South African taxpayers will have to fork out R400-billion to pay for Eskom's planned nuclear programme, an independent study has revealed.
The cost of decommissioning the proposed nuclear power stations at the end of their lives will add several hundred billion rand to the bill.
The study found that this massive expenditure would not solve South Africa's energy crisis, as the proposed nuclear power plants were unlikely to make a significant contribution to the national grid before 2020.
Eskom is forging ahead with the proposed nuclear programme in an energy policy "vacuum" as South Africa has no integrated energy plan, while the public, who will foot the massive nuclear bill, has had no chance to have its say.
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There was an 'aura of panic' Steve Thomas, professor of energy policy at the UK's University of Greenwich, was commissioned by the Cape Town office of the Legal Resources Centre to assess the nuclear power programme.
His report has been submitted to the environment affairs and tourism portfolio committee, which will hear public submissions on nuclear energy on Wednesday.
Thomas said there was an "aura of panic" around South Africa's decision-making on the power sector because of the energy crisis.
"The risk of such a large programme is that for the next 10 to 15 years, South Africa will be locked into an expensive nuclear programme that will have absorbed many of the available resources, but which will have come to nothing, or will have produced only one or two 'white elephants'," Thomas said in the report.
This would leave few resources to develop options that could help South Africa meet its energy needs in a more sustainable way, such as energy efficiency and renewables.
"The nuclear programme envisaged by the South African government and Eskom would require the expenditure of about R400-billion of public money to build the plants.
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