By Douglas Carew
Eskom has acted quickly to allay fears that it is preparing to build a nuclear reactor on the coast just 10km from the Overberg coastal town of Pearly Beach.
Although Eskom spokesperson Carin de Villiers confirmed that the parastatal had years ago identified and bought the 1 838 hectare farm Bantamsklip between Pearly Beach and Cape Agulhas as a future site for a nuclear reactor, it did not intend building a nuclear power station there within the next 10 to 15 years.
Rumours that Eskom was preparing to build a reactor had been sparked by news of a road to be built in the area, but the road connecting Gansbaai and Cape Agulhas was a tourism initiative and had nothing to do with Eskom.
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But Liz McDade of Earthlife Africa said Pearly Beach residents were worried about Eskom's intentions.
McDade said if Eskom were to go ahead with plans to build a power station at Bantamsklip, Pearly Beach residents should follow the lead of the people of Jeffrey's Bay who "rose up, shouted and screamed" and forced Eskom to back down on plans to build a reactor near the popular Eastern Cape surfing town.
Asked why Eskom did not look for out-of-the-way places to build its reactors, De Villiers said that would raise the costs of infrastructure, including overhead lines.
"The next reactor we build, if it goes ahead, will be at Koeberg," she said, referring to a plan to build a pebble bed modular reactor beside the existing nuclear power station at Koeberg.
Earthlife Africa has objected to the pebble bed reactor and is waiting for Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk to make a decision on whether the project can go ahead.
It was approved by the director general in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in June last year, but Earthlife Africa objected. Van Schalkwyk's spokes-man Riaan Aucamp said the minister had not made his decision yet.
Earthlife Africa has also launched a legal challenge to the director general's decision on the grounds that nuclear energy is neither safe nor economical and because the process of approving the reactor was flawed.
McDade said Earthlife Africa's objections would be heard in the Cape High Court on November 29.
Earthlife Africa does not believe that South Africa needs nuclear power. "We need to use what we have more efficiently and find alternative energy sources.
Nuclear power is always linked to the military and you only have to consider this latest investigation into a nuclear smuggling network to see that South Africa's nuclear history is catching up with it," McDade said.
- This article was originally published on page 2 of Sunday Argus on September 12, 2004
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