to encourage development of local industries (it is just enough to satisfy the desire for carbon emission reduction units of the World Bank). This would suggest that the decision on resource allocation has been made, but the paper is still under review and research is under way by the Department of Minerals and Energy, and civil society should inform a revision.
The draft radioactive waste policy document puts avoidance and minimisation at the top of its hierarchy of options, yet assumes that fuel manufacture for the PBMR is inevitable, failing to consider a no-go option on producing more waste.
It also ducks the issue of South African liability for high-level waste from fuel produced for export, as contemplated in the plan for PBMR. This, too, can still be rectified.
Claims of both the nuclear industry and the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s decision on the EIA rest largely on a feasibility study carried out by Eskom, which had all pertinent figures removed before it was released to the public.
The Department of Minerals and Energy appointed an independent review panel to assess the feasibility study. The panel was unable to find technical or economic viability. The South African Journal of Science (January/February 2002) published an assessment of economic viability that concluded: “The PBMR project is economically hazardous, gambling public funds on a questionable technology and a faltering market.”
We need a responsible and transparent approach to the real decision being taken regarding our future energy sources — a decision with far-reaching implications for our economy (including employment prospects), our environment and for future generations. For too long Eskom, with government collusion, has hidden true costs behind claims that information is proprietary. This apartheid-era attitude to state/trade secrets and lack of disclosure of information used in decision-making is not consistent with our Constitution or legislation regarding public access to information. The output of an integrated energy-planning process, which took place without the promised stakeholder participation, has been referred for further review. The time is ripe for a public process to interrogate and inform the energy-spending of institutions intended to serve the public interest.
Richard Worthington is Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Partnership’s project coordinator for Earthlife Africa