Nuke Meeting Meltdown

Although the public was assured that no final decisions had been made about the proposed nuclear power station, or its location, a fired up audience took no prisoners in their outspoken tussle with officials, who included a representative from Eskom, a representative from the Council of Nuclear Safety (CNS), local councillors and a parliamentary delegation.

Angry residents hit out with numerous concerns over the loss of thousands of jobs, the consequences of an emergency such as an earthquake, and environmental impact. Things got heated, and at times people were warned that they would have to leave if they could not calm down.

At the meeting, held in a packed out St. Francis Links country club, officials said that so far there had only been one application for a nuclear power station in South Africa.

The floor was then opened to the public. From the questions that were raised, the emphasis was not so much on the impact on nature, but how a nuclear plant would impact the people of the region. The overall concern was preservation, and not the environment.

One worry was what would happen in an emergency. Poorer communities voiced concerns about not having transport. Those living close to the station would have virtually no time to avoid contamination in an emergency. The CNS delegate assured the public that there were many safety measures and backup containment procedures. Evacuation would be the very last thing on a long list of safety measures.

The issue of earthquakes were also lifted, and Eskom spoke about reactors in Japan that gets very regular earthquakes and are made standard to handle it.

Job creation was another hot topic, since it has been frequently used to justify a nuclear power station in the area. This caused a flurry of responses. Cheron Kraak from the Thuyspunt Nuclear Alliance Group (TNAG) asked that if South Africa is all about job creation at the moment, why would they destroy the jobs of 10,000 jobs chokka (squid) fishermen by building this plant. Another concerned person mentioned that the chokka industry would suffer greatly, but nobody gave a thought about the impact the deficit in jobs would have on fisherman and their families. One person noted that you can´t teach a fisherman by trade to work in a power station overnight.

Unskilled workers would only make up a small part of the workforce when the plant is constructed, since it is a highly skilled enterprise. After construction finished, about 2,000 skilled workers would be enough to run the plant. Local communities would not really benefit out of this.

Concerns were also voiced about the Kouga Municipality´s competence to handle the infrastructure changes, which caused a lot of mumbles in the audience. (This meeting happend on the same evening as a Kouga Rate Payers meeting.)

Mark Tanton, Chairman of the South African Wind Energy Association was also in the meeting, and asked why wind power has not been considered and why Eskom and the government had not consulted with them in this process or invited them to the table in these discussion.

The response from Eskom was that wind energy was too small, not viable and they needed large scale solutions to curb the energy crisis in South Africa. Eskom deliberately chose to leave wind generation to other parties so that they could focus on large scale solutions. It was noted by Eskom that they would provide the infrastructure to these parties in terms of power lines to feed them into the grid and that future wind farms would be subject to their own EIA´s. Mention was also made that the construction of a wind farm on the West Coast was okayed.

There were also individuals who were not in support of wind farms, due to the visual impact it will have on the country side. A concerned bird researcher also voiced that there would be lots of bird strikes from the wind farms and if the birds die in large numbers, the insects would increase greatly.

Other interesting statements made by Eskom, was that they have in fact bought 90% of the land needed in the Thuyspunt area. This forms part of their long term plan to preserve potential sites for construction of future power plants.

We all know there is an energy crisis, or a looming energy crisis in South Africa. One nuclear plant will not solve this either. As the Thyspunt Nuclear Alliance Group states, they are not against nuclear power generation per sé, but they are against a nuclear station at Thyspunt because it makes no rational sense to have it there.

It goes to reason, that it is only the contractors and their partners that will benefit directly from the building of a nuclear power station at Thyspunt. Secondary would be the company that sells the electricity and the end user.

Somebody asked the question as to why the minister who made the statement that the station is not viable due to it´s impact on the environment, were fired. No responses were given.

Are these meetings perhaps used as a ploy to get people to vent their anger and frustrations towards government and make them feel that they are part of a democratic process? A sort of a disclaimer just so it can be said that the public was in fact consulted? Only time will tell.