Minerals and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka was misinformed if she believed nuclear power had a future as an energy source, Earthlife Africa said on Wednesday.
”Nuclear energy is not an option for South Africa,” said Sibusiso Mimi, a campaigner for the organisation in Cape Town.
”The minister has surely overlooked many environmental and human health safety issues which entail great amounts of costs.”
He was reacting to Mlambo-Ngcuka’s statement in Parliament on Tuesday that South Africa needed to wake up to the fact that its coal reserves were dwindling, and the use of nuclear power to produce electricity in the future was unavoidable.
She told MPs nuclear power would increase South Africa’s energy diversity and security of supply, and reduce energy related emission levels because it was a cleaner-burning fuel.
Mimi said the minister was not taking seriously the global movement towards renewable energy and the fact that very few financing institutions were interested in funding nuclear energy.
”It is about time for government to stop narrowly focusing on outdated technology, and to realise that the renewable energy resources are viable in every way possible.”
”At most, the minister is not seriously taking into consideration what is in the best interests of the South African public, the right to clean and safe environment,” Mimi said.
Claire Taylor, an information coordinator at the organisation’s Johannesburg branch, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Wednesday that there had not been enough discussion about the storage of nuclear waste. She said that nuclear waste may also infect ground water.
Taylor said her organisation had commissioned a study that showed that about 36 400 people could be employed in the renewable energy sector, compared to the handful of highly skilled people that were now employed in the nuclear energy sector.
South Africa has one nuclear power station, at Koeberg on the West Coast, about 27km north of Cape Town. The plant’s two reactors supply 1 850 megawatts or 6,5% of the country’s electricity needs.
Most of the rest is produced by coal-burning power stations, located mainly in Mpumalanga and Gauteng.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Tuesday that the South Africa government remained committed to developing it’s pebble bed modular reactor. She said in her Budget vote in the national assembly that she hoped to draw in other departments to help fine-tune the model for the reactor, said Business Report. – Sapa