JOHANNESBURG: The notice of Eskom’s applications for two nuclear power station sites have been gazetted, with calls for public comment.
The application for the Thyspunt site near Humansdorp, in the Kouga municipality in the Eastern Cape, was gazetted on Monday and the application for the Duynefontyn site near Koeberg was gazetted on July 29.
Both sites are now in municipalities controlled by the DA.
The short notices indicate only that Eskom has applied to the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) for nuclear installation site licences for Thyspunt and Duynefontyn.
Both notices provide for public representations in writing to the board of the National Nuclear Regulator for 30 days from the date of each notice.
“Written comments received after the closing date will not be considered,” said the notices.
Duynefontyn is about 25km north of Cape Town and is an existing nuclear site as Koeberg nuclear power station is sited there.
Eskom made both applications to the NNR in March.
Yesterday, NNR spokesperson Gino Moonsamy said the licence applications had been checked and passed by the NNR from an administrative perspective, which was why they were now being gazetted.
“They have applied for a licence to the regulator and the licence is now under further consideration,” he said.
The public comment sought now was to get a feeling of public opinion on the applications – “very generic comment” – rather than detailed comment, said Moonsamy.
After this stage, public hearings will be held which will take longer, possibly months. The public hearings will look at the safety case for the reactors.
The NNR will require Eskom to produce a public information pack for the public hearings.
“That public information document will be made available in the public domain, and whoever wants to make representation needs to use that document, which has substantial information,” he said.
In March, after the applications were made, the NNR said both applications were to “construct and operate multiple nuclear installations (power reactors) and associated auxiliary nuclear installations of a plant type and technology not yet identified”.