Anger over Valli accolade

Storm clouds continue to gather over the controversial and seemingly universal slide towards nuclear power. While proponents and antagonists construct compelling reasons for and against its use, the jury stays out on its potentially harmful environmental effects.

Local anti-nuclear activists are infuriated that an international panel listed Valli Moosa, chairperson of the Eskom board and former environment minister, one of ’50 people who could save the planet”. Moosa, who is also president of the world’s largest environmental non-governmental organisation, the World Conservation Union (IUCN), was cited for his support of nuclear energy as ‘the base of the 21st eco-economy”.

The panel was convened by The Guardian newspaper and included the British government’s scientific adviser on climate change, Bob Watson; Indian physicist and ecologist Vandana Shiva; environmental author George Monbiot; and the head of Greenpeace International, Gerd Leipold.

The panel mentioned Moosa’s roles in campaigning for transnational African ‘Peace Parks” for wildlife and in pushing for reduced use of plastic bags while he was environment minister.

‘But,” the citation continued, ‘he may play a much greater role in the global environment debate as chairman of Eskom, the state-owned power company that runs South Africa’s only nuclear plant and, starting in 2008, is hoping to build dozens of fourth-generation small-scale nuclear stations.

‘Known as pebble bed modular reactors [PBMRs], these are smaller, cheaper and reportedly safer than other designs and Valli Moosa says they could be the base of the 21st century’s eco-economy — ideally for desalination plants and creating the raw material for the heralded but slow-to-appear hydrogen economy.

‘South Africa has some of the world’s greatest reserves of uranium: put them with the technology and it could start looking like a superpower.”

In the list, published last weekend, Moosa rubs shoulders with the likes of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, American climate change campaigner Al Gore, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva. Two other relatively unknown South Africans living abroad were also listed.

Local activists said this week there was no evidence to suggest Moosa qualified for the accolade ‘given his track record and particularly his notable lack of strong support for renewable energy and efficiency”.

Richard Worthington, coordinator of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Project at Earthlife Africa, said Moosa ‘may well be one of the 50 to 100 people who are a key barrier to effectively tackling climate change”.

He said Eskom was championing PBMR technology at the expense of developing renewable energy. Nuclear energy would ‘make zero contribution to climate change mitigation for at least 10 years and no significant contribution for at least 15.

‘In the South African context prioritising the PBMR project, which receives 100 times more government finance than all renewable energy technologies combined, is part of the problem. Eskom continues to project itself nationally and internationally as part of the problem, with only token gestures towards solutions; Moosa has done nothing so far to reverse this trend noticeably.”

Eskom announced last year it had approved a ‘business case investigation” to provide up to 20 000MW of nuclear capacity in the next two decades as part of its plans to roll out 40 000MW of extra electricity capacity. The business case is expected to be completed by March.

Rapid development of the nuclear sector in the past 12 months, nuclear-fuel research initiatives launched by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa and the growth of the local uranium-mining industry has seen Eskom announce plans to build a new nuclear power plant, .

Moosa told the Mail & Guardian recently the needs of the economy meant the country had to double its electricity-generating capacity in the next 20 years. ‘If we continue to produce electricity as we have in the past, the consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.

‘Anyone who is serious about social upliftment and economic progress can’t rule out the nuclear option. Without resorting to nuclear energy, our impact on global warming would be unforgivable,” he said.

Moosa, an ANC national executive committee member since 1990, was behind drafting a resolution adopted by the ruling party at the Polokwane conference in December to combat climate change. Measures included reducing greenhouse gas emissions through nuclear energy.

But Earthlife Africa pointed out nuclear energy was not recognised as a clean alternative to fossil fuels under the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement aimed at reducing global emissions. New nuclear energy projects would not provide an offset mechanism for carbon emissions.

Maya Aberman, campaign coordinator at the anti-nuclear NGO, said carbon dioxide was produced at every step in the nuclear fuel cycle except the actual fission in the reactor. ‘The global nuclear industry exploits concerns about global warming by misrepresenting nuclear power as a carbon-free electricity source and global- climate saviour.”

Earthlife is in the middle of a court battle with Eskom over access to board minutes giving rise to the company’s decision to invest in PBMRs. Late last year a Supreme Court of Appeal judge ordered the parties to appoint two independent referees to read all the relevant documents and make recommendations on whether they should be released for scrutiny.

‘The supposed nuclear renaissance is a myth,” Aberman said. ‘Each PBMR produces only 165MW of electrical power and the earliest dates for the project to produce electricity is 2015 — so saving the planet is an unlikely scenario.”

Sarah Halls, spokesperson for IUCN, would not be drawn into the controversy. ‘Valli Moosa did an excellent job as environment minister,” she said. ‘He did outstanding work for IUCN and we are proud to have such a forward-thinking person as our president. IUCN cannot comment on matters to do with Eskom.”