Tag Archives: nuclear deal

Eskom lawyers insist IRP 2019 must be ignored

Posted on by Koeberg Alert

After 17h00 on Thursday the 1st of April, the eve of the Easter weekend, Eskom’s response to the Nuclear-1 Environmental Authorisation (EA) appeal was released. This response marks the last step before Environment Minister Barbara Creecy makes a final decision on granting Eskom permission to build a new nuclear plant at the Koeberg site, 27kms north of the city of Cape Town.

According to civil organisations, the response document contains misinformation and worryingly shows Eskom pushing for a new nuclear build, overriding the country’s energy plan, the Integrated Resource Plan of 2019 (IRP 2019).

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Government Officials Continue to Divert Funds to the Nuclear Industry

Posted on by Koeberg Alert

It has long been suspected that the only motivation behind pushing for nuclear power in South Africa has been corruption via State Capture, coming from then President Jacob Zuma. Details of this are emerging at the Zondo commission into State Capture where it has been testified that a Minister of Finance was fired specifically because he would not ignore the realities of the cost of nuclear power, and so refused tos sign off on the nuclear deal.

Despite this, and despite Zuma being removed from office, there are disturbing signs that there are still those in positions of power who are pushing for taxpayers’ money to be given to the nuclear industry.

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Appeal against Environmental Authorisation for Koeberg

Posted on by Koeberg Alert

After a long Environmental Impact Assessment which began in 2007, an Environmental Authorisation was issued for the Koeberg site, 26km north of Cape Town.  This gave Eskom permission to build a new nuclear plant of unspecified design, plus a nuclear waste reprocessing and/or disposal site.

At first only 30 days were allowed for appeals against this decision, and this was extended on the day of the deadline to about 90 days, until 5th March 2017. There are so many reasons this Authorisation was wrong, and we tried to describe some of them in the 43 page submission we wrote. Continue reading →

From Russia, with Liability

Posted on by Koeberg Alert

The minister of Energy signed an agreement with Russia in September 2014. More recently made a ministerial determination to allow Eskom to go ahead with the procurement of nuclear plants for South Africa.  The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) had concurred with this determination.  I sat in for the final day of the three day high court hearings questioning the legality of these dealings.

Drawing of advocate Oosthuisen arguing before the high court, with advocate Unterhalter and assistant

Advocate Oosthuisen driving home a point

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