<\/p>\n
Intense public interest and an overwhelming volume of documentation tabled for the site selection of Eskom\u2019s proposed 5 200MW nuclear power station has led to a three-week extension of the public review period.<\/p>\n
The original 5 May closing date for comment on the draft Environmental Scoping Report\u00a0has been pushed out to Monday, 25 May.<\/p>\n
The scoping investigation relates to two possible sites for the\u00a0new 5 200MW nuclear power plant: Thyspunt, between Oyster Bay and Cape St Francis on the southern Cape coastline, and Bantamsklip near Pearly Beach on the Overberg coastline.<\/p>\n
Eskom says it wants \u201cto listen carefully\u201d to all concerns and suggestions from its close to 12 000 stakeholders.<\/p>\n
These will be formally recorded, considered and responded to by specialists undertaking a wide range of studies making up the full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the project.<\/p>\n
Read: What SA\u2019s 2\u00a0500MW nuclear deal may look like<\/p>\n
But the 21-day extension has been criticised as inadequate by several people at a virtual meeting on Tuesday that had about 100 participants. The meeting was one of a series of public engagements in venues and online.<\/p>\n
The public participation process is being managed by environmental and sustainability consulting company WSP Group Africa, which was appointed by Eskom Holdings as the Environmental Assessment Practitioner (EAP) for the new nuclear build project.<\/p>\n
Participants\u2019 questions\u00a0<\/p>\n
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CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n
One participant in the webinar, who identified herself only as Jane, wrote in the chat: \u201cHow can Joe Soap be expected to read 2 700 pages plus the additional documentation that will be posted? WSP and Eskom have unlimited resources; we do not. WSP [and] Eskom must allow the public more review time going forward irrespective of which (if any) site is selected.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Koekemoer, a non-executive director of non-government conservation group Wildlife and Environment Society of SA, wrote: \u201cGiven the complexity of this process, the number of specialist reports, there is no way ordinary I&APs [interested and affected parties] can process and respond to the information. And given past responses, it\u2019s highly unlikely the decision-maker [the national Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, or DFFE] can fulfil [its] own obligations.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan the EAP please approach the decision-maker to set reasonable timelines in place, and provide us with the basis of how such a time is calculated?\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen\/read:
Eskom report points to Thyspunt as top nuclear site
Thyspunt recommended for Eskom\u2019s new Eastern Cape nuclear power plant
Eskom commences environmental assessment for a third nuclear power station<\/p>\n
He was supported by Anthony Reed, who challenged the revised timelines for the EIA decision-making process, recently promulgated under the National Environmental Management Act (Nema).<\/p>\n
\u201cExpecting citizens to read the thousands of pages just in the scoping report, and then to consider them and give meaningful input [within] tight timelines CANNOT be considered either JUST or FAIR,\u201d Reed commented.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtending tight timelines suggests that the practitioners had not considered the nature of this process at the planning phase. Each step needs to be slowed down so that we can be given a fair opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
No decisions yet \u2026<\/p>\n
Although the draft Scoping Report favours the Thyspunt site, Eskom\u2019s public participation consultant and meeting facilitator Antoinette Pietersen stressed in her opening remarks that no decisions about either of the two proposed sites had yet been taken.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOur purpose is to listen carefully and to record all inputs \u2026 The heart of public participation is really to listen to various concerns raised by the public,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Previous questions about the still unquantified cost of the proposed new nuclear build arose again.<\/p>\n
Michele Rivarola stated that the EIA only considers the lifetime costs of the actual infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what about the decommissioning and rehabilitation costs, which are equal to, if not greater than, the capex [capital expenditure] costs, as many countries decommissioning the nuclear reactors are finding out? We are talking of trillions, not just a few millions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a country that needs housing and basic infrastructure to support a decent living standard, committing this amount of expenditure on a pipe dream has no place and cannot be justified in any way \u2026 The technology is old and ageing, and costs keep on escalating, whereas renewables with storage costs keep on dropping to a point where renewables with storage are a fraction of any other large-scale energy generation cost, with very short procurement and implementation timelines \u2013 unlike nuclear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Funding partners<\/p>\n
Responding to questions about Eskom\u2019s funding partners for the project and the benefits these funders would derive from investing, Eskom\u2019s senior manager for nuclear engineering Sadika Touffie said the utility was still considering funding models for the new nuclear build and that no figures were available yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking for partners to come in and support us with that \u2026 We don\u2019t have the cost as yet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Touffie also told the meeting that, while Eskom had some preliminary routes for transmission lines from the proposed sites, these needed to be updated and re-surveyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not yet purchased any agreements for powerline servitudes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Technology choices for new build<\/p>\n
Earlier in the meeting, Touffie explained briefly how nuclear power facilities work and said that Eskom had not yet taken a final decision on the exact technology to be used for the proposed new plant.<\/p>\n
Koekemoer expressed concern about this, saying Eskom appeared to want a \u201cblank cheque\u201d in the EIA process for whatever technology it might decide to use.<\/p>\n
For example, it could decline to use\u00a0thorium in place of conventional uranium as a fuel source, even though thorium is hailed in some quarters as a promising clean energy source of the future, but might then also include SMRs (small modular reactors), a nuclear technology that is not yet widely in use.<\/p>\n
Read:<\/p>\n
SA pushes forward with nuclear power expansion
\nNecsa puts toe in water for small nuclear reactor production<\/p>\n
\u201cIs what is commercially available the standard?\u201d Koekemoer asked. \u201cHow can an EIA investigate a theoretical option when the specifics are unknown and cannot be investigated nor mitigated for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 GroundUp. This article was first published\u00a0here.<\/p>\n
#Public #weeks #comment #Eskom #nuclear #site<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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