The government has given the final go-ahead for the production of nuclear fuel for the controversial Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project at Koeberg, and for the transport of both this fuel and the raw material used to produce it.
This follows Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk's dismissal of several appeals against his department's earlier approvals of the project.
The nuclear fuel will be manufactured by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) at a pilot plant within its Beva complex at Pelindaba in North West.
The raw material for the fuel will be transported to Pelindaba from Durban, and the manufactured fuel will be brought from Pelindaba to Koeberg.
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Meanwhile, the closing date for comments on the Revised Final Scoping Report for the project has been extended to March 10. Scoping is the first phase in the statutory environmental impact assessment (EIA) process.
The extension was welcomed by the Cape Town branch of Earthlife Africa.
The organisation had earlier expressed "outrage" at the four-week comment period for the highly technical, 633-page report, which it described as "attempts to curtail public participation in decision-making" about the PBMR project.
A former director general in Van Schalkwyk's department, Chippy Olver, issued a positive record of decision (RoD) approving the application to manufacture and transport the nuclear fuel in June 2003.
He issued a positive RoD to Eskom Holdings Limited at the same time, approving the environmental aspects of the proposed PBMR project at Koeberg. He linked the two decisions with a clause stating that the authorisations were dependent on each other.
There were appeals against both RoDs but, before any decision was made, Earthlife Africa successfully challenged the RoD granting in respect of Eskom's application to build the PBMR at Koeberg in a review action in the Cape High Court.
Announcing his decision on the appeals, Van Schalkwyk said legal advice to his department was that, despite the initial linking of the two RoDs, the decision on the nuclear fuel manufacturing plant was not affected by the court judgment.
Appeals had related to:
Dissatisfaction with the EIA process, notably the public participation aspect.
Concern about the long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste and contaminated materials.
Alleged inadequate consideration of alternatives to the fuel plant.
Environmental impacts associated with the fuel plant in terms of radiological safety and accident scenarios.
Economic feasibility, financial guarantees and public funding of the project.
Opposition to the de-linking of the fuel plant and the PBMR, "with the contention that neither process should be viewed in isolation".
Van Schalkwyk said the two projects would be established in different places, were different in nature, and had "vastly different" environmental risks.
"Although they might be related, it is clear that each project could be implemented independently from the other."
Referring to concerns about graphite fires, Van Schalkwyk said the nuclear energy corporation had said there were "no feasible scenarios for such an occurrence".
"Adequate measures are in place to ensure that safety and health aspects are sufficiently catered for through the various phases of project evaluation and approval.
"Negative environmental impacts ... can be sufficiently mitigated, provided the conditions contained in this record of decision are implemented and adhered to."
- This article was originally published on page 8 of Cape Argus on January 30, 2007
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